New Mills & Strines

(S/E) 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 . (S/E)

Some rocky paths, and a couple of climbs. Short sections may be muddy after rain, or overgrown in summer.

Pdf link : http://walksfromthedoor.co.uk/i/walks/De...

The Pack Horse Inn
Mellor Road, New Mills,
High Peak SK22 4QQ
Email info@packhorseinn.co.uk
Web www.packhorseinn.co.uk
Phone +44 (0) 1663 742365

• The Millennium Walkway, built at a cost of £525,000 and opened in 1999, featured on the 44p Royal Mail Millennium stamp. It carries the Goyt Way through the Torrs Gorge below the massive retaining wall of the railway opposite Torr Vale Mill.

• Mellor Cross (missing its top since a gale in 2016) was erected by Marple Churches Together in the 1970s and commands a fine view over Manchester and the Cheshire Plain. Edith Nesbit immortalised the surrounding area in The Railway Children.

• The Peak Forest Canal (pictured here near Disley) runs for 15 miles from Dukinfield to Whaley Bridge. Two lock-less halves are separated by the 16 locks of the Marple Flight. The engineer was Benjamin Outram and the canal opened in 1796.

• The junction of Black Lane and Primrose Lane is marked by a large block of stone in the wall, thought to be a medieval cross base. It may be associated with the abbey at Basingwerk, who owned this area in the Middle Ages and built several similar crosses.

• The “Roman Bridge” at Strines is in fact a 17th-century packhorse bridge. Pack-horse bridges are typically less than 6 feet wide, with no (or low) parapets to avoid fouling the panniers of the ponies that once used them. The bridge is Grade II listed.

• The Sett Valley Trail is a 21⁄2-mile cycle- and bridleway from Hayfield to New Mills, following a former branch railway line that opened in 1868 and closed in 1970. The Pennine Bridleway follows the Trail for a mile between Hayfield and Birch Vale.

• Lantern Pike provides superb views to Kinder Scout and Manchester, indicated by a topograph dedicated to Edwin Royce (of Rolls-Royce fame). The hill is owned by the National Trust and its name probably indicates the former location of a signaling beacon.