Dear Members,
Just a quick note, to remind all that the Go Folkestone monthly meeting has been postponed by one week to next Wednesday 19th April at 6.45pm.
There is good news on the two Go Folkestone projects we are currently involved with. The Leas Viewpoint balcony and the moving of the Victoria Pier foundation stone from the private owner to a position near the promenade. The latter requires £3000, but we may have £1500 already, £500 from Go Folkestone subject to committee and £1000 in donations. Please email us if you are interested in financially supporting either project.
To stop this being too brief I attach our updated Lambing Walk guide from the magazine in this Spring season, with amendments! The walk from Frogholt to Newington or vice versa has had lambs moved away from the cited footpath, toward Peene. Cauldham Lane has no lambs. A lovely substitute lamb field is on the A260 Denton road at Snode Hill, which is very accessible by 16 bus.
Spring Lambs Article
This is, of course, lambing time, often Romney, Southdown or Lleyn Sheep in this area. Many of us like going out with our cameras and mobile phones and taking some pictures, or just watching the lambs gambolling, typically from February until May. I can acknowledge within my carnivorous self that they usually go for meat in the end. However, if watching them turns you vegetarian then you are probably saving resources! Further out at Brookland I can still remember an old farmer who had tied a dead lamb’s skin to another lamb so the mother ewe would adopt him – a success!
Farmers do rotate field use, but locally you can be over 75% sure of seeing lambs, in the following three lovely areas. Try Fox Holt Lane, Densole, off the A260 a mile north of Densole Post Office. You can ask for it from the 16 Bus, but also park a car on a grass verge. There may well be sheep and footpaths on the right as you walk up the lane; these go to Densole. But the nicest safe walk is past Fox Holt Cottage with cow parsley, celandine and campion to a place where the road becomes untarmacked but easy walking.
Shortly after that there is a footpath crossroads. Left will lead down an easy footpath, bearable for cycles, between sheep-fields leading to a road by a sheep farm. The house on the right then, sometimes even has lambs in the garden. Going back to the main road from here gives a walk of well over a mile. But by that house is a footpath with stile which goes right, past modern farm sheds to a small wood. Obviously this bit requires a strict following of the Country Code with Pineau (above) or any other dog kept on a lead, or leash if you are American(!) For a change there is also an arrow straight returning footpath angled across a crop field which you can see striking across back to Fox Holt Road about 70m before the ‘easy footpath’ joins the road. Near that point you can sometimes see three very alert and interested alpacas in a paddock.
In the dead end of Cheriton High Street, 400m beyond Tesco and opposite the (For Sale) Cheriton Parc office block is a hard surface footpath beside a lorry park. It’s a thin slice of nature but it does lead to the picturesque Seabrook Valley if you go downhill at the end. Near the bottom of the slope a well-worn footpath goes sharp left and under a little railway tunnel. After that go straight ahead and the bordering fields will either have cows or sheep. When you get to the end of this military road the cattle-gridded fields ahead usually have lambs at this time of year. Bearing sharp left on the web of footpaths will get you to Horn Street, and going straight will get you to Paraker Woods and the Spring Lane Estate. Bearing right will join a non-ovine footpath through woods to Sene Valley Golf course.
Our third suggestion is the area between the roads of Newington, off the A20, and the hamlet of Frogholt Lane. The 17 bus can get you to the bottom of either, and Frogholt Farm is a lambing farm. You can strike left in Newington village down the footpath by the postbox and past the allotments, to get quite quickly to sheep-fields. Or explore lovely Frogholt, sign-posted from the A20 down its own ancient lane. It is more ovine than New South Wales, particularly on the right.
East of Folkestone, Cauldham Lane in Capel often has sheep.
RW
Next Meeting now 19th April 2023