(S/E) Cross the main road in front of The Waggon and Horses pub and turn right. Turn immediately left into Hobson Moor Road.
At the next junction, turn left up the no-through road. At the next junction, bear right into Dewsnap Lane. Pass Dewsnap Farm on your right.
(1) Continue straight on past further houses and pass the entrance to Lumb Farm on your left, keeping straight ahead and ignoring paths and tracks off to either side. After passing Hard Times Farm, the track swings left round a house to a narrow lane.
Turn right and walk down to the end of the road. Beyond a gate marked “Private Road”, continue along the track between converted farm buildings. At Peak and Northern Footpath Society sign no. 198, carry straight on (signposted “To Swineshaw and Arnfield Moor”).
(2) Before the entrance to Hollingworth Hall Farm, take a track to the left, which curves round to the right to a gate marked “Footpath Only”. Pass a further house on the left and barn on the right, climbing through woodland to open country.
After a gate, descend along the track passing coniferous woodland on the right. At the beginning of the next small patch of woodland, leave the track on a footpath over a stile on your left (the Tameside Trail).
(3) After the end of the wood the path leads between tumbledown walls and then along a series of walls below the slope of Lees Hill on your left, before descending to a stile and gate onto an obvious track below a line of pylons. Turn left and follow the track to Higher Swineshaw Reservoir.
(4) Beyond the dam, turn left and follow the metalled road (signposted “PENNINE BRIDLEWAY Brushes Valley 11⁄2”). Pass under the power lines and continue down the reservoir access road, which curves west (right) after Lower Swineshaw Reservoir and becomes more wooded.
(5) After a house on the left you reach a gate before a crossroads, where you turn sharp left onto a track that descends to pass below the dam of Brushes Reservoir. Bear right over a stile beside a metal gate. About 100 yards after a second, similar, gate, leave the track on a narrower path that heads off obliquely through the trees on your left.
The path emerges onto open moorland with views to Walkerwood Reservoir and Harridge Pike away to your right. Follow the path to a junction, where you take a left turn up a slightly eroded path that climbs steeply before bearing right.
(6) When you meet another path, turn left and follow it as it swings round to the right, still climbing. The path passes several piles of stones and levels off again before reaching a metal gate in a fence line. Beyond the gate, turn immediately left and follow a steep, rough path that parallels the fence straight up the side of the hill. Beyond a hand gate the path continues alongside the remains of a wall, until you suddenly reach the trig point at the summit.
(7) Having admired the view, turn right and walk down a broad track to a crossroads of ways by a waymark post and a small cairn of stones.
(8) Follow the wide descending track ahead of you, passing a pylon to your right. Shortly before a second pylon, the track swings sharp right and descends to a gate above a junction.
(9) Turn left and follow the descending track in the general direction of the masts on Harrop Edge. Keep straight on when another track joins from the right. At Gallows Clough Farm, bear right down a metalled road.
(10) At the bottom, a short cobbled section swings left and emerges on the A6018 opposite The Waggon and Horses. (S/E)
