Quiet lanes, a little known wooded clough and farmland combine to make an attractive and varied walk. Good views from the higher ground.
From the visitor centre turn left down to
the bottom of the road then turn right in
front of Lymefield Terrace and go ahead
through the kissing gate to enter the
Broad Mills area. (There are information
boards at various locations explaining the
history of this area, once the site of huge
cotton mills).
1
Follow the main path through
the area. Go past the old
gas holder (circular wall)
then the mill
races and the
wheel pit on your
right to the
river’s edge.
2
Continue through the wood, up some
steps to a kissing gate, do not cross the
footbridge but climb up the steep tarmac
path. Turn left past the end of a terrace of
houses and follow the path to join a wider
lane via a gate at the cottages of
Summerbottom.
3
Follow the lane (Hodge Lane) downhill.
This lane can be muddy. Soon pass the dye
vats (once used to bleach and dye cloth and
dating from the time of the large Hodge
Printworks that once stood in this area).
4
Keep forward when a tarmac lane
comes in from the right to reach the
cottages at Hodge Fold. As the lane curves
left, just after a stream. Leave it to go
forward in front of cottage and turn right
on a path immediately beyond it, just as
the track narrows.
5
Climb, with the path, alongside a
garden fence, straight on past a chalet on
your left, to a wicket gate leading into
Great Wood. Follow the path winding
through the wood, to a bridge over the
railway, cross the bridge.
6
Immediately across the bridge go
through the stile on the right, on a path
parallel to the railway. Take the left fork and
follow the path into the clough.
7
Where the path drops down to the
stream cross the footbridge and swing to
the right, recross the steam by a second
footbridge.
8
Climb up then turn left where a path
comes in from the right, then left again
where a second path comes in,
continuing up the clough fork right before
the third footbridge (do not cross it) climb
up and turn left following clough up
stream.
9
Fork left and cross the fourth
footbridge, then climb up the steps to the
top, to emerge out of the wood onto
open land, follow the path up beside the
wooded valley on your right, go through
the stile.
10
Keep forward with the wide path and
rightwards up the slope to reach
Broadbottom Road via a kissing gate
opposite ‘The Waggon’ public house.
11
Turn right for 80 metres then left on a
footpath climbing steps through the wall
between houses to a stile leading into a
field. Go up the fenced path up the left side
of the field, over three stiles, to reach a
driveway near Home Farm.
12
Go forward for only 10 metres and over
the stile on the left. Head slightly left across
the field to a stile by a gate, near holly
bushes. Go up the right edge of the next
field, to a stile where the fence bears left
and forward to a stile by a gate on to
Littlemoor Road.
13
Turn left for 80 metres to a stile on the
right. Across this, follow the fenced path
between ponds to another stile. Then go along the right edge of the field beyond to
a stile at the far end. (A wide view opens
up across the Pennines). Over the stile turn
left then right with the field edge,
descending to the trees.
14
Steps and a further stile lead through a
hollow into a field beyond, at the signpost
bear half left towards the large ash tree to
a stile on the far side, onto Pingot Lane.
15
Cross Pingot Lane and follow the path
winding down alongside the hedge on the
left, at the gap by the oak tree bear slightly
left and drop down under the holly bushes,
continue on the path to reach a stile on to
Hague Road (a quiet farm lane). Turn right.
16
Follow Hague Road all the way to a
road, Gorsey Brow and left down to the
main road in Broadbottom. Turn left under
the railway and in a further 200 metres,
right into Lymefield.
17