(S/E) From the front door of the Royal Oak turn right and right again, into Dog Lane. Follow this road for a quarter of a mile until it bends left.
(1) At this point take the footpath straight ahead, to the left of the entrance to Northwood Caravan Park. Cross a stile at the end of the path and climb a flight of steps to the A54 Kelsall Bypass. Cross the busy road quickly but carefully, via the gap in the central reservation. Go over a stile opposite and follow the edge of the field ahead of you to a footbridge. Continue in a similar vein for three more fields until you reach a stile into the hedged Shay Lane.
(2) Turn right and follow Shay Lane for nearly a mile, until you emerge on Longley Lane. Turn left past Warwick House then right onto a footpath through a kissing gate. Climb half‐right up the hill beyond to some stone steps and a kissing gate, looking back for views to Ashton Hayes and, more distantly, Liverpool. Walk along the left-‐hand edge of the next field, then, at the first hedge you meet, turn right. By a pond, turn half‐left to follow an obvious track across the middle of a field to reach a kissing gate onto the A54.
(3) Cross the road carefully again, then pass through a further kissing gate on the other side. Head straight across the next field to a further kissing gate, beyond which a path leads through gardens to Broom’s Lane. Turn right. At the end of the road, turn right and follow Grub Lane, a narrow road cut through bedrock, downhill. When you reach the Methodist Church and War Memorial, walk down the hill to the Co‐operative store.
(4) Cross the road at the entrance to the Lord Binning car park, and take the metalled path across the open space beyond, passing a children’s playground and crossing a stream. Follow this path round to the right, until it emerges into Flat Lane; turn right then immediately left into a green lane. At a crossing path, turn right up a narrow hedged path that emerges into a driveway opposite the Oak.(S/E)
