(S/E) From the hotel, follow the drive out to the road. Turn right and immediately right again through a kissing gate into a field. Follow a line of trees down the shallow valley and walk along a short path between hedges, then follow the right-hand field edge to a wooden kissing gate into a track. Cross the track and go through the kissing gate opposite, crossing to a double stile and footbridge. Continue to another track. Go through the hand-gate ahead and continue along a ditch and field-edge to a lane.
(1) A short, optional diversion to the right takes you to one of the Macclesfield Canal’s ‘roving’ bridges.) Join the path opposite and continue through a stone squeeze stile and then a metal kissing gate by a pond, and cross the field beyond to a second kissing gate into a track. Go through another kissing gate and between two ponds to a stone stile in a wall. Follow the path beyond to a kissing gate that leads into a track by another pond. Follow the track ahead past a ruined stone barn to a gate, and along a track between farms; when the track bends left, take the path on the right through a kissing gate that leads out past The Random Apple Company to a metalled driveway (Swanscoe Lane). Follow the road ahead past a gabled cottage on the left, carrying straight on at a junction with another driveway until you reach Well Lane.
(2) Turn right and follow the road past a house, then climb to the B5470 Highwayman road, bearing left by a private farm drive on the right. Turn right along the pavement for 75 yards; cross shortly before a bus stop by the old Ebenezer Chapel and walk up a signposted path next to number 67. This path twists and turns between houses and gardens to emerge at the end of a cul-de-sac. Climb a stile on the left and walk up the field to a narrow lane.
(3) Turn left and then left again very shortly, leaving the road through a gate. A pleasant path climbs gradually through gorsy grassland to a stile and then through trees, before returning to the more open country beyond a kissing gate. After a stile in a walled corner, the path drops to a house, where a gate on the left leads down a flight of stone steps. Turn right past the house and out along the driveway to a narrow lane.
(4) Turn left and follow the lane for 200 yards past a creeper-hung house on the left, then turn right between gateposts into the driveway to Marsh Farm. Opposite the farmhouse, turn left at the corner of a barn and walk up to a kissing gate. Cross a couple of fields and in front of another farm to emerge in Cliff Lane. Follow the lane opposite and descend to a valley before climbing to the A537 Cat & Fiddle Road.
(5) Cross carefully into Back Eddisbury Road and follow the quiet lane for half a mile to Buxton Old Road. Turn left then shortly right into Broadcar Road. After 250 yards, just before a small stone barn on the left, cross a stile and climb alongside a driveway and over stone steps into a green lane. Go straight on over another wall stile and along the hedge.
(6) Bear right behind Teggsnose Farm above a stand of beech trees and over another step stile. Take the upper path at a fork and climb through bilberry and gorse to another path. Bear right into a grassy area. Keep left towards an area of quarry spoil, where you turn left past a bench and up stone steps to a gate into the main path around Tegg’s Nose. Turn right and follow the obvious path with fine views to the right, passing a curved stone bench. Bear left, still keeping to the obvious path, past a quarry and some old quarrying machinery below the banded rock face. At a fork by a gate, turn right down stone steps. Turn right through the gate at the bottom and follow the obvious path past a Gritstone Trail fingerpost to the entrance to the Tegg’s Nose café and car park.
(7) Beyond the car park, continue to Kennel House, where you cross and turn left into a track, then immediately right over a wall, still following the Gritstone Trail. Cross a meadow to a gate then bear slightly left across the hillside through a series of gates to a stile (ignoring a crossing path) and continue down to the A537.
(8) Cross the main road and turn left along the pavement. Take the first right (Bull Hill Lane). Continue along the lane, ignoring the Gritstone Trail as it leaves to the right. Pass through a farm, then continue past the entrance to another on the left. A third of a mile after leaving the main road, take a signposted footpath through a gate on the left and walk down the hedgerow before crossing to a hand-gate and down steps to the B5470.
(9) Turn right, then take the first left by Rose Cottage. When the lane bends left, go straight on over a step stile by a field gate into a track. Continue past a second and third gate then, when the path divides, take the left-hand path and climb steadily through the trees between old quarries. Beyond a kissing gate in a wall, climb a slightly rocky section to emerge at the top of the ridge with wide views over Macclesfield to Jodrell Bank. Turn right and follow the wall to a kissing gate that gives access to the trig point at the highest point of the ridge. Continue beyond the trig in a similar vein above quarries to the left with views over Rainow to Shining Tor on your right. At a kissing gate by a footpath junction, continue along the path between fence and wall along the ridge.
(10) A kissing gate leads into a grassy field to a second (look out for the boundary stone in the wall) and then another before emerging at White Nancy. The direct pitched path down the slope beyond the landmark is somewhat uneven; a slightly easier alternative with steps and level sections leads through the woods on the left.
(11) Either way, when you meet a concrete driveway, turn left and follow it downhill through the trees to Redway Lane. Turn right and walk down the elevated pavement to the junction with Jackson Lane by the Bull’s Head. Turn right to return to Hollin House.(S/E)
