(S/E) From The Hardwick Inn car park entrance, turn right towards the entrance to Hardwick Park. Go through the gate to the left of the cattle grid and turn left along the woodland edge.
(1) Ignore the gate into the wood on your left, instead continuing alongside the wood. Walk across the grass to a gate and pass below a pond (the lowest of the Row Ponds).
Follow the path beyond, with the Great Pond on your left. Go through a gate at the end of the lake and take the path straight ahead.
(2) At a crossing track, turn right, passing a quarry entrance on your left with a sign reading “The Story of Stone at Hardwick”. Just before a gate, turn left (North - East) into open parkland and head right, uphill.
(3) Under a clump of trees, cross a tarmac drive by a waymark and continue uphill. At the top of the hill, bear slightly left to a gate by a house (The Grange). Keep right of the house and follow the drive to emerge in Ault Hucknall.
(4) Turn right past the church and walk through the village. Beyond a farm, where the road swings left, there are two footpaths radiating across fields to the right.
(5) Take the left-hand (eastern) path and walk across the field to a squeeze stile and continue uphill across the next field to meet a road (Duke's Drive). Take a few steps to the left and then go through a gate on the other side. Follow the left-hand side of the field to a kissing gate, then walk up the next field, passing to the left of a lone tree. Cross a paddock between two kissing gates and continue out to the road.
(6) Turn right and walk through Rowthorne village, keeping straight on past Hall Farm (signposted “Rowthorne Trail”). Beyond the speed delimit signs, turn left by a small water treatment works and join the Rowthorne Trail.
(7) Follow Rowthorne Trail about half a mile, at the bottom of a slight dip, leave the Trail on a footpath to the right. Aim slightly left (South - South-West) across the field, and cross a footbridge over a small stream to enter the wood.
Follow the uphill path beyond, through the woodland. Emerge from the wood (ignoring a crossing path) into a field. Cross the field, aiming just to the right of a white-painted house to reach a narrow path between gardens that leads out to a road (Newbound Lane).
(8) Turn right and walk past a series of houses. When the drive bends at a farm gate, take a path on the right, Lady Spencer’s Walk. Follow the path down and up steps, keeping towards the left-hand edge of the wood. After half a mile, turn left by an interpretation board and follow a descending path along the bottom of the wood.
(9) Exit through a gate and cross the field to meet the Hardwick Hall drive on a bend just below the Stone Centre. Turn left and walk down the drive back to The Hardwick Inn. (S/E)
