Ancient Highways to Hope

1 Turn right out of the car park, heading northwards through the village, under the railway bridge and past the Rambler Inn.
Turn right again past the National Park information centre to follow a sunken walled track through the shade of some trees. This ancient track crosses Grinds Brook on a little stone bridge before heading eastwards across the fields to the tiny farming hamlet of Ollerbrook Booth.

2 After passing through the farmyard, follow a stony lane that passes Nether Ollerbrook. Take the path passing to the south of Cotefield Farm, through a couple of gates and a stile. After 200yds (183m), just past a gate and a sign, 'Footpath to Open Country', take the field path on the left, which leaves the track, climbing by a hedge to another footpath signpost. Here the path swings right, above the woods behind Woodhouse Farm.

3 The path skirts the moor, threading through gorse, bracken and hawthorn trees. Suddenly it becomes a smooth grassy path that leads into the car park of Edale Youth Hostel at Rowland Cote. Pass immediately in front of the youth hostel and descend some steps to cross a footbridge over Lady Brook Clough.The path now climbs away from the stream and contours round bracken-cloaked hillslopes back into the main valley where it climbs the grassy lower slopes by a drystone wall then descends to another stream above Clough Farm.

4 Continuing on its course between field and moor the path, now a wide engineered track, descends into Jaggers Clough, where the recently planted trees of Backside Wood make a pleasant change from most modern conifer plantations. The track climbs out of the clough to the rough pastured ridge that separates Edale from the Woodlands Valley and its finger of Ladybower Reservoir.

5 On the top there's a five-way junction of tracks. Turn right here, along the Roman road that once linked the forts of Melandra at Glossop and Navio near Bradwell in the Hope valley. From here you're looking down the full length of Edale, whose fields chequered with hawthorn, are enclosed by the rugged, crag-fringed slopes of Kinder Scout and the great grassy hills of the Mam Tor ridge.

6 After passing Hope Cross, the Roman road forks right, gradually easing away right from the ridge. It soon becomes a stony track, descending the fellsides of heather, sedge and bracken. Ahead, you may see the plumes of smoke coming from the chimneys of the Hope cement works.Past the Brinks, a high cottage on the left, the track has been surfaced with tarmac and lined with trees. It continues the descent to Fulwood Lodge Farm.

7 On reaching the farm, leave the lane for a stony track heading south past the house. At the end of the track, go through a gate on the right and continue south on a field-edge path. This comes to another lane by the Homestead (a house). Follow the lane beneath the railway, then across the River Noe at Kilhill Bridge. Beyond the bridge the lane climbs out to the main Edale road. Turn left for the last mile into Hope.On reaching the main road, turn left, then take the second on the left for the railway station, where you can catch a train back to Edale.