Bridleway Information
Where are you allowed to ride?
Horses can be ridden on bridleways, byways open to all traffic (BOATs) and
restricted byways. Horses must not be ridden on footpaths. Riding routes may be
waymarked with blue (bridleway), red (byway) or plum (restricted byway) arrows.
(Yellow arrows on waymarkers indicate footpaths).
To discover the routes available to ride you can use the Ordnance Survey
Explorer Maps (scale 1:25,000 / 2.5” per mile). The maps covering MSABG’s area
are numbers 122 “Brighton and Hove” covering the coastal section Steyning to
Newhaven, 135 “Ashdown Forest” and 134 “Crawley and Horsham”.
There are also a few permissive bridleways in MSABGs area.
Permissive bridleways are tracks where landowners have agreed to permit access accross their land for horse riding. These might be parish/district councils or private landowners. Unlike statutory bridleways, permissive bridleways do not exist in perpetuity. Typically a permissive agreement has a fixed time span after which time it must be renewed. Additionally a landowner can withdraw parmission or close the path for any reason as long as such actions fall withing any agreement that may exist for the route. Thus we cannot give an exhaustive list here but at the time of writing, examples of permissive routes in MSABG's area are
Paths around Ditchling Common Country Park, The Green Crescent Path (Burgess Hill/Hurstpierpoint), sections of path alongside the B2116 (Plumpton/East Chiltington) and two permissive links alongside the B273 at Clayton Hill. Unfortunately an example of a permissive route that was withdrawn only a few years after opening is the New Barn Farm route just south of Burgess Hill. This was due to riders 'misbehaving'. You have been warned - we only ride these paths with the good will of the landowners!
There are also riding routes created on land under the Countryside Stewardship Scheme where government (DEFRA) grants are given to landowners in return for the creation and maintenance of routes for horse riders. An example in MSABG's area is at Hurst Barns/Woodbrooks/Hewenstreet Farms, East Chiltington. The register of walks and rides created under this scheme is at http://countrywalks.defra.gov.uk.
If you have transport for your horse you might like to investigate options of permit based riding on Forrestry Commission Land at http://www.forestry.gov.uk/website/fchomepages.nsf/hp/GBEEE.
Additionally http://www.tollrides.org.uk lists locations in our area where riding routes have been created on private land by TROT, the Toll Rides Off-Road Trust charity.