Whitchurch Walkers Route 9: Working Up a Head of Steam

Walk directions

1. Start

   From the Civic Centre walk down the High Street to the clock. Turn right through the pedestrian area and turn left into Watergate Street. Now follow the Shropshire Way up Watergate Street and past the Dodington Lodge Hotel.

2. Step 2

   After the mini-roundabout cross over and walk down Edgeley Road. You will go under a railway bridge (Crewe – Shrewsbury) after which you take a footpath on your left.

3. Step 3

   Follow the path with the hedgerow to your left and into the Waymills Industrial Estate. Take the path on the right just past the Grocontinental cold stores. The path crosses a brook. Turn left and follow the path between the brook and the Grocontinental yard. The path emerges on to Station Road beside a bungalow. Cross the road and turn right. Continue past the roundabout towards ‘Oldfields’ the first house of a group. Take the path to the left immediately after the brick wall.

4. Step 4

   Follow the path through several fields along the hedgerow – NB the path changes sides after the first field – and you will arrive at, and cross, a railway bridge with Staggs Brook running parallel to the track.

5. Step 5

   At Yockings Gate turn right and then take the footpath immediately after the farm buildings. Cross the field going slightly to your left towards a gate and stile on the far side. These should become visible as you go over the rise. On reaching Mile Bank Road, turn left and then right into Terrick Road. Follow Terrick Road for about 800 metres passing Terrick Hall and the Golf Club car park. Just after a house on the left you take the path through the gateway on the outside of the left hand bend.

6. Step 6

   You now cross the Hill Valley Golf Course passing to the left of the pond and then following the line of a ditch, until you reach another pond. Continue along the tarmac path until it starts to move away from the hedge line. Leave the path and follow the hedge, looking out for a footpath running down the bank on the right. Cross a stile and turn left on to the tarmac lane and go straight across the A49 and along another lane opposite.

7. Step 7

   As you enter a field look for, and cross, the stile diagonally on your left. Go down the green lane and continue along the hedge line through several fields. In the field by a farmhouse, walk diagonally to your right towards the stile in front of the bridge under the old railway line to Chester.

8. Step 8

   You reach Grindley Brook by crossing the Llangollen branch of the Shropshire Union Canal. The walk now continues to the left along the canal towpath past the well-known locks. You now follow the Shropshire Way and Sandstone Trail along the canal for about a mile crossing a lift-bridge on to the short canal mooring arm towards Whitchurch.

9. Step 9

    Follow the signs to ‘Town’, either direct or via Green-fields Nature Reserve on the other side of the valley. When you reach the road at Sherry-mill Hill, go straight across, through the car park and then through or round the fenced-off part of Jubilee Park. Go up the steps, turn right and at the mini-roundabout turn left into Pepper Street, which joins the High Street just below the Civic Centre.