Turn right as you leave the pub car park, then go left down sloping Mill Lane to pass the end of Budworth Pool.

Here, turn left over a way-marked stile and walk alongside the lake for a short way until you turn right over another stile.

Cross two fields, then turn left down a sunken, green lane.

At Park Road turn left, then right over a stile way-marked to Whitehall Lane.

Yellow arrows point the way clearly as you cross the field to a stile to the left of a white house.

Turn left to another stile, then cross the field diagonally, skirting the wood, to a gate in the farthest corner.

Turn right for a short way up a deep, sandy lane, lying snugly between hedge-topped banks, before turning left down a well-worn track.

Where this forks keep left over a stream and walk uphill.

Turn right down the first path after White Hall, way-marked the Coach road, and follow the wood’s edge until you pass a pond and ascend to a converted farm.

Then continue along the track to Beech Road and turn left to the Coach Road.

Cross this and keep straight on.

Keep on this track to the wood’s end.

Then turn left to follow its perimeter along a winding path until you eventually go over a stile on your right and continue in the same direction to Oulton Park School.

Turn right along the road.

The weather vane depicting fox with flaring brush stands out atop Hill Top Farm as you walk down to Oulton Mill and its attractive, reed-fringed mill pool.

Continue uphill, passing the Mill Pool Restaurant and a pleasant picnic spot, before turning left at the crossroads, towards Rushton.

Immediately after passing Brownhills Cottage, attractively thatched and dating from 1675, turn right over a stile.

Cross the field diagonally and you will soon spot a stile in the facing hedge.

Cross the following field diagonally too, to a stile in the hawthorn hedge.

Again, walk diagonally up the next field to another stile, this time beside a steel gate, then follow the barbed-wire fence up to Moss Hall Farm.

Keep ahead past farm buildings and down Moss Hall Lane, where a line of poplars act as a windbreak when a stiff breeze lashes across this predominantly agricultural area.

Notice the Victorian post box as you reach Dogmore Lane and turn right, then left over a stile.

Cross the two fields here to a corner stile onto Kings Lane, and turn right.

After passing a wood turn left over a stile before Parkwall Farm.

There’s a good view of Oulton Lake and the motor racing circuit as you drop down to a crumbling wall.

Turn right beside the wall to the wood’s end, negotiating six stiles, the last by a faded, white-painted gate, then follow the right-hand hedge to a stile and pretty stream.

Turn left along the road, passing the Lower Farm of the Darley Hall estate and continuing alongside the stream, its banks awash with wood anemone and celandine.

After passing Home Farm, its neat buildings grouped round a cobbled yard, turn right over a stile by an oak, its bole gnarled as an elephant’s foot.

Pass a telegraph pole before dropping down to another stile, then climb uphill to a facing stile between two gates.

Keep the hedge on your left as you continue over two more fields, then keep ahead down Booth Avenue to the main road (Vicarage Lane).

Turn right here, passing the attractive Millennium Green and perhaps visiting the church on your way back to the Red Lion.

Start: Red Lion (SJ 598 653)

Route: Budworth Pool – Park Road – Coach Road – Little Budworth Common – Oulton Mill – Dogmore Lane – Oulton Lake – Little Budworth.

Distance: 6.5 miles

By Car: Take the A54 from Chester towards Middlewich. Turn right onto the A49, then first left, and left again at the gates of Oulton Park. The Red Lion faces the church in Little Budworth village.

NB: Restrictions on space mean this article provides a summary of the route. It is advisable for anyone who plans to follow the walk to take a copy of the relevant Ordnance Survey map