Stage 1: Affetside to Little Lever

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OS Explorer 277 & 276

OS Landranger 109

Here we go, then, on our first stage from a high point with excellent views to both the Pennines and the Peak District as we set off down this Roman Road heading directly for Manchester.

It is a stage full of surprises as well as some verdant countryside. We cross parts of two golf courses, and the public footpaths take us through two sections of private gardens!

This is an exhilarating ramble down the eastern flank of our walk.

The Route

From Affetside Cross (1) (on the 508 Affetside bus route) near the Pack Horse Inn, turn south east along Watling Street and, after nearly three quarters of a mile, at the Roman Road / Tottington Road junction (2), turn right towards Harwood.

After a few yards the roadbears right, but go straight ahead up the unsigned Bowstone Hill Road, really a farm track.

Where the track turns left at the Hey Head Farm entrance, keep straight along a footpath, which in places, on wet day, doubles as a trickling stream.

Eventually you will come to some stone pillars near a pond, with a stile and field gate to the right. Athe pond, go straight ahead keeping left of the pond and stile and, just beyond it, the public footpath comes to a stile into a garden, then right through a succession of more gardens, then left onto the access drive.

At the large teree opposite the houses you have just skirted, turn right across a stil into Harwood Golf Course and head for the double gates on the far side of the golf course. Go across the stile (3) onto Roading Brook Road.

Turn right onto the road, which has no footway – so take care to face the traffic where possible, but use the outside of the bend always. After a right-hand bend, then a left-hand bend, turn left onto a footpath at a sharp right-hand bend (4) to join a footpath across some decking.

Cross a couple of stiles on the way to emerging across another stile (5) onto B6196, Arthur Lane at a car park for Harwood Golf Course.

Turn left and continue to the right-hand bend after about 300 yards. You can remain on Arthur Lane and continue to the junction with Bury Old Road if you want a shorter route.

However, the more interesting cross-country route is to turn sharp right (6) immediately before the right-hand bend, and the public footpath takes you through another succession of gardens to emerge onto a drive, bearing right outside Arthur Lane Barn.

Continue around Arthur’s Barn and past the drive to Hawthorn Cottage to arrive at the ornate gates to Three Gables.

There, turn left across a stile, then immediately right to move around the side of Three Gables. Cross another stile on the right-hand side of the footpath and continue then straight across a driveway beside a gate to arrive in front of a field gate (7).

Here turn left towards a reservoir, then go around to the right side of the reservoir. Shortly beyond the reservoir, at a junction of footpaths (8) on Breightmet Golf Course, bear left and aim for the footpath between the overhead electricity lines to arrive on Bury Old Road (9) (on the 509 and 510 Bury bus routes).

Turn left onto Bury Old Road, which almost immediately turns sharp right, to arrive at the junction with Arthur Lane – where those who took the shorter cut will be waiting!

Near the Arthur Lane / Bury Old Road junction outside Ainsworth (on the 509/510 Bury bus routes) turn right into the Dearden Fold farm access (10). Go through the farmyard to a field gate with bypass and into the fields, keeping left of the right-hand field boundary to cross a stile in the field corner ahead.

Keep to the right of the next field boundary initially and then, diverging slightly from the hedgeline, aim for a large brick chimney, the most northerly of the three widely-spaced, to arrive at the lowest point of the field boundary ahead.

Cross two stiles on the right bank of the stream as you descend to the factory access track, emerging alongside a disused railway bridge. Bear left across another bridge over the brook along the track and 30 yards beyond the solitary building on the left, turn left off Manor Gate Road down the path (11), with a high wire fence on the right, to the footbridge in the valley bottom.

Follow the track ahead down the valley, bearning left when emerging onto waste ground, then right between two reservoirs to join Vale Street and onto Bury road (12) (on the 94 Radcliffe / Manchester, 300 Bury – Trafford, Bury / Stockport, 471 Rochdale and 478 Bury bus routes).

Cross Bury Road, and go down Brinks Lane. Go through a gate barrier a short way down the footpath and, a quarter of a mile on, just after a brick bridge corsses the stream on the right, continue on the main path as it bears left just beyond a pond on the left.

The track rises, and , at the next junction, outside Starmount Villa (13), bear left ahead and cross Brown’s Road.

Almost immediately, bear left down the unmade track past Bradley Fold Cottage until it reaches Bradley Lane (14) by the Queen’s Hotel (on the 94 Radcliffe and Manchester bus route) and turn right towards Tonge Road.

Where Tong Road bears right at the beginning of Little Lever immediately after Duxbury Avenue on the right, tkae the track on the left (15) to cross a disused cattle grid and follow it through a swing gate past Grundy Fold Farm, across a stile at the far side of the farmyard, through a gap stile to Stopes Road (16) (on the 94 Radcliffe / Manchester and 524 Radcliffe / Bury bus routes).

Waypoint details