(S/E) From Beech Croft Farm campsite entrance, turn right. When the lane bends left, take the bridleway through the gate on your right. Follow the walled track through a series of gates and then across open fields, ignoring a crossing track shortly before you reach a round dewpond near the main road.
(1) Pass through a field gate then swing right, following a path down a dry limestone valley. At the bottom, cross the Monsal Trail and continue straight across to Blackwell Mill cycle hire.
(2) Turn left and follow the entrance drive, passing under three railway bridges before you arrive at Wyedale car park.
(3) Cross the A6 carefully and follow the footpath to the left of the quarry entrance, separated from it by a fence. At the junction of Deep Dale and Marl Dale, turn right through a gate, past the Deep Dale and Topley Pike information board.
(4) Follow the path up some wooden steps and then past a series of quarry workings on your right. Beyond the last of the quarry workings, continue up the dale bottom with woodland, grassland and intermittent scree slopes rising steeply on your left.
(5) Look out for the Midshires Way, which crosses the dale just before the obvious entrance of Thirst House Cave on your left – it’s worth continuing to view the cave, then retracing your steps to the Limestone Way. Take the steep and narrow path that winds up the slope from this point, on the same side of the dale as Thirst House Cave, passing a smaller cave entrance on the way up.
At the top of the dale side, cross a wooden stile then walk across a series of meadows separated by stone step stiles until you reach a walled track.
(6) Turn left, then almost immediately right. Follow the track, passing the entrance to Burrs Farm, until you reach a road (A5270). Cross over and take the track on the opposite site of the road, a few steps to your left. Pass Shepley Farm and continue along until you reach the main street in Chelmorton.
(7) Turn left, passing between the Church Inn and the parish church, then (ignoring a bridleway on the left) follow the bridleway to the right past Bank Pit Spring. When this path, which follows the humps and bumps of a former miners’ “rake”, meets the end of Pillwell Lane, turn left.
(8) Follow the track to a gate at the brow of the hill. From here an optional (but recommended) there-and-back diversion leads along a signposted permissive path to the right to visit the Five Wells burial chamber. Upon your return, continue downhill along Pillwell Lane until you emerge by a metal gate.
(9) Turn right then left, following the Pennine Bridleway signs. At the main road (A6), cross carefully and follow the lane opposite back to Beech Croft Farm campsite.(S/E)
