Ramble from Gregson Lane

Walk Waypoints

1. 1 From the car park, take the tarmac path to the right of the community centre, alongside the playground. When the path meets the cottages, turn right, and pass the historic Arrowsmith House on your left. Then turn left at the main road. At the Black Horse pub, turn right and proceed past the schools to the factory yard gate. Then turn left, following track to the right upto the railway line. Do not cross the line, but turn left over a stile, go ahead keeping the railway on the right, and admire the view north over Preston and the Bowland Moors. Cross two small stiles, and, after the 2nd stile, cut diagonally across the field to a metal kissing gate opposite a farmhouse. Exit onto a small road, turning right then left straight after the farmhouse, through metal gate.
2. 2 Continue ahead through two metal gates and past the farm buildings. Proceed along an enclosed grassy track to a wooden stile; cross this stile, and continue with the hedge and the cemetery on your right. Go over the stile next to the stream, and up a track with railings on the right. At the top of the incline, view the very old Catholic Church of St. Josephs on the right. Turn sharply left, with a stone wall on your right, and carry on ahead through a wooden kissing gate.
3. 3 At a tarmac pathway, cross straight over, with Brindle Lodge on your right, through a wooden kissing gate. Turn sharply left at the junction of the pathways, pass a stone farmhouse on the left, and follow up to the main road. Cross the road, and turn right to meet a public footpath on the left. Proceed down an enclosed path, cross two stiles, and continue with the hedge on your left until the hedgeline starts to tail round to the left. Look across the field at 90° to find a stile between 2 large trees. Cross the stile, and proceed with the holly hedge on your left. As the field starts to slope down, move diagonally across to the right to find a footbridge over a stream. Cross here, and go uphill, with the hedge on your left, and head for the stone house. Views of Hoghton to the right and Samlesbury to the left can be seen from here.
4. 4 Turn left onto a small road, and left again at the road junction for 0.8km (0.5miles). Then turn left over a wooden stile opposite the stone wall. Proceed with the hedge on the right to a stile with a field gate, and cross. Continue to follow the hedge on the right to meet another stile at a stone gate post (pipeline construction in 2002 at this point). Follow the hedgeline to a pine tree, then cut straight ahead to the middle of the wood opposite. Head down the steps to a footbridge in a valley. Cross the bridge, then bear right up the bank. Turn left between two large trees, and navigate across the field to a woodland on the other side. Drop down to another footbridge over the stream, then bear right up a grassed incline.
5. 5 Proceed ahead, with the hedge on your right, towards some houses. Cross a stile onto a track, and turn left. Then cross the stile on the right before the farmhouse, and keep left with the hedge and wall on your left. After a short distance, cross the footbridge on the left, then proceed right with the hedge on your right. Meet a wooden stile in the hedge, and cross. Continue ahead with the hedge on your right, and cross a stile onto a busy road. Cross the road, turn left, then shortly right at a gate lodge.
6. 6 Proceed through a metal gate onto a tarmac path, then through a wooden kissing gate. Continue on the path for approx. 40m. Then, at the line of trees on your right, turn right across the grass to the woodland. Drop down to a footbridge, and cross the stream. Go up the steps, and proceed, with the hedge on your right, towards the houses. Continue on the path, through a wooden kissing gate at the back of the houses, to open parkland on the right. Go through a gap in the hedge, and head for the community centre car park, with the hedgeline on your left. avoiding the cricket pitch in middle of the park.