Start The Little Mill Inn, Hollinsmoor Road, Rowarth, High Peak SK22 1EB (Tel: 01663 747678)
(S/E) From the front of The Little Mill Inn pub, turn left. Just beyond the car park, turn right along a concrete drive past two houses. Pass Brookside Cottage on your left at the end of the drive and continue along the rocky path ahead until you reach the village green in the centre of Rowarth. Follow the road to the left past the telephone box then, at the corner of the village green, turn right by Anderton House.
(1) After a short distance, take a narrow fenced footpath on the left between two gardens that shortly leads to a stile. Follow the path ahead uphill and across an area marked by old quarries to a stile and a junction of paths. Continue in the same direction up the ridge (signposted “Cown Edge”) between gorse patches and more signs of historic small-scale quarrying. At a wall, cross a stile and continue ahead.
(2) Follow the broad grassy path that leaves the field boundary on the left and continues through a series of gates and stiles until you reach a stony, sunken bridleway. Ignore the path over the stile ahead, instead turning left for a short distance down to a gate.
(3) Turn right through a hand-gate onto access land and follow a path along a field edge, down to a stile and then up to the brink of Coombes Rocks (A). Turn right and follow the cliff-top path, eventually passing a strip of low conifers on your right beyond a stile. Beyond the trees, continue along the top of the crags. At the second stile in the fence on your right, level with a broken wall leading to a second block of conifers, leave the cliff edge onto a sunken grassy track.
(4) This passes to the right of a low mound (a Bronze Age cairn) then descends past an old quarry on the left. Bear right by a stile and continue along the slope below more quarries, descending gently towards Rocks Farm. By a sheepfold sheltered by a large boulder, bear left down to a stile and then down steps to the farmhouse. Turn left along the farm drive, and continue past the buildings of Higher Plainsteads Farm on your right.
(5) Just before you reach Monks Road, turn right over a step stile in the wall on your right and cross a field to another stile in the bottom corner. Ignoring the driveway to your right, follow the metalled lane opposite (part of the Penine Bridleway).
(6) After 550m, when the road bends right, take a path ahead through a gate in the wall onto Matley Moor. An obvious path leads through heather to a gate into the walled Pennine Bridleway. Turn left through a gate and follow the narrow bridleway to Matley Moor Farm. Keep on along the track ahead, past the entrance to Bullshaw Farm on the right.
(7) At a meeting of six paths, go through a gate on your right and then head diagonally across the field, aiming just left of the highest ground (signposted “PENNINE BRIDLEWAY Hayfield 2½”). In the far corner of the field, go through the gateway and follow the walled track beyond.
(For a shorter route, at the junction of the paths go through the gate on your right but follow the path along the right-hand edge of the field, then climb to a gate. Continue along the walled track downhill to cross a small stream at the bottom of a plantation, then climb slightly to a junction. Turn sharp right and follow a rocky path downhill, which bends left and levels off. The path then descends more steeply down a rocky, tree-lined holloway to Laneside Farm. Follow the road ahead beyond the farm, back to the Little Mill Inn.)
(8) By a National Trust sign, take a path uphill through the heather on your right and follow it to the topograph at the summit of Lantern Pike. Beyond the summit, follow the ridge as it descends to a wall.
(9) Turn sharp left and follow a stony path downhill alongside the wall to return to the Pennine Bridleway. Turn right and follow the track, which shortly joins a metalled driveway and leads steeply downhill to Sitch Lane.
(10) Turn right and follow the road to its summit, at the entrance to Wethercotes Farm on your right. Keep along the road as it heads downhill. Pass a footpath sign on your right, then turn right into the drive to Bank Head Farm.
(11) Walk through the farmyard, then go through a field gate on your right. Turn immediately left and follow the wall. At an isolated farmhouse, cross a stile on your left and pass in front of the house. Aim half-right across the next field towards the cottages at the far side. At the metalled driveway by the cottages, turn left and walk past Aspenshaw Hall.
(12) Shortly before you reach the public road, take a footpath on the right up a short flight of steps. Cross a stile and follow the footpath beyond, along a wall at the bottom of a wooded bank. Beyond the wood, continue along the sunken wall to Thornsett Fields Farm, where there is an awkward stone stile down to the farmyard.
(13) Walk past the farmhouse. Beyond the farmyard, which may be muddy, follow a footpath straight ahead across fields until you reach a road. Turn left and walk down the lane to the Little Mill Inn. (S/E)