Pickmere, Great Budworth and Arley Hall

Jim Grindle

You need to log in as a member of Walkingworld to access the details for this walk and have an active subscription. Please join, or log in above if you are already a member.

This is a really lovely walk in the Cheshire countryside, which visits one of its most attractive villages with one of the county's finest churches. It crosses a number of pastures and goes around an estate road of Arley Hall, which is open to visitors in the summer. We enjoyed it on a crisp winter's day but I am sure that it will have even more to offer in the spring and summer. It would be possible to park at Arley Hall if you were visiting and start the walk from there.

England - North England - Cheshire - Countryside

Features

Birds, Butterflies, Church, Flowers, Food Shop, Great Views, Lake/Loch, Play Area, Pub, Public Transport, Wildlife, Woodland

7/16/2020 - Simon Worrall

Walked July 2020. Very pleasant walk along flat paths, fields, tracks and lanes. Worth spending time around the mere itself as the wildlife is very interesting - we saw a reed warbler for the first time. No issues with navigating this walk as instructed although some of the field sections are planted with oil seed rape, barley and wheat with the path in places becoming indistinct. COWS - this walk has long sections through actively managed diary farm pasture and as such dogs would need to be on the lead most of this walk. Large herds of dairy cattle out to pasture between WP 12 and 13 and WP20 - 22 with the land between WP13 and 15 also potentially used for cattle. CAR PARKING - echo the previous comments. There are very few car parking spaces near the entrance to the mere and there is restricted parking on the roads all around the area during the summer months - lots of roadside no parking bollards in evidence when we went. As mentioned there is a large free car park at Arley Hall (WP17) where you could start and end the walk.

8/25/2016 - Roger Adams

An almost perfect walk. If you do it during good weather or school holidays the car park at Pickmere may be full. Better to start it from Arley Hall, where the parking is free. However if you enter the courtyard to use the toilets or café you may be asked to buy an admission ticket. Try to look like a visitor rather than a walker and you should be OK. There is also a free car park at Great Budworth, just beyond the bowling green. There are toilets at the ice cream farm at waypoint 10, not to mention great ice cream.

3/5/2012 - Jayne Moore

We were really looking forward to trying this walk. Dog owners or anyone who is nervous of livestock may like to know that at the time of writing, in the large field at the end of Pickmere are two very large and very inquisitive horses. This field is also incredibly boggy and definitely requires wellington boots. Sadly we only made it as far as waypoint 5 due to the fact that we had three dogs with us and the field at waypoint 5 is very small and contains cows. Not wanting to risk it with three boisterous labradors we sadly had to admit defeat and walk back via road to Pickmere. This isn't intended as a negative review at all, maybe the cattle are not always present, and those braver than us, or without dogs I am sure would manage the walk with no problems but I did think that dog owners may appreciate being advised that cattle are present at the moment. What we did manage of the walk was lovely and the instructions were very clear and well written, I'm sure it's a beautiful walk.