Friday 8th September 2023

Friday 8th September 2023

Friday Evening Guided Walks: Greenmount / Hawkshaw

On a beautiful warm and sunny evening, nineteen walkers set off from the Green behind Greenmount Church for the last Friday evening guided walk of this summer. With our backs to the church, we made our way across the road, following it round and down to Greenmount Golf Course. We took the path across the course then turned right up the track to the car park. After passing the club house we turned left to follow the road across the top of the course and up to Holly Mount Primary School. After passing the school, we turned left and walked to visit Holly Mount Orchard, a volunteer-led community orchard, where we admired the ripe apples.

We then took the footpath on the right of the orchard and walked down the field, crossed the stream on the footbridge then followed the path up the hill. We turned right after the stile and followed the muddy and overgrown path up to the tarmac track where, after crossing another stile, we turned right to descend on the track through the welcome shade of the trees with the stream below us to our right.

When we reached Bottoms Hall cottages, we kept following the path straight ahead as it wound gently upwards through the trees and into a field. We kept ascending gently through the field bearing right to cross an awkward stile before crossing the next field, passing the pylon and crossing the stile on our right to take the descending path through the woodland with the mill pond below us on our right. Crossing the stream, the waterfall on our left which had been in full flow just a week earlier was now barely a trickle after the hot weather. We continued to follow the path round onto Two Brooks Lane, going straight across,  to emerge by Hawshaw tennis club. We walked up past the clubhouse then turned right to follow the path down crossing the stream before ascending back up through the field, through the gate and up to Bolton Road passing the churchyard on our left.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After turning right along the A676 we crossed the road and took the tricky narrow path on our left. After squeezing through the stones at the top of the path we kept straight on through the field by the hedge and across the stile on our right. We then turned left to walk down through the field as the sun was setting and across the stile to the track. We turned right to follow Spenleach Lane back to Loe Bridge and Bolton Road which we crossed to take the footpath opposite. We then headed back along the side of the field across the stile and followed the path under the trees to emerge back at Greenmount Golf Club car park. As it turned to dusk we retraced our steps back to the Green behind the church to finish our walk of just under four miles.