(S/E) From the front door of the Smoker, turn right and right again (into Plumley Moor Road). After 100 yards cross (if you haven’t already) and follow the left-hand pavement.
(1) Turn left into Whitehouse Lane, a no-through road, and follow it for a little under half a mile to the farm, ignoring footpaths to right and left. Walk past the farmhouse and through the gate at the end of the farmyard.
(2) Descend to cross a stream, and beyond a stile walk up to wood. Turn right and follow the edge of the wood for half a mile, skirting round a couple of ponds as you encounter them. At the end of the wood, continue across the field ahead to meet a lane. Turn right and walk past the thatched and half-timbered Parkside Cottage. Cross a stream then turn right onto a footpath; bear left immediately, to the right of a hedge and ditch.
(3) When the ditch bends left, continue straight ahead to the railway, and turn right. Pass two field boundaries until you reach a crossing in the corner of the third field. Don’t cross the line, but turn right, away from the railway. Go through a gateway on the left and bear right to pass to the left of a pond. Climb a stile and pass to the right of another pond to a further stile. Follow the field edge, crossing yet another stile as you approach Plumley village. Cross a footbridge over the ditch on your left, and follow a path between garden fences and the ditch. When you meet a driveway, turn left out to the road.
(4) Turn right for a short distance to Plumley Methodist Church. Turn left into Trouthall Lane. Follow the road past the junction with Yewtree Road (on the left opposite Maltkiln Farm). Pass the end of Moorcroft then, when the road bends left, take the no-through road ahead. Cross the stream (Peover Eye) and turn immediately right at the footpath sign and over a stile into a track by a Holford Hall gatepost. Follow the winding track until it emerges into a field. Turn left along a path that follows the field edge. Turn left between ponds and cross the field ahead.
(5) Cross a railway bridge and follow the path along the field edge beyond (a footpath down steps to the right, running alongside the railway, provides a straightforward shortcut to step (7)). A track joins from the left, which you follow ahead to a junction. Bear left, then right, passing along a belt of trees and over an old cattle grid. Continue to a gate and pass to the left of a house. At the end of the garden wall on your right, turn right at a footpath sign over a stile into birch woodland. After ¼ mile, the path bends right, then after a further 200 yards heads left to a footbridge.
(6) Follow the field edge to a stile, and continue along the hedge to a car park and office building associated with the Holford Brine Field (whose wells can be seen in adjacent fields). Follow the metalled driveway beyond to a crossroads by Langford Farm. Turn right past the farm; keep straight on at a gate, past Hame Farm on the right, and continue along the track through the trees until you reach the railway after a second gate.
(7) Turn left. After 60 yards, turn right through a metal gate in the railway fence and cross the lines with care. Follow the lane beyond, with woodland on your right. Keep straight on, sticking to the woodland edge, at a junction. The black-and-white Holford Hall comes into sight and you walk below a bank of lime-rich spoil on your right. At a kissing gate, turn left and leave the track. Follow the grassy path to a gate, where it bends right into some trees. The fenced path winds through the wood to a gate into a lane below the Holford Hall gates.
(8) Turn left over the stream, above the remains of a watermill. When you reach the main road, wait for a gap in the traffic and cross with extreme care. Turn right and walk along the pavement back to the Smoker, crossing back to the right-hand side of the A556 rather more easily at the traffic lights in front of the pub.(S/E)
