The Gun

Rob and I got to enjoy our first day out together yesterday since, er, about 6 years actually. With both the girls in school and us both unemployed (though as yet not dole bludgers), we took advantage of my recent travel commission for The Australian newspaper, writing about a pub in East Sussex, the Gun, that is the start and finish for 4 country walks nearby. Florence was slightly easier to shoehorn off yesterday than last week and eventually allowed herself a hug from Miss Elphick as she waved us off. We drove for about half an hour to Gun Hill, a tiny hamlet tucked away down a tiny lane. Thank God for satnav.  Leaflets, including maps and directions for each walk, are available for free from the pub (and to download as pdfs from the pub website). The Gun is a top pub, dating from the 17^th century, sitting all on its tod on a remote country lane on the Wealden Way, one of the area’s most famous and scenic walking routes. The pub garden has a kid’s obstacle course and a place to tie up your horse. Seriously. At 9.30am we set off to do The Fields Walk, a four kilometre route that should take 90 minutes to an hour. The timing is perfect to have us back in time for the lunch service. We had a look online at French head chef Christophe Ferenc’s menu, a hybrid of classic European and British dishes, where possible using locally sourced produce. And a peer through the pub window at the specials board, got our juices flowing - homemade ham hock terrine, pan-roasted rump of lamb, wild mushroom and ricotta risotto, scallops and breaded sardines. 

Map in hand, we head off as directed, left from the pub down the lane. Straight away we realise the directions need more detail. We are asked to proceed down the lane to the track marked ‘Pekes Farm’. It would have helped to know this was a good 20 minute walk. Instead we keep thinking we’ve missed the turn off, although the scenery and peace is lovely. We pass thatched cottages with perfectly groomed gardens and dogs asleep in doorways, and enjoy the always amusing English road sign advertising the location of bizarrely-named villages – Lower Dicker and Coggers Cross. The lane is a minor road but the traffic, when it comes, whips along at speed and we’re not surprised to pass the startled corpse of a large badger on the grass verge.We are pleased to finally take the farm track and get into the country proper, passing bucolic cottages, fields of green, edged with wild blackberries and huge mushrooms, fine oaks and a shed, housing a vintage car restorer. Onwards past sheep (that rather put me in mind of the rump of lamb waiting at The Gun) and curious horses. We walk over stiles, through gates, along the edge of a field being ploughed, and across wooden walkways over streams. And then we get lost.

The woods are thick and we can’t see the stile we’re supposed to be heading for. We stumble about a bit before finding our way back to the ploughed field. We use our sense of direction to make it up from here and get to the field on the other side of the wood that we have to walk over to a laneway that houses two beautiful farmhouses. Despite losing our way, we loved it and worked up a sweat as well as an appetite.

back at The Gun we fall on the menu. I go for the fish board, a selection of king prawns, salmon crostini, superb potted mackerel and smoked trout with fresh bread and washed down with a pint of cider. Rob’s choice of the special pan-fried beef fillet doesn’t disappoint. We have sufficient bramble cuts to prove we’ve been walking and despite taking us closer to two and half hours, we’ve enjoyed the walk and the food so much we’re already planning to return to do the other three walks.