Route:

1 Exit Mill Yard near the bowling green and cross the footbridge. Turn right, walk along the riverside then on a path below a sycamore tree and through a metal gate between barns. Follow the lane to a gate then continue along a field path and over a ladder stile. Turn right onto the road and after 300 yards right again, into Beckmickle Ing. Owned by the Woodland Trust, this ancient semi-natural woodland is designated an area of Landscape Value. Walk alongside one of the prettiest parts of the River Kent enhanced in spring by birdsong and bluebells.

2 At the end of the woods, turn left and walk up a track to Hagg Foot Farm. Turn left onto the road and after 200 yards right, up stone steps and over a stile signed Side House. Ascend the steep slope diagonally in the direction shown by the fingerpost and past a tree in the middle of the field. Follow the track to Side House. Turn left (after visiting a pretty waterfall on the right), cross the beck, through a gate and along a track. At the corner of conifer woods turn right onto an uphill tarmacked road into woodland. Keep left to pass sheds and Cwtch (‘hug’ in Welsh) Cottage. Keep to the footpath above the bungalow and go through a high gate into Dorothy Farrer’s Spring Wood Nature Reserve.

3 At the bottom of the wood, cross a beck, go through a high gate, turn right to go back into the woods through another high gate and uphill through the woods. Follow the waymarked path to the top of the woods and around to the right along a boardwalk. Where a waymarker points right towards a steep downhill path, turn left and go through a wall gap into Mike’s Wood. In 1993 Friends of the Lake District planted hundreds of trees and named the new wood after their lead officer Mike Houston.

4 Follow the path marked by white-topped posts past a viewpoint with a wooden bench. Turn left onto a walled path and left after the field gate onto a concrete track. Turn left at the road, over a cattle grid then right through a metal (Thirlmere aqueduct) gate into Craggy Wood. This wood is owned by the Lake District National Park Authority and has recently been approved as an Asset of Community Value following concern over its future maintenance should it be sold. Follow the path uphill to the top right corner of the wood and around to the left along the top. Continue to the end of Craggy Woods, over the wall stile and turn left. Descend steeply over a stile and through a gate to meet a road. Turn left, walk along the riverside and leave the road onto the footpath signed Staveley Village. Walk past the weir and turn right over the footbridge then back to the Mill Yard.