(S/E) From the front door of the New Inn, turn left down the main village street.
(1) Before the mill-stream, turn left between stone gateposts. Go through a gate at the end of the lane into a field. Aim to the left of some isolated trees to reach a gate. Cross the road and turn right down the pavement.
(2) Beyond the Hatherop sign, turn right to cross an iron footbridge over the River Coln. Beyond a gate, cross a field. Go through a gate and to the right of a small patch of woodland, then continue below the slope through a second gateway.
At the end of the field a gate by a house leads out to a road; turn right.
(3) At the junction with Victoria Road, ignore the obvious track ahead, instead crossing a stone slab stile slightly to the left. Climb the hillside, then pass between houses to another slab stile into a village street.
Turn left and walk down to a T-junction. Turn right and walk along Victoria Road.
(4) At the next junction, the way on is straight ahead, but a short detour left to the church is strongly recommended, passing the Knight’s Gate (the 14th-century gatehouse to a former Preceptory of the Knights Hospitallers). Returning to the end of Victoria Road, turn left between farm buildings.
(5) Beyond an unusual pivoting metal stile, turn right uphill, passing above a wood. Follow the footpath right, along a field edge out to the road. Turn right and immediately left, along a track that follows a field edge below power lines.
(6) When you meet a crossing track, turn right and walk past an isolated house, following the concrete drive out to a road. Follow the lane opposite, between a house on the left and a farm and forge on the right.
The lane leads through a wood to a T-junction, where you turn left.
(7) Between two houses on the right, turn right down a grassy track, passing a small barn on the right. The track leads between fields to the corner of a wood, where a path leads half-left down through the trees. Leave the bottom of the wood via a gate and cross the field to a footbridge.
(8) Do not cross into the wood, but turn right, along the bottom of the slope to a metal gate. Walk along the bottom of the wood, with the river on your left. The path continues between the river to your left and a grassy slope on the right, passing a private footbridge. Follow the riverside beyond a gate, then leave it to follow an overgrown hedge on the right (if you reach a weir over a side-stream, you’ve gone too far). Follow the hedge then walk below a wooded bank.
(9) Follow the track through a wood and exit through a field gate; cross the field beyond, with the river to your left and woodland to your right. A gate at the end leads past a house to the road. Turn left over the river, and keep right along the road to pass the Old Mill and return to the New Inn. (S/E)
