Wigcar one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Wigcar here.

Just a heads up for anyone attempting this route from the Wigton end, I walked from Wigton to Thursby in December 2020 along this path, and I think I must have been the only person to have attempted it for some time. The section leaving Wigton is lovely and well walked, and the road past Kirkland Hall and Greenwood Farm is quiet with distant mountain views. The road along to West Woodside slightly busier but with wide verges. Then the problems start...there is in fact no access to the western end of the footpath at West Woodside farm, the owner of the house whose garden it appears to go through told me there had been numerous issues with the local council and walkers about this. So I continued along the road SE and accessed the path through the field gate after the last house on the left.
Then at West Woodside I could find absolutely no way through the farm on any semblance of a footpath, and eventually opted to go round the north of the farm buildings and under a barbed wire fence, across a field that was very muddy and very churned up by the cows. Before I got to the next group of buildings at Fiddleback Farm I had to get over a stile that had barbed wire across it and recent fencing work made it unclear where the footpath actually went. As you approach the main road embankment straight ahead, with the railway and house across to your left, you do have to turn right and walk up the access driveway of the houses to cross the busy A595 and walk along it’s verge SW for a hundred yards or so to turn down the road to Beckside, there is no footpath through the embankment as the map suggests.
The walk from Beckside to Thursby is well used, gentle and with views across to Crofton Arch. It’s a nice amble over to Thursby, but can be wet and muddy in the fields by the river, and there is a good view of Thursby from the stile as you come over the rise north into the village. And do take a wander into the churchyard and along to the Ship Inn while you are there.
As you leave the village up the road at Evening Hill opposite where the footpath goes off left the original old Evening Hill farmhouse is on your right, which has a listed cruck barn behind it out of view.
If you don’t want to go into Thursby itself you can just continue along the south bank of the Wampool to Wampool Bridge, and cross by road to the south of the railway line, taking a look at the grade II listed water tank at the old Curthwaite Station to the east from the top of the railway bridge. Then take the footpath along the south side of the railway to go across to Cardew by the Chalk Beck, past its old stone weir, a great stroll.
I haven’t walked the path from Caldew across to Dalston recently, but from Dalston to Carlisle you are on the Cumbria Way and share the path with bikes and other users. It’s a well used path giving a completely different approach to Carlisle from the River Caldew via its historic mills. A visit to the mill shop at Cummersdale for fabric is a must.

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