(S/E) From the front door of the Red Lion, turn right to the main road, and right again. Walk past the Nicholson Institute (Library) and continue past Union St and New St until you reach the lights at the crossroads.
(1) Turn left and then right (Ball Haye Rd) at the bottom of the hill. At a T-junction opposite the entrance to the Leisure Centre, turn right. Follow the road for 700 yards until you pass a playing field on your left.
Turn left into Tittesworth Avenue and follow it round to the right. Turn left into Nightingale Gardens.
(2) By a litter bin, turn right into a driveway and follow it behind a school and downhill to Wardle Barn Farm. Go through two kissing gates to a road; turn left for a short distance then right onto a footpath that passes a bench and then crosses a footbridge over the River Churnet.
(3) Walk up the hill past a couple of benches to a kissing gate and continue along the side of a field, past another bench. Turn left by yet another bench and go through a kissing gate, bearing slightly right to cut the corner across the field. After another field (with kissing gates at either end) you reach the yellow-waymarked Long Trail.
(4) Turn right and follow the trail, which descends to cross a stream and follows the reservoir’s edge. The Trail leaves the water to run alongside fields, then turns left back into trees. At a junction, take the left turn (“Water’s edge path”), which leads down some steps to a footbridge.
Follow the path to the reservoir edge and then along the bottom of a couple of fields. On rejoining the Long Trail, turn left. Stay on the main trail, turning left at a junction where the Short Trail joins from the right. The Trail runs along the top of a field and then drops to cross a bridge; after a second bridge, over the River Churnet, turn left (downstream) and then left again at the next junction.
(5) When you reach the car park, turn right, past a playground and toilet block, to the main entrance road. Turn right (unless visiting the Visitor Centre) and walk out to the public road. Turn left and cross the causeway. Take a path on the left that crosses a couple of fields then drops to cross a stream, and then a second.
(6) When you reach Tittesworth Watersports, turn right, away from the reservoir, up the entrance road. On reaching the public road, turn left for 1⁄4 mile. At a right-hand bend, leave the road to follow the drive for North and South Hillswood Farms, over a cattle grid.
(7) Pass the entrance to Hillswood End then descend to a valley. Partway up the other side, before the farm, turn right onto a tractor track up the hill. When this turns left into a field, carry straight on, along the wall to a stone squeeze stile.
(8) Climb to the top of the hill, passing to the right of a copse, and follow a descending track beyond, with views over Leek. Go through a gate and follow the track through trees for a short distance; when the track bends right, take a narrow path on the left that leads through a decorative gate into open fields.
(9) Pass a bench and follow the path at it bears slightly left down the hillside. Go through a metal kissing gate at the bottom and cross the car park of the Abbey Inn to the road. Turn left and follow the road past some cottages.
(10) Cross the River Churnet and follow the road alongside the river to the main road (the last footbridge on the right offering views of Brindley’s Mill). Turn left along the main road, then left into Hamil Drive. Pass the end of Badnall Street then, before the junction with Hencroft, turn right up a cobbled alleyway.
(11) This leads uphill between walls with views of Big Mill. At the end of the alleyway you emerge into Daisy Bank. Go straight on, then turn left into Mount Pleasant, passing to the left of the graveyard of the former Methodist Chapel (now demolished). A cobbled stretch leads past Naylors Yard to Church Lane, where you turn right, past the church. At the main road, turn left back to the Market Square and the Red Lion. (S/E)
