The Sandstone Trail (day 1)

Wednesday 21st May 2025

“I’ve got a stone in my shoe already and we haven’t even left the house yet.”

We were half way down my father’s drive en route to the bus stop.

Grounded so far in 2025 by the hospitalisation of my elderly, seriously ill father, Nye and I have cancelled a train trip to visit friends in Spain and abandoned plans to cycle from Dieppe to Paris followed by a two-wheeled meander along the river Thouet from Samur to Niort and on to La Rochelle. At present we are dividing our time between home in the south of England and my father’s house in North Wales so we can make numerous hospital visits, organise nursing care and be on hand for the regular emergency calls. Resolved to take our fun where we can, we have planned a mini-adventure – walking Cheshire’s Sandstone Trail. The 55km (34 mile) trek takes you through some beautiful scenery, through forests and rolling hills and is apparently well marked and easy to follow (even for people who are sense of directionally challenged – like me).

We reached the local bus stop and I hoiked a miniscule but painful bit of gravel out of my left hiking boot. It was a beautiful day: calm, clear and sunny and about 19 degrees C. Perfect for walking. The No 1 Bus from Wrexham to Chester arrived on schedule and we clomped up the stairs to enjoy the views from the top deck.

“I’m hungry already.” I remarked. “I wonder if we’ll have time for coffee and a smoked salmon roll at Chester station.” It was 07.10am.

“I’d lower your expectations if I were you” warned Nye. “There’s only a tiny Costa Coffee there.”

We didn’t have time anyway as it turned out our pre-bought train tickets were for the 08.43 train to Frodsham and we were aiming to get the 07.52. We had 31km to walk today so would need to make the earliest start possible. A mad scramble ensued to replace our tickets and we just made the 07.52 train. All travel announcements were in Welsh and English as is normal on all ‘Transport for Wales’ trains. I love this. Most of our fellow passengers were beavering away over laptops and I felt suitably smug that we were heading off for a two-day trek.

“Isn’t it awful,” said Nye, “how people are expected to work on their way to work these days.”

I agreed. “I used to prefer staring out of the window or losing myself in a good book.”

The journey from Chester to Frodsham is only 13 minutes and Nye spotted ‘The Bear’s Paw’ our starting point from the train window.  The Bear’s Paw is a very pretty pub, appropriately, made of sandstone and we posed outside by the steel obelisk that marks the start/end of the trail to take mobile phone photos of each other and a gurning selfie.

The trail leads up the street, back under the railway bridge and uphill, then quite quickly you turn off to climb a beautiful uphill sand and rock path between mature trees. Full of energy and the joys of spring we bounded up to a war memorial with stunning views across to the Mersey estuary.

We were using the Official Guide to Walking Cheshire’s Sandstone Trail. We had the 2019 edition, kindly lent by my brother, along with OS maps. The trail is waymarked with distinctive yellow circles with the letter S in the shape of a boot print and arrows pointing the way. We found that a combination of all three were needed, but even this did not prevent us getting lost several times. The route has obviously changed slightly since the guidebook was last revised (or at least the edition we were using). We found that virtually all the fingerposts and destination direction signs mentioned were missing. Some were there but had been knocked over. Some of the directions were incorrect, but way-markers saved the day and on some occasions the book’s instructions were a real help when farmers had sabotaged the public right of way.

At the war memorial with a view, we sat on a big rock and opened the first of our frittata sandwiches. I needed some space in my daypack so I could strip down a layer as the sun warmed. We continued along the wide, sun dappled woodland pathway, enjoying bursts of birdsong and occasional bursts of bright rhododendrons and foxgloves. There were lots of kissing gates to negotiate. This should be known as ‘the Kissing Gate Trail.’ On occasions we caught glimpses of the Cheshire plain and the distant Welsh hills through the trees. Just before the village of Manley Common we came to Stonehouse Farm. The farmhouse was in the corner of a field and I spotted several tables and chairs set out on the grass. Further investigation revealed a whiteboard advertising tea, coffee, cakes, and fish-finger buttys. I can resist everything but temptation: “Hey Nye. Fancy tea and a scone?”  I don’t think Nye has ever refused a scone. The whiteboard advised us to ring the doorbell, but a man opened the door before I had even reached it. Within minutes we were sitting in the sun, enjoying homemade fruit scones and a big pot of tea.

As we were heading towards Delamere Forest we met a couple walking in the opposite direction and stopped to chat for ten minutes or so.

“Are you walking the Sandstone Trail?” asked the woman, seeing our backpacks.

“Yes,” I replied. “Are you?”

“Oh no. We live locally so we’re just out for a short walk, but we’ve done the Sandstone Trail before. It’s a great walk. You can just amble along and talk about the world and how to put it to rights. The scenery’s fantastic. We’re so lucky to have all this on our doorstep. Where are you heading to today?”

“Higher Burwardsley. It’s quite a long day today.”

“Ah. Are you staying at ‘the Pheasant’?”

“Yes”.

“It’s really lovely. The views are beautiful and the food’s great”

That all sounded promising. We don’t normally stay anywhere as luxurious as the upmarket ‘Pheasant Inn’. However, since we can’t go further afield at the moment, we need a treat and when I researched the trail, I failed to find a workable alternative. The Sandstone Trail’s website lists a lot of accommodation possibilities. However, it seems to assume that walkers have a back-up vehicle to chauffeur them to and from the nearest accessible point on the trail to self-catering accommodation miles away, while transporting provisions to make an evening meal and breakfast. A couple of posh hotels are mentioned but those of us using public transport and our own two feet can hardly trundle 8 miles to an overnight stop, then back again the next morning. ‘The Pheasant Inn’ is almost right on the trail.

