Umpteen Stiles Under The Edge

A circular stroll, about 3˝km (say 1 hour 30 mins) avoiding the worst winter mud. Low level, undulating field paths and lanes, some road walking (take great care!) and steep short slopes. Lots of stiles, some awkward.

Please keep dogs under control and leave gates as you find them. If in doubt close the gate. OS map 24, White Peak useful and obtainable locally. Admire the restoration of an old barn and field walls along the route.

Start and finish: the War Memorial outside the post office. Map ref: SK 199 718.

1. Cross Main Street and up the tarmac lane towards Longstone Garage. Almost immediately go through the kissing gate to the right across the small green known as Feemouth Yard.

2. Enter the churchyard at the second kissing gate and go half left between the church and the tall ancient stone cross and arrive at the squeezer stile.

3. Turn left along the road (Beggarway Lane), immediately past a large house (Church Croft) turn left again into a muddy lane. Go straight up this lane to a farm gate and squeezer stile leading into a large field. Different and varied footpath waymarkers distinguish this spot - all point in our direction, the yellow arrows correctly signify a public footpath, the white arrows leading eventually to a concession path. The arm on the finger post points exactly to a squeezer and into the next field. Continue in the same direction via a small gate into Stanshill Dale.

4. Walk up the bottom of the dale, north towards Longstone Edge. Towards the end of the dale follow the track around to the right, keeping field walls to the left and pause to read the stewardship notice here. The concession path now starts, a useful link path and a generous gesture by the Cox family who farm this land.

5.Go uphill from the sign to a prominent gateway in a cross wall at the end of the trees on the right of the concession path. Go through the gateway across a narrow field and into a long downhill field between a low stone post and a wall. Follow the wall down to the bottom of the hill and at the end go half right to a farm gate (and stewardship sign) into Hardrake Lane (more of a track, now). Turn left and go towards Longstone Edge.

6. Follow the lane to the end (farm gate and squeezer) go into the large field and continue straight ahead for one hundred metres. Where the wall on the right bends away, follow this round, skirting a depression and old mine shaft, go to a farm gate and through the stone stile leading into a stony track in the next field.

7. Follow this track down to an old stone barn on the right. Immediately after locate a very awkward squeezer in the wall behind the barn, about half way between barn and farm gate in the field corner.

8. Go through this squeezer and follow the direct and almost straight path to Great Longstone, initially following the boundary wall of Underedge Farm (on the left) and then across two more fields, across Hardrake Lane and three more fields to a walled lane or track. Continue in the same direction to Church Croft bungalow and via Beggarway Lane, the, churchyard and Main Street to the war memorial.