Start: The Queens Head, Main Street, Hawkshead, Cumbria LA22 0NS
(S/E) From the front door of The Queens Head, turn right. Turn right through the archway into Red Lion Yard. Pass to the left of a stone barn at the bottom to a hand gate. Cross the road into the driveway opposite. Swing right at the first entrance then left, and descend to a footbridge over Black Beck.
(1) Turn left after the footbridge, then shortly turn right, away from the beck (signposted to Wray Castle and Ambleside). After a couple of hand-gates, at a path junction, keep left on the more obvious path. Two more hand-gates lead you to Scar House Lane, a rough track.
(2) Turn left for a few yards, then turn off right, through a hand-gate beneath an oak tree onto a footpath. Follow the path along the right-hand edge of two fields, then turn right through a gateway and left and out to a lane. Turn right and follow the narrow hedged lane. After 300 yards the road bears right through woodland; ignore a permitted path into the trees on your right.
(3) After a further 300 yards you reach a road junction; turn left. After 50 yards, turn right onto a signposted footpath through a gate. Pass a National Trust sign and climb a rocky path to the corner of the field, where the path continues through trees. At a path junction before a rock outcrop, turn left. On emerging from the trees, the path climbs steeply up the brackeny hillside, with rough stone steps in places.
At the top of the slope when the summit monument comes into view, keep left at a path junction and follow
the path round to the stone pillar. Having admired the view from Latterbarrow (A), take the path ahead, in the same direction, which leads quickly down through the bracken to a path junction in a corner surrounded by conifers.
(4) Turn left over the stile and follow a stony path across the hillside to gap in a stone wall. Continue through young conifers and bracken. Meet and follow a plantation fence, then swing right, round the end of a slight ridge. Beyond a wall to your left, steps lead down to a narrow path which leads through more bracken and scrubby woodland then climbs to a broader walled track. Turn right.
(5) Follow the track with conifers on either side to a gate. Continue through more open country, still with conifers much in evidence, and pass right of a rushy tarn. The track continues in similar vein to a tall deer gate. Descend the stony track beyond to a metalled lane.
(6) Turn left for a short distance, then turn right by a sign for Crofts Head and Croftlands. Turn left at a footpath sign down a track between the two houses to a gate. Turn right along a fence after the gate, to a gap in the wall at the end. Pass to the left of a low rock outcrop, guided by waymark posts, to a stone wall-stile. Descend the steep bank to a footpath sign at the gate into Scar House Lane. Take a couple of steps to your right, then turn left through a wooden kissing gate into a field. Follow the hedge and trees on your left to a path junction.
(7) Go through the gate on your left and cross the meadows to return to Black Beck. Turn left to the footbridge and turn right over the stream. Follow the driveway back to the road at Hawkshead. Cross and walk back through Red Lion Yard to the main street in the village. Turn left to return to The Queens Head.
