New Mills & Millennium Walkway

Description

(D/A) From the front door of The Sycamore Inn, turn left. Just beyond a row of terraced cottages on the right, turn left down a flight of steps at a public footpath sign.

(1) Turn left down the stone-pitched lane and pass a metal barrier between a small reservoir (left) and a mill building (right).

When the road turns right into the mill, follow the stone-setted way straight ahead past a couple of houses up to the Sett Valley Trail.

(2) Turn right and follow the Trail for a third of a mile to High Hill Road. Cross over and continue over Watford Bridge, ignoring paths to left and right.

Cross straight over St George’s Road and descend a slaloming section. Partway up the other side, climb a flight of steps on your left to another road; take the metalled path opposite, behind the surgery and Leisure Centre car park. Just before an old railway overbridge, turn right up steps.

(3) Turn left and left again along Hyde Bank Road, crossing over the railway bridge with the river down to your right. Just before a T-junction, turn right down steps into the Torrs gorge (signposted “Torrs Riverside Park”). At the bottom, cross the river and turn left.

Bear right at Torrs Hydro and the weir, and pass under the Union Road viaduct. Take either of the lower paths (ignoring the steps on the right up to the Heritage Centre). Cross the Millennium Walkway.

(4) Almost immediately, turn left over a footbridge across the Goyt. Follow the path beyond as it winds up steps through the buildings of Torr Vale Mill.

At the entrance road, turn right and follow it out past a recreation ground on your right, to join Wirksmoor Road. Continue ahead to cross Grove Street, then cross the main A6015 road at the pedestrian crossing and follow Victoria Street, opposite.

(5) At the end of the road, join the canal towpath and turn left. At bridge no. 29, leave the towpath and take the footpath straight ahead that runs initially parallel to the canal and then bears left downhill to the River Goyt.

(6) Cross the footbridge and follow the path beyond as it turns left and right, past a house, to Goytside Farm. At the junction of tracks by the farm, turn right.

The track narrows to a path as it runs alongside the river and then continues along a field edge with a wall on your left; after a gateway continue in the same direction, now with the wall on your right. The track bears left by Gowhole Farm onto Marsh Lane.

(7) Turn right, then immediately left into Ladypit Road. Not far from the junction, leave the road via stone steps up and onto a footpath on your left.

Walk up the left-hand edge of the field, to the left of an electricity pylon, and at the end pass under the railway. Walk up the next field to a stile next to a gate, into a farm drive below Beardwood Farm.

(8) Turn left for 50 yards to cross Shedyard Clough, then leave the track onto a footpath on your right. The footpath winds up through trees with the valley of Shedyard Clough to your right, before crossing a bracken-covered area. After a stile, the path follows a fence along the edge of the clough to a gate into Shedyard Farm.

(9) Bear left between the farm buildings, then follow the farm drive for 400 yards until you reach Laneside Road. Cross straight over and walk along a driveway and past a house. Beyond the buildings, cross a step-stile made of massive stone blocks by a gate and cross to a gap stile protected by wooden spars. Follow the wall ahead, over a series of ladder stiles, until you meet Oven Hill Road by a pair of cottages.

(10) Turn left and follow the road downhill all the way to the main road, passing Arden Quarry on your right partway down. Cross the main road and follow a driveway to the left of the former Zion Chapel. When the drive bends left, follow the path ahead, with back gardens on your right.

On meeting Station Road, turn left down to the River Sett. 38 Cross the river and follow the road up the hill back to The Sycamore Inn.(D/A)