The sun was warm by now and Nye stopped to unzip the bottoms of his zip-off trekking trousers. Naturally, this was the cue for the path to narrow 5 minutes later and become fringed with vicious nettles. I often think nettles work in tandem with brambles. The brambles snag you, so the nettles can sting you as you swerve around to try and untangle yourself.  We picked our painful way along for about an hour until we emerged near a rare signpost, appropriately reading ‘Nettleford Wood’.  We could see the radio masts near the viewpoint at Pale Heights with its stone circle and views across several counties. We knew all this as we had been up there several weeks earlier with a cycling friend, Danny. That short walk had inspired us to walk the whole trail. I quite fancied going up there again but Nye, probably sensibly, pointed out that we were running late, still had a long way to go, and should really press on down towards Gresty’s Waste. We passed a sculpture of a two-headed wild boar. One head pointed back to Frodsham the other onwards towards Whitchurch. After a brief photo-op, we continued downhill to negotiate the A54 and arrived at Gresty’s Waste car park.

At this point we got confused. The first bit was fine. Way- markings led us down a steep wooden staircase, across a valley and up the other side. We passed a sign for Urchin’s Kitchen and came to an area where lots of conifers were being felled. The instructions in the guide seemed to bear no relation to what we saw on the ground.

“The path meanders between huge sandstone boulders” I read out.

“Do they mean these” asked Nye, jabbing his walking pole at a small grey rock jutting from the centre of the path.

“That’s a rock, not a boulder. And the path is supposed to zigzag between new conifers plantations, but they’ve all been cut down. We’re supposed to find a fingerpost for the Sandstone Trail and another one signposted to Summertrees and Beeston.”

We finally found a Sandstone Trail fingerpost lying on its side but the Summertrees and Beeston one wasn’t there. We followed a sparse trail of way markers between the felled conifers and came to T-junction onto a wide gravel track. There were no way markers or signposts. We spotted two women, each with a gaggle of dogs approaching from opposite directions and waited to ask them both if they knew which way the Trail led. Neither did and all the dogs got into a tangled mess of leads as they sniffed and barked at each other. One of the dog walkers said she was heading to a carpark nearby and suggested we might find a map-board or signpost there, so we followed her. Half way up the slope, we came to another junction with a sandstone trail marker, leading back the way we had come. Followed the track back down and finally picked up on both way-markers and the book’s instructions again.

It had gone 2pm by now and our second frittata sandwich beckoned. We stopped at the top of a slope in a fresh green field, with glossy horses grazing over a fence and a view down over the Cheshire plain and ate our sandwich and fruit and swigged from our water bottles.

Onwards and soon the distinctive shape of castle-topped Beeston Crag came into view, looking far nearer than it actually was. The sun still shone warmly, but we met another dog walker who advised us that the woodland path ahead was really nettle clogged, so we stopped at the edge of a field to zip the legs of our trousers back on. The nettles were actually shoulder-high so we lifted our bare arms over our heads to pass.  We emerged close to Wharton’s Lock on the Shropshire Union Canal and stopped at a bench dedicated to a couple who, according to the plaque, hoped future walkers would enjoy the setting as much as they did. We toasted them with our remaining warm water and nibbled on some nuts and dried fruit. Nye had packed what he thought were dried figs but turned out to be chestnuts left over from last Christmas. It was an idyllic spot with a stone bridge and a backdrop of Beeston Castle.

Wonderful views over rippling green fields spangled with bright buttercups as we approached Beeston. The Castle and Estate is run by English Heritage. It was built in 1225 but the site was an Iron-Age hill fort before that. It is certainly worth further exploration another time, but it was by now 17.30 and the castle was closed so we had to content ourselves with a quick gawp at the roadside gatehouse. More fields and buttercups as we approached the Peckforton Hills. We glimpsed Peckforton Castle peeping up from a forest-clad summit. Unlike Beeston, this is not the genuine article but a Victorian copy.  We arrived at the promised 4-way fingerpost but it was leaning at a jaunty angle and the direction for the way we needed was missing.

“We must be nearly in Burwardsley by now. My feet are really aching and I’ve got a blister developing on my left heel.”

“My feet are killing me too,” said Nye. And my right quad is starting to get painful.”

I was also sweaty and starving. We were walking along a pleasant but seemingly endless uphill path through trees skirting the Peckforton Hills. Nye’s watch showed that we had walked 31km. It was 18.30 and thoughts of the Pheasant Inn, tea, and a hot shower overpowered any further appreciation of the trail’s natural beauties. The track became a tarmacked lane and we spotted a huge model of a pheasant at the roadside.

“We’re here,” cried Nye and my heart leapt.

Alas, the pheasant, proved to be a cruel decoy and we staggered into the real Pheasant Inn ten minutes later. The outside tables were busy with happy folk enjoying the evening sunshine and glorious views.

“Hello,” I said, giving my name at reception. “We have a reservation for dinner, bed and breakfast.”

“Are you sure?” said the young man stationed there. “I can’t see anything in that name. Are you sure you haven’t got the wrong night?”  The words any exhausted hiker dreads. Fortunately, his sharper colleague spotted our booking before I even had time to search for the confirmation email on my phone.

We were shown to a beautiful room where the sunlight streamed onto a vast, comfortable bed and lit the path to a large bathroom. I asked if we could defer our table reservation for dinner from 20.00 to 20.15. Sighing in relief, we pulled off our crippling stinky boots and stretched our aching toes. We put the kettle on and settled down to scoff the entire stock of complimentary biscuits. After a swift but blissful hot shower and change of clothes I felt human enough to hobble downstairs for dinner of humous, veg pakhoras and fish pie accompanied by a large glass of white wine.

• Stats for the day
• Km walked: 33
• Steps: 47,000
• Floors climbed: 821
• Activity minutes: 671 (That’s got to be about 6 weeks’ worth.)