Start: Lay-by on Stoney Lane. Map reference: SJ 553683.

By car: Take the A51 from Chester, turning left at Tarvin onto the A54. Stay on this road, heading towards Winsford when the A556

branches left, then turn left almost immediately and park in a lay-by on the right.

Distance: 51/2 miles/9 kilometres.

Map: OS 1:25,000 Explorer 267 Northwich & Delamere Forest.

The walk

1. Return to the A54 and turn left along the pavement. At footpath signs to left and right, cross over with care and walk down the side of a long field. Climb the stile and keep ahead again, following the wood's edge uphill, beside smooth-boled beech.

Both now and at the end of the walk you are in Primrosehill Wood. This large, detached segment of Delamere Forest is a mixture of Scots and Corsican pine, with deciduous trees around its perimeter, in which squirrels build their dreys, and where you may see willow warbler, chiffchaff, treecreeper or nuthatch. The carpet of leaf mould and leaves make the ground soft underfoot and, on a clear day, as you climb higher you will be rewarded with views over to the Pennines.

Drop down the other side of the hill and, after crossing a stream, the path ascends again beside a wire fence - a steep pull up to a stile and Tirley Lane.

2. Turn right, then keep ahead at the crossroads towards Kelsall, passing an old-fashioned water pump in the garden of Tirley Farm. Just past the back entrance to Tirley Garth, with its lodge, turn left down a footpath signposted to John Street. Follow blue arrows all the way down this pretty valley, then, after going through a gate, continue ahead down a farm road to John Street.

3. Turn left here, passing the impressive front entrance to Tirley Garth with its sandstone steps and pillars, and you soon reach Utkinton. Turn right down a snicket just before Boundary Cottage and continue beside an unusual wall structure. Keep ahead down the side of a field and ahead again between two fishing pools before leaving this sheltered spot by a stile.

Turn right and enjoy the extensive views as you walk up the side of the field, then turn left along the sandstone wall ahead, its surface ingrained with moss and grass. Beeston Castle comes into view as you stay beside the hedge, then cross stiles and a track into the next field. You have now joined the Sandstone Trail.

4. Continue in the same direction with the Cheshire Plain resembling an intricately patterned quilt as it spreads out as far as the Welsh foothills. At the field's end turn right over a stile and walk to the road. Notice the Sandstone Trail milestone as you turn left towards Rock Farm with its brick-built barn.

5. As the road starts to drop downhill turn right up a sandy bridleway - aptly called Sandy Lane - following the Sandstone Trail towards Delamere. The evergreen strip of Willington Wood is a field's width away as you walk through stretches of soft sand and, after passing sandstone outcrops in a coppice of huge beech trees and a fine horse chestnut, the path may become muddy, as a spring surfaces here.

Continue up a sunken path between banks topped by hawthorn - a typical feature of the Cheshire countryside. Turn left along Tirley Lane for a few yards, then right at a sharp corner to follow the Sandstone Trail marker towards Delamere Forest once more.

6. Continue down the path alongside the tearoom, then keep ahead along the field's side towards the wide sweep of Primrosehill. Drop down the next field and, towards the end of it, go through the steel kissing gate on your right. From here continue in the same direction at first, then veer right, leaving the Sandstone Trail and dropping down to exit by a wooden stile.

7. Go straight ahead through the forest, crossing over a flint road and keeping forward until you leave it over a stile. Walk forward to a second stile, then cross the facing field diagonally right, dropping down into the dip, then climbing up to the stile ahead. Cross the track here and continue in the same direction, past a pylon, then an oak and brambles on your right, to a stile and the A54. Cross this busy road with care and walk up Stoney Lane back to your car.

This walk is taken from the book Walks in West Cheshire and Wirral by Jen Darling, £8.99 (ISBN 978-0-9553557-2-1). A new edition of the book is published by Northern Eye Books. Copies can be obtained online at: www.northerneyebook.co.uk, or from local bookshops.