walking | Styal Woods and Quarry Bank Mill
What and where is Styal Woods?
Linked to Quarry Bank Mill, there are extensive riverside walks through Styal Woods and around the local area. The whole Styal area is in fact one of Britain's greatest industrial heritage sites, showing how a complete industrial community lived with period houses still lived in today. (Just be considerate as you walk through).
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The mill itself and the surrounding lands as well as the village are all National Trust properties. You can find out more about them here.
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Remember to stick to The Rules and have fun!
1-2 hours
1.75 miles
Styal, Cheshire
Get this route
Download our route and follow this yourself from either OS Maps or ViewRanger. OS Maps requires a subscription, which luckily you can get 10% off with Northern Stroll on any 12 month subscription. Check out our blog post for the code.
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ViewRanger is free and much like OS Maps doesn't require any data to work. All you need is a GPS signal, especially if you have downloaded your maps beforehand. It also has OS Maps available as a layer inside the app.
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Don't have ViewRanger on your phone yet? See our guide, or download it in your app store.
Route overview
This is an exceptionally easy sunday stroll starting from an exceptionally good pub. Do make sure you pop in.
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This route is pretty self explanatory as there are only a few places you can go. From the start point near The Ship Inn (great pub) walk through Styal village and head towards Styal woods. Everything is well signed.
Take the right hand track when you wander into the woods after coming out of the village. You'll take the left hand track back out again before turning right to head into and around Quarry Bank Mill.
If you get lost it is easy to double back, but you shouldn't get lost!
Key things to know:
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Time: About 2 hours at an amble
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Distance: 1.75 miles
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Elevation: Nothing to speak of
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Nearby pubs: The Ship Inn is the business!
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How to get here:
Postcode: SK9 4JE - this is for the pub. Park on the road nearby if you aren't using the pub immediately.
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Parking is difficult at busy times but make sure you don't just park anywhere. Park Wardens are about and you will get tickets (as well as annoy folk) so get there early or just get lucky!