A short walk from my front door is a portion of the Guild Wheel. From where I join I can walk east and soon get to Fulwood Row, if I walk west I reach Fernyhalgh Lane. Both of these roads allow me to traverse the M6 motorway and then onward into the mixed countryside beyond.

I’ve pondered a few different ways of depicting the matrix of walks that are available from this local area and decided on a few of guides with lots of descriptions of the available variations. Think of the variations as a menu of options that can be added on, or taken away, depending on your day. If you do venture into this area my advice to you is to follow the lines on the map and follow the lines on the ground. There are lines on the ground that are delightful but aren’t on the map, there are lines on the map that aren’t that well defined on the ground.

This walk is shown as starting on Fulwood Row at about the point where it goes under the motorway. There are normally plenty of places to leave a car here if that’s your method of transport.

While the adjacent houses are relatively modern, ours was built right at the end of the last century, the routes are mostly ancient. Fulwood Row and the initial footpath is clearly visible on the archive maps from the 1840s as are the other major landmarks of this walk. The most significant landmark that isn’t on the maps from the 1840s is the M6 motorway, that wouldn’t arrive until the 1950s.

This is a long post, there’s a lot more to describe in the this environment, particularly one where the old is intersected by the new.

Our walk begins on Fulwood Row which we follow under neither the M6, up the hill on the other side, past the Guild Wheel exit on the right continuing on to Clock House Farm. Continue across the front of the farm buildings, none of which appear to be used for farming anymore. Beyond the farm buildings you’ll come to gate with a stile a little further along. Hop over the stile and onto a bridleway running alongside several fields. These fields are regularly visited by Roe Deer and Hare, there’s also a good selection of birds including a local Tawny Owl. Buzzards nest in the trees on the other side of the field.

At the end of the fields you’ll come out onto Cow Hill, carry on straight, along the road a while further until you see a stile on the left. Walk across the field along the hedgerow to another stile. Once over the stile turn left on the road where the lane to Clarkson’s Fold is visible. You’ll also notice the local, normally patriotic, flagpole. Travel along the lane, through the farm, out the other side, across a field, over a small footbridge, across another field, over a stile and onto a narrow tree lined lane. You can’t see any of this from the farm gate because the footbridge is down a slope and hidden behind some trees, also, the paths across these fields aren’t really visible on the ground. When I last went over the stile, just this morning, it was broken which made for an interesting scramble. Turn left one over the stile.

This lane is another one of those ancient routes that used to be vital links between small communities in a time before cars. From Cow Hill this lane goes out to Haighton and the farms beyond, we’ll leave the many routes beyond here for another guide. Head down the hill around the back of a house on the left and onto a road. Walk past some fancy gates and across a bridge where you’ll see a path on the right alongside Savick Brook. The brook flows through Preston, out the other side and into the Ribble, for the latter part of its journey it becomes the Ribble Link Canal. There are several places where you can walk alongside the brook, I have a plan to string a route together at some point.

After the bridge the path travels alongside the grounds of Haighton House. In the spring and early summer the stream is banked with successive wild flower; Snowdrops to Bluebells, Wild Garlic to Campions and Cow Parsley. Sadly, in recent years, this area has become completely engulfed by Himalayan Balsam by the mid summer. While we are talking about alien species it’s worth noting that this is also the stomping ground of a local flock of Ring-necked Parakeet with their distinctive call.

The path takes a few twists and turns here, but if you follow the path on the ground you won’t go wrong, and will arrive at a footbridge over which you will join the white-fence lined driveway of the House. The wood here is known locally as Bluebell Wood, on the map is titles Fulwood Park Wood, some people also call it Squire Anderton’s Wood, but that’s somewhere else. I have a morning ritual in these wood, this is a headphone free zone, the birdsong is so varied that it would be a shame not to listen in, besides there’s good evidence that birdsong is good for our mental health. Is there anything like the chorus of Blackbird, Wren, Song Thrush and Robin accompanied by Nuthatch, Treecreeper, Gold Crest and many more.

