[1] Turn right out of the Madeley Centre, pass Furnace Lane, a convenience store and a butchers; turn right into Moss Lane, after 100 yards, after the converted mill.
The mill is an early 19th Century building, used for grinding corn, then cheese making and in 1984 it was converted to luxury apartments.
Turn right into River Lea Mews; left into Lea Lane and to the end, where the gate in front reads: ‘United Utilities, Treatment Works, Madeley’.
Cross the stile on your right and follow the well-trodden path round, keeping the works on your left. When the works end, carry on in same direction, over a brick water tunnel pipe and stile and into an avenue of trees. Emerge from the avenue and continue in same direction to meet the hedge row in top right corner of field.
Here cross a double set of stiles, wind right and then sharp left up the bank. With your back to the stile head up the field, in a northwesterly direction, to the right of the middle one of three wooden telegraph poles (following the line of trees and bushes in a slight depression up the field).
[2] Cross a stile directly ahead in the hedge and turn half left to merge half way down the field with the railway line at a bridge; cross it and turn right over the stile. Follow the railway line on right over two fields, and two stiles, heading to a farm (Wrinehill Mill Farm), to emerge on to lane.
Turn left and then take the right fork (passing a horse ménage on your right), and a mill stone reading ‘Wrinehill Mill Farm, Hattons’ and mill pond on left. Head past the white farm building on your right and take the first turning right over a concrete drive through the galvanised gate and follow the track for 100 yards, before turning left as the wooden railings on left end. Keep the fence to your left, work your way through the horse paddocks, look for unwaymarked foot bridge ahead (but do not cross it!), and pass to its right into a narrow field. Keep the stream to the left and when you pass another footbridge on your left over the stream, veer half right and cross a waymarked footbridge.
Turn half left and emerge into field, carry on in same direction, (a northwesterly direction) heading for gap where the hedge line on the right ends and trees are to the left, (there is a circular concrete inspection unit with a square metal hatch) turn right over the stile just above. Keep the hedge to your right and head straight up bank to the right corner of the hedge line on the skyline. Cross stile (ignore the footpath to the left), keep the hedge to your right for 200 yards, then cross a stile and turn left and head upwards between two barbed wire fences; then down to a wooden gate, half right, over a stile and into Checkley Lane and over the stile opposite.
[3] Head up the hill in the centre of this field; a pool is seen on the right; the footpath is along the top far side of the pool, follow it round and up to, and over a Railway Bridge. With the stile behind you, head straight ahead; using a white cottage with two white chimneys as your marker (only the roof and chimneys can be seen from the stile
On a clear day Mow Cop folly can be seen in the distance behind it.
Cross the stile here into Den Lane. Turn left and then cross a stile after 10 yards on the right next to a metal gate (hidden by the hedge and just after a driveway). Keep the hedge on your right for 200 yards and reach a stile with two waymarkers.
[4] For the shorter walk, turn right and head for the gap about 50 yards down from the field corner. Follow the wooden railings on your left, over three stiles and left down to a road. Turn right to The Hand and Trumpet. At the top of the road (signed Cracow Moss), turn left along the A531 for 200 yards and turn right up the driveway to Ravenshall Farm to pick up the directions at [7].
If you wish to walk the full route, head downhill, half left, over a stile and on in the same direction, passing to right of gorse bushes. Turn left and cross a stile by a green gate and follow the well-trodden track as it goes between trees and bushes, passes a Mock Tudor Black and White building on the right to reach a stile; after 50 yards cross a footbridge and stile on the right. Turn left and walk parallel with the wire fence on your left.
As you walk on by a galvanised trough on your left, look away to right and Betley Mere [a SSSI] can be seen through the trees.
Go through a gateway, over a footbridge and then a stile, next to a gate, the path goes half right towards the trees but then turns left to a gap in the far corner negotiated over, not under, a boardwalk.
Head straight ahead through tufty grass and after 200 yards emerge on to a green grassy trackway and turn right to cross a stile and 2 footbridges. Turn left and head for wooden gate and wooden kissing gate in a tree-lined avenue. After 200 yards, turn right into Common Lane. After 300 yards, just past a telegraph pole, take the stile on left into a field.
[5] Head half left to pass between the 3rd and 4th telegraph poles from the right - heading for a stile to the left of woodland. Cross the stile, over a footbridge and sharp left to walk on the woodland edge for 200 yards. At a well-trodden crossroads go straight ahead and walk between a barbed wire fence on the right and a hedge on left. Follow it around to the right and drop down to a wagon track on left and over a gate barrier; After 50 yards turn left over an X stile and another stile, into a field, and continue in the same direction to a stile and footbridge on the far side. Carry on in the same direction to the top of the hill in this large field, at the top you will see a fishing lake and farmstead to your right - the footpath is through the pair of galvanised gates to left of farmstead and cross into Waybutt Lane. (If the field has crops, skirt round the edge of the field; keeping the hedge to your right until you get to the pair of galvanised gates.)
