Pub Walks in Cheshire

Distance: 3 miles.

Starting point: The Hawk Inn, Haslington. The pub car park is available for customers while walking but do ask permission. Otherwise, use the public car park in Waterloo Road, a short distance to the south.

How to get there: Haslington is approximately one mile east of the junction of the A534 with the A532, on the outskirts of Crewe and 4½ miles via the A534 from junction 17 on the M6.

Terrain: Level ground with one brief uphill stretch towards the end.

OS map: Explorer 257 Crewe and Nantwich (GR: SJ738559).

The Walk:

1 Turn right out of the pub car park and left by a timbered and thatched cottage. You are now on Park Road. Go over a cattle grid and, ignoring a footpath sign on the right, cross another.

2 At the gate to Haslington Hall, with its confusing set of signs, go straight ahead until you are level with the house. Turn left and go down the drive, passing a pond on your right. Turn right onto a lane and, after passing Heathfield Farm, turn right again.

3 Go down the farm lane towards Hall o’ the Heath’s donkey paddock. Before reaching the farm’s outbuildings, leave the main track and bear right and left to a kissing gate. Pass through the wooden gate ahead, continue through a kissing gate and walk along the right-hand edge of the field to another. Continue along the right-hand edge of the next field, cross a stile and continue ahead. Go through a kissing gate and cross a flagged path. Walk ahead through the rough of a gold course, passing to the right of a pond.

4 At the end of the car park look on the left for a marker post onto a narrow path. Cross a stile and continue ahead across sheep pasture past a broken stile. Go over the next stile onto a narrow footpath with the impressive Amicia Tenement, once the home of Lord Crewe, on the left. Go through a kissing gate and continue ahead along the right-hand edge of a meadow to another.

5 Turn sharp right to climb Slaughter Hill. Keep along the right-hand edge of the field, go through a kissing gate and follow a narrow path between fields to a stile. Go ahead along an unmade road to a T-junction. Turn right, then go left into Cross Road and ahead into Waterloo Road. At its end, turn right to pass Haslington’s pretty, little Georgian church on your way back to the Hawk Inn.

From: More Pocket Pub Walks Walks in Cheshire by author David Pill, is published by Countryside Books, 3, Catherine Road, Newbury, Berkshire. Available from local bookshops, or go to www.countrysidebooks.co.uk