(S/E) From the car park entrance nearest the pub, cross Willow Green Lane into the road opposite. Before the first house, turn right onto a footpath alongside the garden. Follow the path along the righthand edge of a field and through some trees to the canal.
(1) Drop down left onto the towpath and turn right, under bridge 208. Follow the canal for a quarter of a mile to the next bridge, where you leave the towpath and turn left over the road bridge. Turn immediately right into a byway which runs to the right of Friar’s Rough, a scrap of ancient woodland. The path crosses a field and joins a hedged farm track, which leads out to a road.
(2) Turn right into Little Leigh, passing the church on your left. When the road bends slightly left, take a signposted path on the right, by a dog bin. This hedged track narrows to a footpath beyond a gate than after a wooden gate leads between hedges to a house. Pass respectfully and follow the driveway down to the road.
(3) Turn right over the canal, then turn right onto the towpath and right again to pass under the bridge (bridge 204). Follow the towpath for a quarter of a mile to the entrance to Saltersford Tunnel. Follow the path beside the house and climb past a canal milepost and pass the top of a tunnel airshaft before descending through a metal gate to rejoin the towpath at the far end of the tunnel.
(4) Follow the right-hand bank of the canal basin to a road, where you turn right, marked “No entry” (for cars), and wind down to the River Weaver. Follow the road alongside the river to Saltersford Locks, where you cross the weir-stream and pass the lock keeper’s house. After a second house, follow the riverside path to a footbridge over the weir-stream. Having crossed, bear left. Follow the river for a mile and a half, passing through a series of gates with the wooded slopes below the canal away to your right, and, after a while, houses on the far bank of the river. As you approach the swingbridge, you pass a brick building; ignore a farm track off to the right and continue along the riverside past the rowing club. Keep left alongside the river when the access road swings right then, before the swingbridge, turn right up steps back to the Leigh Arms.(S/E)
