[1] Our walk starts in Fletching High Street (TQ428234). The village is a delight, with Elizabethan and Tudor beams on top of redbrick houses. The entrance to the village is heralded by a cast-iron roundel of a knight on horseback brandishing a gold-leaf banner. The church, St Andrew and St Mary the Virgin, has many Norman features and is worth exploring. Bear left at the bottom of the high street onto Church Street. Continue for 300m until you reach the cricket ground.
[2] At the end of the cricket pitch, turn right through the gate and walk along the edge of the ground to a stile in the top L-hand corner. Dog-leg across this small field to another stile, where you bear half-R onto a straight path towards a coppice of woodland, led by waymarkers for ‘Wealden Walks’. The views here open up towards the South Downs. Just before the coppice the path cuts diagonally left across a field, heading for a barn and Moses Farm. Leave the field to the left of the barn and walk through woods onto a paved path to reach the A272.
[3] Cross the A272 and continue on the waymarked path that goes to the right of the gates and redbrick posts of Barkham Manor. Back in 1912, this was the epicentre of Dawson’s ‘discovery’. Dawson was Court Baron of the Manor of Barkham and regularly visited the manor house on business. The path is pretty and lined by oaks, pollards and chestnuts. After 200m you reach a crossing of paths by a small footbridge. Turn left across the drive and continue along another path, this time gloriously lined by more than 50 oaks. Somewhere to your right is where it all happened. The gravel pits where Dawson found his assortment of artefacts were positioned within the grounds, 80m or so northwest of the main drive. Today, there is no sight of the pits; they appear to have been filled in and the land is now pasture, a paddock and manicured lawns with an oast house in the background.
[4] After 300m, you reach a T-junction of paths and bear right, passing the main drive to the manor, along a minor road to emerge at a T-junction. Cross and follow waymarkers to another minor road by a house (cross with care here: the lane is straight and flat and cars drive accordingly). Follow signs for the Fletching Millennium Walk across the golf course. Some of the waymarkers are buried by brambles, so if uncertain make for the 15th tee. You are now crossing the original Pilt Down and there are plenty of venerable trees to enjoy. Keep the 16th tee to your right to follow the path around a house, more of the golf course and along a straight drive to reach the A272 again.
[5] Cross the A272 to the waymarkers for Little Ferrers. At the time of writing, the path here is very overgrown. Walk parallel to the road, keeping an eye out for the sometimes decaying stiles to cross, some of which have ‘Wealden Walks’ roundels. The final stile brings you by the entrance to Oak Ferrers Farm (TQ448229). The path is directly opposite the stile you’ve just crossed but is hard to pick out initially as it has been neglected. Persevere, as after 30m or so it opens up to a broad track that meanders with a field fence to your left and thick woods to your right.
[6] The path turns due west (TQ447234) through Mallingdown Farm to a high deer gate. Follow waymarkers for Fletching. The path weaves either side of field edges via stiles and gates, slightly diverting from the OS map around crops. The path bears right, parallel to White Barn Farm, to cross a metal footplate stile and heads across fields for 400m to enter Fletching through the church graveyard.