[1] With your back to the front door of the Swan, Turn Left back toward Wrenbury and walk out of the village taking the first footpath on your left. The footpath goes diagonally right across the field uphill to enter the next field across a stile. The path then descends towards the canal bridge ahead.
[2] Cross the canal and turn left walking along an attractive stretch of the Llangollen Canal to the next bridge where we exit the towpath and cross the canal again. Follow the lane to the first bend in 50 yds where a stile leads ahead across the field to enter and leave a copse and then diagonally to a stile onto Wirswall Road.
[3] Turn left down the quite lane to the next footpath sign on the right and then follow the line of the ditch on your right to a stile and onto a track, which can be muddy after rain.Turn right onto the track away from Marbury and cross the ditch by a sleeper bridge turning right to cross the stile into the field which rises to a stile into the lane again.
Turn left and follow the road to the Wirswall Village boundary sign, where a stile from a field entrance on the left gives access to a field. Head to the high point of the field where the stile and route ahead is apparent. The stile exit is in the direction right of the half timbered gable of Wickstead Hall in the distance.
[4] Here you will find a welcoming picnic table and seat. Take a break and admire the view down to Marbury Church, Quisley Meres and Marbury Big Mere. Continue south past the hall entrance and past Tower House ignoring the first footpath on the left but turn down the driveway signed as the South Cheshire Way, which is 100m further on. Turn left as Wickstead Old Hall farm is approached and go throught the yard following the route to where there is a crossing of paths.
[5] Take the left, north option, up the field and pass a hollow on the right then head toward the white house and Marbury in the distance, contouring round the hill, (Buttermill Hill on the map). Head for the left of the wood ahead and follow the line of stiles and path alongside Marbury Big Mere, then follow round the end of the mere toward the churchyard. Where the way is blocked by a ditch, turn toward the village and cross the ditch to enter the churchyard by a kissing gate onto an extension of the church grounds which has benches and magnificent views.
(A) Marbury Church is a 14th century sandstone church where stonemasons have let loose their fertile imagination on the gargoyles.. The lych gate is a memorial to those who fell in World War I and is inscribed "Ye who live on, mid-English pastures green. Remember us and think of what might have been"
Take some time to admire the work of the medieval masons and exit by the Lychgate and down the track to the car park of the Swan.