(S/E) From the front door, turn right and then immediately right again, between the pub and adjacent barn. At the rear of the car park, follow the metalled drive downhill. Cross the stream at the bottom of the hill (ignoring the path over a footbridge on the right) and go through the gate with the Gritstone Trail “G” waymark on your right at the beginning of the garden beyond. Pass a duckpond and exit the garden through a kissing gate. Walk up the field beyond to a further kissing gate on the brow of the hill. Follow the top edge of the next field, then go through a third kissing gate on your left. Follow the wall on your right; the path develops into a farm track and eventually meets a road with views to Tegg’s Nose.
(1) Follow the footpath over a wall stile opposite, which descends to cross a stream by a spring. Follow the contouring path beyond until you pass a wooden-clad building and descend to a farm. Walk between the buildings, following the Gritstone Trail waymarks into a narrow path that leads behind more buildings.
(2) At the entrance to Overhill Cottage, cross the drive and take the footpath opposite, through a kissing gate. At the end of the next field, drop down into a sunken lane and take the continuing path opposite. Pass through a couple of gates and ford a small stream to pass to the left of Greenbarn Farm. When you meet the farm drive, turn left, then leave the drive to the right, passing through a wicket gate and skirting to the left of the next property with a pond on your left. Once past the house, follow the drive beyond (ignoring a side footpath leading into Macclesfield Forest on the right) as it meets a stream and continues past Ridgegate Water Treatment Works.
(3) At the road, turn left with Bottoms Reservoir on your right. At the end of a row of cottages on your left, take the path on the right that skirts the reservoir and crosses the dam. At the far end beyond the spillway and a flight of steps, if you are omitting the Tegg’s Nose loop, turn left and jump to step (5). If continuing to Tegg’s Nose, turn right, with Teggsnose Reservoir on your left. Follow this track beyond the end of the reservoir, past a stone marking the beginning of Tegg’s Nose Country Park.
Just before the track swings right into open fields, take the Tegg’s Nose Trail on the left, which drops to cross a stream via stepping stones. Climb the broader of the two stepped paths beyond, and then follow a walled track that emerges on the road by Clough House Farm. Walk along the road for a short distance then leave it on a track to the left (signposted Tegg’s Nose Trail). Climb this stone-pitched track until you reach the Tegg’s Nose car park. Cross the car park, past the visitor centre, to the road.
(4) Turn left, then follow the track straight on uphill when the road bends right. At the second gate, turn left up to some stone steps with a central handrail. Follow the obvious path ahead, with a gully to the right, eventually passing between a quarry face on your right and some old machinery on the left. Keep straight on past a further quarry on your right, and keep left at a junction of paths, with a further Tegg’s Nose Trail marker.
Keep right past a wooden bench with a fine view, and ignore two paths off to the left (the second opposite a semicircular stone memorial bench). Beyond an overgrown pile of spoil on your left, by the marker for point 10 of the Geological Trail, leave the main path and take the Gritstone Trail downhill, slabbed at first. Pass a couple of benches and continue downhill as a wall joins from the right. Enter the wood and follow the wall to a car park, the last section down some steps. Exit the car park across the dam to the road between the two reservoirs, and turn right.
(5) Walk down the road with a lake on the left, then turn right down Main Road. At Langley Methodist Church, turn left into Cock Hall Lane and pass a bus stop, telephone box and postbox. Pass the ends of Forest Drive on the left, and Dawson Close and Whiston Close on the right, then take the next turning on the right indicated by a footpath sign. Beyond the houses, skirt a fishing lake then swing right to a footbridge, a flight of steps and a stile. Beyond the next stile, head diagonally across the field, passing to the right of a small mixed wood, then heading up the right-hand side of the field along a line of mature alders. At the end of the field cross a stile and head half-right to the road in Ridge Hill.
(6) Take the drive opposite (signposted “Foxbank”) and follow it as it swings left to Ridge Hall Farm. Go through an archway then turn right beyond The Stables, by an old pump. Dog-leg between buildings and then turn right at a flight of steps to a stile. Follow the obvious footpath downhill over a series of stiles. At a gap in a belt of coniferous woodland go straight on to a further stile. Pass through a plantation of young oaks to another stile, beyond which swing left. Beyond a black-painted building descend the slope through pine trees into the driveway of Ridge Cottage.
(7) Exit to the road, and turn left. Follow the road for ½ mile back to the Ryles Arms.(S/E)