At the end of the driveway you’ll exit through some gates onto the road. A little further along there’s a path off to the right just before the road crosses back over the brook to the left. The house on the hill is called The Mount which is apt. Here we are on Fernyhalgh Lane which takes us to Ladywell, a place of pilgrimage since at least the 11th century. There’s an interesting legend about a sailor who, in danger of shipwrecked, prayed to the Virgin Mary and received instructions to create a shrine at a place with a spring called Fernyhalgh, hence the name Ladye Well. It’s also worth noting that the name Fernyhalgh is a combination of two Anglo-Saxon words – “ferny” meaning old and “halgh” meaning shrine. This place may have been a place of pilgrimage even before Christianity came to England. Ladywell and Ladyewell, with and without an “e”, are both used on signs in the local area. There’s still a chapel, retreat and shrine on the site which you will see on the right as you walk up the cutting past the outflow from the spring.

Just beyond the entrance to the shrine grounds there is a small gate on the left with a path across a field. At the far end of the field there’s a stile. To the left you’ll see a path across another field and a footbridge over the motorway. On the other side is a path that runs alongside the motorway back towards Fernyhalgh Lane. The houses here sit on the site of some of the skirmishes prior to the Battle of Preston during the Second English Civil War. There’s a sculpture that commemorates this not far from the end of the footbridge, we aren’t going that way today.

As the path nears the bottom of the bank there’s a t-junction, to the left will take you across a footbridge and up on to Fernyhalgh Lane, we’ll go right and rejoin the flow of Savick Brook. Further along cross the footbridge over the brook to the left and up onto the Guild Wheel again notable by a return to tarmac. The Guild Wheel will take you back to your transport if you head left (you will get to your transport if you head right but not for many miles). Having crossed Fernyhalgh Lane for the last time you’ll pass a local landmark known as Peter’s Garden which commemorates Peter Ward who was one of the driving forces behind the Guild Wheel, following a lifetime of cycling.

Now, the variations, where to begin?

At the start of the walk, rather than following the route onward to Clock House Farm you could take a right turn on the Guild Wheel. This is a good walking alternative, but opens up another set of walks which I’ll cover in another guide. There’s also a couple of options on the left of Fulwood Row, one is almost opposite the Guild Wheel junction, this will take you across some fields and drop you onto Fernyhalgh Lane near to the motorway and cut out most of the walk. The other option on the left is just before Clock House Farm, this takes you down another ancient pathway to the footbridge over Savick Brook near to Haighton House, this route can be very muddy, but is a good option for a shorter walk.

Once you’ve travelled across the fields beyond Clock House Farm and you drop onto the road at Cow Hill rather than continuing straight on, you can turn left. The road will bring you to a right-hand turn and another lane on the left. If you follow the lane down the hill it will bring you to bridge over Savick Brook with the path off to the right immediately before it. In the same way, you can skip the lane down to Clarkson’s Fold and continue on the road to the same lane from the other direction.

As you come through the fancy gates at the end of the Haighton House driveway you can extend the walk a bit by heading up the hill to Shepherd’s Hill Farm, walk through the farm and out the other side from where you’ll see a path off to the left. This path will bring you around the back of Ladywell Shrine. You can also continue a bit further before heading back to the footbridge over the motorway.

At the end of the driveway for Haighton House you can shorten the walk a bit by turning left across the bridge over Savick Brook. This is Fernyhalgh Lane, continue along until you get to where the Guild Wheel crosses.

Another variant of this walk comes as you head up the hill past the Ladywell Shrine, rather than heading left across the field you can carry on a bit further where there’s another footbridge across the motorway. The map shows a path running from the end of the bridge alongside the motorway, that is one of those paths that’s not very well marked on the ground and you’ll find yourself tramping through waist high vegetation. To avoid the tramping you can carry on straight beyond the end of the bridge and will come out onto Pittman Way, from here you have a multiple choices to get back onto route.

From the end of the footbridge over the M6 on the original route, there are several paths through the houses that bring you out onto Midgery Lane which connects up with the Guild Wheel just beyond the bridge over the brook. This path will take you up through Hindley Hill Woods – I have no idea why it’s called Hindley Hill Woods.