(S/E) Leave the Hanging Gate by walking between the pub entrance and the outside toilets. Bear right through the kissing gate and follow the partly paved path through a second and third kissing gate to emerge on Meg Lane. Turn left down the lane, ignoring a farm drive on the left, then leave the road over a stile on the right. Descend to cross a stream below a spring and follow the contouring path beyond until you pass a wooden building and descend to a farm. Walk between the buildings, following the Gritstone Trail waymarks onto a narrow path leading behind more buildings.
(1) At the entrance to Overhill Cottage, cross the drive and take the footpath opposite, through a kissing gate. At the end of the next field, drop down into a sunken lane and take the continuing path opposite. Pass through a couple of gates and ford a small stream to pass to the left of Greenbarn Farm.
(2) When you meet the farm drive, turn left, then leave the drive to the right, skirting round a house with a pond on your left. Follow the drive beyond for a short distance, before turning right to a gate into Macclesfield Forest. Cross a footbridge and climb the stepped path beyond to reach a surfaced track.
(3) Turn right, signposted to Shutlingsloe. Follow the track to the reservoir and turn right across a small dam. At the end of the dam, take the right-hand (uphill) fork. Bear left at the forest edge and walk up to meet a road. Go straight on for a short distance, then leave the road at a gate on the right. Follow the broad track uphill in front of you, which winds up through the trees with occasional views over farmland to your right. At a small trackside pond, a bear left along the track. When a path heads off to the left, keep right on the main track, until eventually, you reach an open area with two benches and a fine view over Macclesfield Forest. The track levels off, then zig-zags sharply downhill to a junction, where you keep right.
(4) Turn right at a fork (again signposted to Shutlingsloe) eventually reaching the open country. Follow the paved path across the moor. Go through a kissing gate in a wall and turn right on another paved path along the wall to a step stile, then leave the wall, climbing the rocky steps to the top of Shutlingsloe.
(5) Having enjoyed the views from the trig point, retrace your route down the steps but, before regaining the wall, turn left and descend to meet the wall on your right; follow it to a stile. Cross the stile and take a narrow path half-left across the moor to a waymark post. Turn left here along a quad-bike path to a gate. Follow the obvious path to a broken wall beyond, then bear left and cross a boggy stream via a boardwalk. Follow the moorland wall for half a mile, until you reach a ladder stile in a corner. Here turn right (signposted to “Hanging Gate”) and continue along the wall. Leave it to reach an oblique junction of tracks; bear right here to leave the moor via a gate in the wall. Follow a descending path to the right, past a ruined building, to the stream.
(6) Go through a gate and across the bridge, then bear left and right across a side-stream. Turn left onto a pleasant path up the side-valley; below Oakenclough House take a permissive path straight on to pass a pond on your right and meet the drive. Take a few steps to the right, then turn left through a gate and walk uphill along the wall. Beyond another gate, bear right across the open country on an obvious, if sometimes boggy, path. In the far corner of the field, turn right through a gateway and then left over a stile. Follow the fenced path back to the Hanging Gate.(S/E)
