Waste Hill

(S/E) From the entrance to the Pheasant Inn, with the pub behind you, turn right and walk down the no-through road (Barracks Lane). After a series of white-painted cottages on the right, go through a gate beyond which the lane becomes a track.

(1) At the top of a rise, where the track emerges from a hollow way, take the path on the right (with a Sandstone Trail signpost to Bulkeley Hill). Follow the path, stepped at times, uphill through woodland to a bench and kissing gate at the brow of the hill. Go through the kissing gate ahead of you (leaving the Sandstone Trail) into cleared and replanted woodland. Follow the path until you emerge onto a track (Hill Lane).

(2) Turn left. When the track widens, take a track on the right. Shortly afterwards, just before a gate, turn right onto a signposted footpath. Follow the path through brackeny woodland, skirting to the left of the open pasture when you reach it, until you drop over a stone wall into a crossing path. Turn right through a wooden kissing gate and into a field. Continue along the right-hand edge of the field until you reach Hill Lane again.

(3) Turn left (signposted Pheasant Inn and Beeston). Walk downhill, ignoring two turnings to the right. At the crossroads at the end of Rock Lane, turn right to return to the Pheasant Inn. (S/E)

No major difficulties, but one steep climb and some sections may be muddy after rain.

Beeston Castle was built in the 1220s by Ranulf, Earl of Chester, on a rocky sandstone crag 250m above the surrounding Cheshire Plain. It’s well, over 100m deep, is one of the deepest in any English castle and is said to contain treasure hidden by Richard II.

Peckforton Castle is a mansion built in the style of a medieval castle by John Tollemache, a local landowner and MP, between 1844 and 1850. It is now used as a hotel and wedding venue.

Peckforton Mere is passed on a footpath from the gatehouse to Peckforton Castle.