(S/E) From The Wynnstay Arms Pub, cross the High Street and follow Church Street, to the right of the parish church. Cross the railway then turn immediately right, before the Congregational Church. Follow the road to its end, at the cemetery entrance. Take the footpath to the right of the gatehouse, between the cemetery and railway.
After a metal kissing gate, turn left and continue alongside the cemetery fence and the subsequent hedge. Cross a stile by a gate and switch to the left-hand side of the field boundary. Beyond a gate, the track joins Tatham road to the right of the buildings of Tatham Farm. Turn right (with Offa’s Dyke on your right) and follow the road for 250 yards, then turn left into a driveway, alongside an industrial estate.
(1) Follow the lane uphill, passing the entrance to Gardgen Lodge on your right, before turning right in front of a house. Pass the overgrown ice-house on your left, then bear left past some old farm buildings.
Follow the driveway to a house called Penycoed, where you bear right. The track curves left and descend to a T-junction.
(2) Turn right past a brick semi. When the drive curves left to another property, take the footpath straight ahead, between a lock-up and garden wall into a wood. Pass a deep quarry on your right. The exact line of the right-of-way beyond this point is difficult to discern and winds sometimes steeply downhill between wooded quarries criss-crossed by mountain-bike trails; the simplest route if in doubt is to keep left along the edge of the wood.
Whichever route you take, you will descend to meet an obvious bridleway, where you turn left. Exit the wood and pass a line of red-brick cottages on your right, before turning right to the road.
(3) Take the footpath opposite, signposted to Ruabon Train Station. Beyond a wooden kissing gate, follow the top edge of the field. At the end of the field, a metal kissing gate leads into a narrow path over a footbridge and behind gardens to some steps down to the road.
(4) Turn left, past the Congregational Church, and recross the railway. By way of variety, and to examine Ruabon’s circular lockup, turn right by The Old Grammar School, around the rear of the church, and then left at the top of some steps. Then come back to The Wynnstay Arms Pub (S/E)
