From No 60 Bus Stop to Singleton Oil Wells Site (comfortable 30 minute walk)
Coming from Chichester, get off the Bus at the Drovers Bus Stop
This is the first signed bus stop past Singleton and is about 1 mile North of Singleton.
[ Ignore the online bus time-table which also lists Cucumber Farm and Rook Wood ]
Cross over the Main A286 Road (which is very fast – beware of overtaking vehicles)
Walk down the tarmac National Trust tarmac lane – there is plenty of room to safely park a car or two here off of the main road.
After c100 yards leave the tarmac lane – onto the one and only (National Trust signed) unmade track to the left. You will be walking past a newish planted and laid hawthorn field hedge.
5 minutes – c100 yards keep following the track into the woods … this is signed with a white diamond (Permissive Path).
Staying roughly on level ground and always straight ahead keep following the track or “ride”
This route has only been recently reopened having been blocked by a pheasant pen (you’ll see the posts remain).
5 minutes – After c 300 yards, turn Right at a slightly skewed “T” Junction, onto a Footpath – this takes you up a small incline, at the top of which are extensive piles of chalk animal diggings. See also butchers broom, and mature beech trees with glimpses across fields.
3 minutes – turn left, off the main footpath onto a less used track (immediately before that main footpath starts to descend)
After 0ne minute staying on this less used track you enter a mature conifer plantation (bird song becomes more distant)
4 minutes at cross roads, turn left onto a wider, more used track up a slight incline.
5 minutes arrive at the Oil Wells – go past the gates and walk along, outside of the perimeter chainlink fence to get a better view of the nodding donkeys etc.
Beware 2/3rds the way along the fence is a tripping hazard bit of wire.
From Oil Well to Garden Copse Cottage, PO18 0HH
Retrace your steps back down the wide, rutted unmade track, to the South.
Don’t take first on right as this small track peters our.
Keep retracing your steps by taking the second turning on the right (through the tall conifers).
6 minutes after leaving the ol well, at “T” Junction turn left … you are now leaving the route you came by.
2 minutes – turn right leaving where the blue arrow denotes it as a footpath,
You are now leaving the woodland into wide open fields on a wide farm track.
Go past a lovely old, but sadly neglected farm barn (the now wooded area was where the farmhouse stood – largely burnt down in c1958 and restored to woodland c 1979.
20 minutes – arrive on National Trust tarmac lane ( but far from the bus stop)
Immediately turn hard left, through an open gateway onto unmade track – you don’t actually go onto the tarmac.
You will see see our black and red bins.
Follow the unmade track up through the woods, keeping left at the fork.
Garden Copse Cottage is about 150 yards.
Route-to-Singleon-Oil-Wells-1.docx