Rostherne Route: Chapel Lane – Booth Bank – A556 – Rostherne Mere – Tatton Dale – Mere Farm – Bucklow Hill Distance: 7 miles Start: The Swan pub The Walk Leave the pub car park, cross the busy A556, and proceed past Bucklow Garage down Chapel Lane.

You soon pass the United Reformed Church and continue until, after passing a small wood, you turn right at a signpost, down a grassy track.

Then keep ahead to the road.

Turn left past a still pond and Rushford Cottage and left again at the next cottage, over a stile hidden by hawthorn.

Then go diagonally right down to the valley floor, where you cross two stiles before turning right to pass a wishing well in the next small field.

An attractive stile takes you to a farm track, which you cross, then bear left to another stile into a field.

Walk alongside a barbed wire fence, picking your way through bramble patches to a further stile, which takes you into a field.

The stone for Rostherne Church came from the quarry here, and its sand was of great value for road building.

Bonny Prince Charlie is also reputed to have been turned back in this pretty valley.

Continue up the hill for a little way, then go left over a stile into a meadow.

Keep along the hillside here, parallel with the stream, until you reach a stile which takes you into Millington Lane.

Turn left to Reddy Lane, named when sandstone grit, from the quarry, fell off the carts and was reddened by rain.

Go right along here, and right again up a track beside Booth Bank Farm.

Continue up a path it until you go through a large gap in the hedge, and turn left along the field’s side to a stile.

Turn right here, and cross two stiles as you pass Hope Cottage.

Then keep ahead over a field, going through a facing gate and then over a stile on your right.

After this, crossing a further field, and walking alongside the hedge of another, will take you back to Millington Lane.

Turn left here to the A556.

Bear left at the footpath which runs alongside a wood and cuts off a bend.

On your return to the road turn left to cross Rostherne Brook, as it gushes rapidly out of a wood and then courses more gently through meadowland to the mere.

At the church’s entrance turn left again to walk up through a lychgate.

St Mary’s church, its tower housing six heavy bells, stands above the national nature reserve and bird sanctuary of Rostherne Mere – the largest natural lake in Cheshire and more than 100 feet deep.

After admiring the view, carry on up through the churchyard (dotted with tombs of the Egerton family of Tatton Park) and out through the top gate.

You experience the village’s rare and unspoilt charm as you continue past the old schoolhouse to the road, which you cross and walk ahead towards Bucklow Hill.

Turn left down a track at the end of the first field.

Keep down the side of the field here, then go through the kissing gate and make for the far corner of the wood over to your left, after which you cross over into the next field and follow a clear path between crops to Home Farm.

Turn right at the road here and walk past, first the farm then an old cottage before you turn right into the field.

Carry straight on towards aptly-named Mere Farm.

Cross over the stream and follow the ‘rabbit track’ over the next field, with Mere Farm on your left.

Then go through the gate onto the farm road, turning right along a pretty, hidden valley, an attractive waterfall cascading from its rocky lip.

The footpath leads off to the left before the depot, and you go over the stile and over the stream.

Then climb out of the valley and cross planks beside the gate into the next field.

Follow orange bands on posts that lead over this field, before negotiating the stile into the next, and dropping down to the mere.

You then finish the walk by turning left along the winding country lane back to The Swan.