Newwar one

Verified Slow Way

Verified by 100.00% of reviewers

The great thing about this route, is that it's possible to use the free car park at Newton-le-Willows Station, catch the train to Warrington, and with a little deviation to the start point, walk back.

As has already been mentioned in previous reviews, this is a route with urban extremities and a pleasant rural middle. Surfaces range from tarmacked to unmade and muddy. After severe rain, parts are liable to become flooded.

Access gates and steps would likely make this impassable for wheelchair users, and the rougher surfaces would rule out road bikes, but should be passable for those using off road bikes - according to the OS map, most of the route is specifically designated as a cycling route.

A good functional route between urban areas using footpaths through good countryside and mostly along one of England's first canals.

From Newton-le-Willows, after leaving the station we're practically straight onto a tarmac path running alongside Newton Brook. It's mostly wooded, and the path eventually becomes an earth footpath, which can be muddy in places. After a couple of steps (mostly eroded now into a slope); it's across a field to a footbridge where we join another tarmac path. This works its way to a housing estate and past a pond.

Using a crossing at a crossroads, we're over a rail bridge, then past some houses to a footpath that wends its way downhill to a car park where we access the Sankey Canal.

The canal walk is the greatest part of the route. The path is a mixture of metalled earth and tarmac, and the canal itself wet and dry, with remnants of locks along the way. There are a few road bridges to go under, and a brief road crossing.

On meeting, and going under, a motorway bridge, it is briefly unpaved at a MOT garage, but there is a good footpath past it most of the way.

Approaching the outskirts of Warrington (passing the isolated lock of Winwick Quay), the route passes along a sometimes muddy footpath along the Sankey Brook. At the end, once over a footbridge, the route seems to suggest to follow another muddy path along the bank, but there's a good tarmac path a few yards further that goes the same way. This takes us along both the Sankey Brook and Canal, with more canal locks for those interested in history.

Eventually, we leave the canal, and join a road that takes us into Warrington. At its end, it becomes a footpath under the rail and road bridges, emerging at the bus station where we continue to the centre of Warrington.

Despite some good paths and road crossings, and the only obstacles being barriers and the odd kissing gate, a few muddy sections make this route mostly foot-only. That said, it's a pleasant enough walk through nice countryside on the edges of busy towns, railways and roads.

Pleasant enough, successfully rural until Warrington. Stretches of canal and woodland. Mostly flat with some grassy/muddy paths. Probably not suitable for wheeelchairs due to a couple of 'kissing' gates and barriers. A couple of road crossings at each end. Very accurately mapped.

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