(S/E) From New Mills Gold Club Clubhouse, cross Eaves Knoll Road and join the track to Shaw Farm, with the course on your left and a marshy field on your right.
(1) After 400 yards, turn right into the farm entrance. Turn left in the farmyard and walk in front of the farmhouse, joining a track to the right of a wooded valley. Just before a gate, cross a stile on your left, down a few steps into the wood.
Cross a small wooden footbridge then follow the path down to the stream, which you cross on another footbridge (with a footpath sign pointing in the opposite direction). Walk up the other side of the valley and turn right through a stile. Walk downhill along a fenced path with steps, then briefly divert left round a garden, along a permitted path (white arrow).
(2) Follow the drive down to Brook Bottom and the Fox pub. Turn right past the pub, and follow the lane as it winds through the village, climbing past the former chapel.
Pass Higher Cliff Farm on the right and descend beyond to a junction of tracks by The Cottage. Bear right here on a path that climbs gently, with views to the left over the Goyt valley.
After 500 yards, pass a house entrance then turn right onto a stone-setted drive (unsignposted) between the stone cottages of The Banks and onto a path that bears left and climbs to a junction marked by an upright stone.
(3) Turn right here to meet the end of a metalled driveway. Follow this drive gently uphill to the crossroads below Mellor Cross.
(4) Take the rough track opposite, which climbs to the left of the cross and then levels off, with views ahead to Kinder Scout.
Ignore a signposted path over a stone wall stile on the left and at a T-junction of tracks, look out for the old cross base hidden in the wall by the left-hand gate ahead of you.
(5) Turn right at the T-junction and follow the track for a little under half a mile, passing Knapkin Hill Farm before you reach Castle Edge Road at the end of Broadhurst Edge Plantation. Turn right along the road.
After a left-hand bend by the entrance to Castle Hill Farm, take a footpath on the left beside a gate, onto the golf course. Follow the wall on the left (with the course on your right) past the 9th tee.
(6) At a corner, cross a stone stile to the right of a gate, then go through a squeeze stile in the wall on the right. Walk down the narrow field to emerge between two barns to another stile into Whitle.
Turn right through a gate and follow the walled path ahead, which leads back to the golf course via another stile by a second gate. Follow the wall across the course and back to the Clubhouse. (S/E)
