(S/E) From the front door of the Royal Oak head down the driveway opposite and take the footpath on the left. When you meet a green lane, turn left. At Flat Lane, turn right then immediately left along a metalled path. Follow the path when it bends left over a stream and past a children’s play area to emerge in the centre of Kelsall. Cross the road by the Co-operative store and then turn right past the telephone kiosk and up Chapel Bank and past the Methodist Church. Keep left up Grub Lane.
(1) At the top, having emerged from the rock cut lane, turn left into Broom’s Lane. Follow the road round a right-hand bend, then turn left into Longley Avenue. At a T‐junction turn left and cross the A54 overbridge, continuing along the lane beyond until it becomes the entrance drive to Longley Farm. Beyond the derelict farmhouse, turn right between barns to a gate and into a field. Walk straight up the field, following the telegraph poles, to a concealed stile into the wood. Walk along the bottom of the wood for a short distance, then turn right up some wooden steps. Cross an open area beyond, then follow a path that leads past a low quarry face (ignore a turning to the left) to emerge near The Yeld car park.
(2) From the car park, cross Yeld Lane and walk down Forest Gate Lane opposite. Keep straight on at the junction with Morreys/Nortons Lane, and then keep straight on along the footpath into the woodland beyond the last of the houses. When you meet the Sandstone Trail, you have the opportunity to visit the Old Pale viewpoint near the masts at the top of the hill. If omitting this there and back extension, turn right and go straight to step (3). Otherwise, to visit the viewpoint, take the path opposite, signposted “Sandstone Trail Alternative Route”. Follow it through a gap in the hedge and then up the bank, towards the masts on Old Pale Hill. Ignore a crossing track as you pass below the masts and covered reservoir, until you reach the viewpoint with a topograph and stones indicating the seven counties visible. Return to the Sandstone Trail by the same route, and turn left. Pass the two-headed boar marking the Sandstone Trail, to emerge on the A54 at Gresty’s Waste car park.
(3) Cross over and continue on the Sandstone Trail down some steps to a footbridge, and up the other side. Walk alongside a field containing gallops, passing through a pair of gates. When you regain the woodland, swing left then, where the Sandstone Trail swings right and uphill, leave it to follow a narrow path straight ahead along the bottom of the wood, with the open fields to your left. After ⅓ mile you pass the bottom of a shallow valley with a small pond on your left; turn right here and walk up the small sandstone gorge known the Urchin’s Kitchen. On reaching a wide drive beyond the gorge, turn right and follow it out to the road at King’s Gate (keeping left when the Sandstone Trail heads off straight ahead). Turn right along the road and follow it as it bends left.
(4) When it bends right beyond a pond by Fold Cottage, take the footpath through the kissing gate straight ahead. Beyond a second kissing gate this path drops steeply down steps to emerge in Elizabeth Close. Cross Quarry Lane and take the driveway opposite. When it swings right into Croft Cottage, drop down straight on into Kingswood Close and continue to a T‐junction (Kelsborrow Way).
(5) Turn left, then at the next lamp post turn right on a metalled, fenced footpath between the houses which winds past an allotment to emerge on the road by St Phillip’s Church. Follow the footpath opposite, past the end of the churchyard, until you emerge in Old Coach Road; follow Earle’s Road almost opposite. When you reach the Methodist Church again, turn left and walk down Chapel Bank to the Co‐op. Turn right and walk down Chester Road back to the Royal Oak.(S/E)
