3 Men on a walk 2017: A visit to "Mad Jack's Follies"

Three Cups Corner loop

Hurrah, a decent sunny day and the best walk-day Monday we have had for weeks. So we brushed off the plan we abandoned last week and set forth for the East Sussex Weald. We also had a choice to make because there were two pubs on this loop and depending on which one we chose for lunch determined where we parked up and started from. It was "The Swan" at Wood's Corner who won the toss so we started out from Three Cups Corner and walked anticlockwise around this 10 mile loop.

It had rained pretty intensely yesterday and so we were expecting it to be a bit wet under-foot in places but we had not planned for standing mud-pools and sloppy mud. In fact at places all the way around this trail we were slipping and sliding around and getting up to our ankles in mud. That said, it was a nice sunny day and some of the views across this part of the Weald were excellent. This track also took us through some large sections of forest, again something we haven't done for a while.

We took lunch at the halfway point at "The Swan", a delightful grade 2 listed pub at Woods Corner. Ivan had found it and one of the attractions was that it had a history of the Follies of Mad Jack Fuller. John Fuller was a local landowner and Squire who enjoyed building across his land. Six "Follies" were built by Jack during the early 1800's - see Brightling Follies - and we set out to see some of them.

We ended up seeing four of them although only the "Sugar Loaf" at close quarters. The Temple was way across the parkland and we could only just see it but we passed close to the Observatory and the Obelisk.

This part of the East Sussex Weald is characterised by its deep valleys and this made the walk one of the most strenuous we had undertaken for many months. Still, maybe it will stop the body ageing process !