New Mills & Strines

Description

(D/A) From The Pack Horse Inn, turn right and walk down Mellor road towards New Mills for 150 yards. Turn right (South-West) through a gate and follow a farm track up to Whitle.

When the track bends right into Whitle Farm, go through the hand-gate ahead of you and walk between fences up to a wall stile beside a gatepost.

(1) Turn left (South) and follow the rough road down to its junction with Apple Tree Road. Cross straight over past the 30mph sign into Whitle Road. When the road bends left, take a driveway on the right with a public footpath sign.

Follow the drive as it winds behind a cottage then climbs slightly to Beardhough Farm. At the farm entrance gate, turn left down some steps (waymarked) then head right to pass below the farm. Beyond a gate the path contours pleasantly through rough grassland towards a housing estate.

(2) Just after a gate and stile, but before you reach the first house, turn immediately left (East) on a narrow path that may be slightly overgrown. Cross a broken wall by a small bench and bear half-right down the hillside, passing a spring on your left partway down.

When you meet a narrow cobbled path (caution: slippery when wet), turn left and walk down to the road. Turn right (South - South - West) along Spring Bank past the church (now an arts centre) and almshouses, and continue past the Town Hall into the town centre. Follow the main street to a roundabout at the end.

(3) Bear right here, then cross over into Rock Mill Lane. Pass between the Heritage Centre on your left and the Torr Vale Mill Viewpoint on your right, then keep right, down the steps descending steeply into the Torrs. At the bottom, turn right and cross the Millennium Walkway.

(4) Almost immediately, turn left over a footbridge across the Goyt. Follow the path beyond as it winds up through the buildings of Torr Vale Mill. Follow the entrance road round to the right, past a recreation ground on your right, to join Wirksmoor Road.

Continue ahead to cross Grove Street, then cross the main road into Victoria Street, opposite. At the end of the road, join the canal towpath, turning right (West) to pass under the main road.

(5) Walk past Swizzels Matlow’s Brunswick Mill works and continue along the canal through woodland. Pass under bridge 27 and continue along the towpath, shared temporarily with a driveway.

Beyond bridge 26, the houses of Disley appear on the opposite bank. Bridge 25 is a swing bridge, beyond which the towpath returns to rural tranquility with views over the Goyt valley.

Beyond a lifting bridge (24) you again share the towpath with a metalled driveway, which you leave to pass under bridge 23.

(6) After a further quarter-mile you cross an aqueduct. Shortly afterwards, leave the canal and double back down some steps to the track below the aqueduct. Turn left and walk downhill past a cottage to the B6101 road in Strines.

Cross straight over into Station Road and walk down past the former printworks. Skirt a large pond with an ornamental dovecote on an island, and pass Strines Hall. Follow the road up the cobbles to the station entrance, where you bear left under the railway bridge.

(7) Turn immediately right, up a rough track marked “Unsuitable for motor vehicles”. Follow the track uphill for half a mile to emerge by the Fox Inn in Brook Bottom. Cross straight over and climb a driveway to a house, where a permissive path bypasses to the right of the garden.

Continue up a fenced and stepped path to a stile, beyond which you turn immediately left and descend steeply through the trees to a footbridge. The path climbs to a track, where you turn right and walk past Shaw Farmhouse.

(8) Keep left of the slurry pit, with barns on your left, to a stile into a field. Head for the top right-hand corner of the field, where you will find a green PNFS sign (no. 334). Walk along the right-hand edge of the next field to a stile, then continue in the same direction with the trees surrounding Stony Piece Farm behind the wall on the right.

At the end of the wall, by a large upright stone on the corner, ignore a path off to the left, instead aiming half-left towards the visible buildings of Castle Edge Farm. After a stile in the top corner of the field, walk along the top of a couple of fields, then turn left through a hand-gate at the end of the barn.

(9) Turn right to pass the farmhouse and follow the driveway out to the road. Turn left (North-East) and walk up the road to the house called “The Castle”.

Turn right beyond this property, down a signposted footpath that leads between walls to the top of a narrow field. Follow the field down to the Pack Horse, where a gate in the rear fence gives access to the top car park of The Pack Horse Inn . (D/A)