Turn right and follow the lane for half a mile, passing Anchorage Farm, Border Fisheries Fishing Lake, Lakeview, West Heath Farm, and The Elms Barn Conversions and Farm. At the Stop Sign, take care and cross the busy A531 into Black Firs Nature Reserve, [www.staffswildlife.org.uk/page/black-firscranberry- bog] an SSSI, owned by Staffordshire Wildlife Trust. Follow the well-trodden track along the right hand side of the woodland and cross a stile into a field. Follow a line of three trees to a telegraph pole in the far hedge and cross the stile there. Walk straight on, past a concrete slab shed on left, cross another stile; straight across this narrow field, through a gap in the hedge and turn sharp right to follow the hedgerow on your right. Carry on in the same direction for half a mile to reach Back Lane.
[6] Turn left, walk up road for 400 yards, and when woodland on right ends, follow the footpath sign into the wood on your right (about 50 yards past a barred entrance). Continue straight across to take the stile into a field opposite. With the stile to your back, walk ahead, parallel with the woodland below on the left. Head for a white building on the horizon. As soon as you pass the wire enclosed tree on the left and the wire enclosed pond on the right, turn sharp left and head for a white chalet type house, overlooking a lake. Keep it and its wall on your left and continue down along an old wagon track to the A531.
Turn left and walk one mile through Betley, passing The Swan, the Post Office and General Stores. 200 yards before The Hand and Trumpet, turn left up the waymarked farm track to Ravenshall Farm.
[7] Pass between the farm buildings and after 100 yards take the stile on the left, into the field and keep the hedge line on your left. After 200 yards, follow the old wagon track between trees and bushes, to emerge into a field. Carry on in the same direction uphill to the far hedgerow and cross the stile 25 yards in from the right hedgerow. Continue in the same direction to a double stile mid-way in the next tree and hedge line. Turn half right and head for double stiles in holly hedgerow about 250 yards up. With the stiles behind you, carry on in same direction, over another double set of stiles, and a stile into a wood and go straight on following the narrow path downhill and ignoring the broader track to the immediate left and right.
At the corner of the wood, go over the stile, turn right, ignore the stile on your immediate right, and walk 20 yards to cross a stile ahead, before turning left into farm lane and passing the ruins of Bowsey Wood Water Mill.
(A) This is a corn mill that had stopped production several years before the Second World War. The water wheel and all its ironwork were taken out for munitions for the war.
After 100 yards, cross stile on the right, turn half left and follow the depression made by the old wagon track, passing Bowsey Wood Farm up above on the left. As you crest the rise, see a small converted chapel a field away - head for this, and cross the stile to the right into a lane. After 200 yards, turn right onto tarmac, and then in 15 yards, turn left onto a trackway (passing semidetached cottages on the left and a green storage unit on the right) and follow this for half a mile.
(B) The steep slopes on the left lead up to all that remains of Heighley Castle. Built sometime between 1215 and 1233 by Henry de Audley under charter from King Henry III. It was intended as a Marches Fortress against the Welsh. It was demolished in 1644 under instructions from the Parliamentarians in The Civil War to stop it being used as a Royalist stronghold.
[8] 100 yards before a farm house ahead, take the gate on the right into some woodland. Follow the winding, well trodden track through the woodland over three footbridges. The path then veers left and five yards before a minor road (Heighley Lane), turn sharp right uphill through the wood to emerge through a gate onto the A531. The road opposite is Heighley Castle Way – take the footpath on the left, behind a blue sign ‘Unsuitable For Heavy Goods Vehicles’. Follow this path gently uphill for half a mile as it runs parallel with Heighley Castle Way, ignoring any tracks left or right. On reaching a stile (a green national grid gas substation is on the right), turn half left towards a white building.
(C) This is Madeley Manor Nursing Home. The land was purchased in 1822 by Lord Crewe and built for his daughter, Lady Emma, and her husband Foster Cunliffe in Regency Style as the new Madeley Manor.
Then pass two garage units and a wooden fence on left (ignoring the waymarker to the left) and turn right up the Nursing Home’s driveway. Cross Heighley Castle Way, turn left, and follow the road downhill. At the bottom, the road turns sharp right (just after College Close cul-de-sac on your right), head across the road (with care), to pass to the right of a post box and through a gap in a laurel hedge, then turn half right and follow the well-trodden path above the Bryn Wood Estate on your left. The path exits into New Road through a squeezer stile; turn left and on to the Madeley Centre in 300 yards (passing Woodside, Holm Oak Drive and Greenmeadows Road).