This walk enables you to enjoy the quiet pastures and small hamlets around Sedgwick. I’ve written it in considerable detail to help you find your way and make the most of this delightful part of Cumbria.

Park on the roadside, west of the aqueduct at Sedgwick (four miles from Kendal), grid reference 514671.

1 Walk on beneath the aqueduct, with care, and continue through the pretty village to take the second right turn. Keep on the narrow lane to pass below a railway bridge and then go by the Lakeland Maze Farm. Continue uphill between fields of maize. At the crossroads turn right and almost immediately take a signposted gate on the left. Head half right to the right corner of the pasture and beyond continue beside the hedge on your left. Go over the stile and begin climbing gently, still beside the hedge and then the wall, on your left, until you reach the top of the hill and can look down on Skettlegill.

2 Descend the grassy slope carefully to gate below. Beyond, cross the bridge over a hurrying stream and pass through two more gates, the first with a stile beside it and the second rather difficult to negotiate into a builder’s yard. Turn left and take stone steps on your right to a stone gap stile to a narrow lane. Walk right for a few steps to take a gate into a small pasture. Climb up the slope to a wooden stile into a large pasture and descend to the far left corner to an interesting step stile in the corner. Head straight up the field to a wall with a row of houses at Summerlands, beyond. Turn right and walk beside the wall on your left to a stone step stile onto a junction of tracks.

3 Ignore the left turn and go ahead along a track. Pass through a kissing gate and keep beside the fine trees of Eskrigg Wood. When you reach a grassy area with a few scattered trees, keep straight on towards a gate. Here look for narrow hedged footpath to the left of the gate. This leads delightfully on through more deciduous woodland to a signpost. Turn acute right and follow the path to a tiny gap stile into a pasture. Go ahead to the obvious stile immediately ahead and then continue to the right of a hedge, following a cattle trod. Leave it when you spot houses and stride towards a stile between the last house on the left and several houses on the right, to return to the narrow lane walked earlier, then turn left.

4 Stroll on into the attractive hamlet of Stainton, with the pleasing beck to your right. Pass the ford and cross the beck on a lovely narrow stone footbridge and carry on between the houses. Wind left with the lane and where it winds right, ignore a hidden stile in the left hedge. Keep up the lane to the next signposted stile, on the left. Beyond, bear right and head up the pasture to join another narrow lane and cross to go through the gate opposite. Both the gates are signposted but the signs are obscured by vegetation. Walk down beside the hedge on the right. Go through a kissing gate and stroll to the wall corner and cut across the corner to a broken stile in the hedge on the right.

5 Beyond, walk diagonally across the field the side of the railway, to go through a gate onto a fenced track beside the line and walk right. Cross the large green footbridge and walk along the fenced track on the opposite side to take a stile to walk up beside the hedge on your left to narrow Well Heads Lane. Turn right towards Sedgwick and at the lane end bear left to return under the aqueduct to where you have parked.

Information

Distance: 4 miles

Time: 2-3 hours

Terrain: A dry walk through lovely quiet countryside. Variety of stiles, some obscured by autumnal vegetation. A few herds of cows but showing no interest in walkers.

Map: OS Explorer 7 essential. Pencil in the route before you set off.

NB: Restrictions on space mean that this article provides a general 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