Queen’s Head (2)

Distance: Four miles.
Terrain: Easy walking on canal towpath, tracks and fieldpaths.

1. Start at the car park of the Queen’s Head, just off the A5 near Oswestry (or the Canal Parking signsposted opposite the pub - see below). Turn right out of the car park and right again on to the recently restored section of the Montgomery Canal.

2. Pass under the A5 and continue past three locks until reaching bridge 78 (see comment below). Pass under this, turn left and cross over it before entering a field.

3. Turn left along the boundary and continue ahead as far as a cottage on the left. Pass through the gate and turn right along the track, continue ahead at a T-junction and pass through the grounds of Bromwich Park on to a lane.

4. Continue ahead at the next junction before crossing a stile in the hedge on the left just before Fox Hall. Turn right along the boundary as indicated, bear left to continue alongside the hedge before passing through an avenue of trees and crossing a stile on to a track (see additional notes below).

5. Follow the track towards the cottage on the left, cross a gate (see notes below) and bear right in the next field, passing to the left of a pond in the centre.

6. Cross a stile and continue ahead to enter a small wood (see note below)  with another pond on the left. Walk through the wood to a footbridge which gives access to Oswestry golf course.

7. The route across the course is waymarked but remember to take care at all times, especially when crossing fairways. On reaching the clubhouse at the top of the rise, bear right across the car park to reach the A5.

8. Cross over and take the first left, then first right to return to the start.

* Shropshire and Mid Wales are perfect for getting out and enjoying a countryside walk, but over time there may be changes to access on some routes. If you follow one of our walks and find a problem, please let us know so that we can amend the details online. Simply e-mail us at internet@shropshirestar.co.uk with the details.

Here’s a great example of where someone has done just that.

Christine Rose has sent us the following amendments to this walk:

“Having printed out the instructions from your website for this walk, my husband and I followed the route today and would like to make the following comments regarding the numbered instructions which, we hope, might be useful:

Paragraph 1: Rather than referring to the Queen’s Head car park, it might be better to refer to the Canal Parking (signposted opposite the Queen’s Head Public House) - as shown on the map. Prior to getting there, we were concerned that we might be obliged to patronise the pub if we were having to use their car park when, in fact, we found dedicated parking for the canal walk.

Paragraph 2: We could not find numbers on bridges 77 and 78 and the pathway over bridge 78 into the field was quite overgrown making us question if we were going in the correct direction.

Paragraph 4: The stile on the left was almost overgrown and, having gone over it and followed the boundary, we found the “bear left” instruction confusing. All we needed to do was keep to the left of the farm buildings and follow the hedge along to the avenue of trees. We almost curved round to the left thinking that the hedgerow must have been taken out! The stile at the end of the avenue of trees has insulated electric fencing running along it making it quite difficult to climb over.

Paragraph 5: Things started to get really complicated here. The stile is now a gate. We passed to the left of the pond and carried on through a wood area but found ourselves in the back garden of Aston Hall! To cut a long story short, we backtracked to the gate, turned right with the pond to our left and found a public footpath sign. We actually kept within the trees to the right of this sign, having crossed a small cattle grid, because the sign, whilst directing us along the edge of these trees, seemed to be sending us through a field of highland cattle. We carried along the track through the trees until the path was blocked with a fallen three. We followed the path to the left of this and came across a gate on the left from which we could see the golf course slightly higher up. We went through and, on making enquiries from players, were told we were slightly further south of the footbridge mentioned. Having got our bearings on the golf course, we went back to find the bridge and, having crossed it, found ourselves in a narrow, oblong field - not the wood mentioned in Paragraph 6. There was a wood area on the other side of this field with a sign about shooting being in progress!

On the whole, we thoroughly enjoyed our walk which took just over 2 hours and we will certainly do some of the others and report back with any comments.

Kind regards,

Mrs Christine Rose”