Just a stone's throw from Frodsham and Helsby, this walk is gentle, undulating, and extremely muddy in parts!

On Commonside, just off Manley Road, there is a lay-by with space for about five cars on the side of the road. This is where the Sandstone Trail crosses over the lane, and you will know you have arrived when you see a fallen oak tree at the entrance to a field.

• Enter the field through the kissing gate and climb the hill to follow the Sandstone Trail path, which skirts the edge of the Alvanley Cliff woodland. To your right, you will see Stanlow Refinery in the distance.

As you walk along the path, you will pass in front of the Grade II listed Austerton Hall. Although you would be forgiven for thinking that this grand country house has been standing in its quiet surroundings for hundreds of years, it is in fact a fairly new addition to the landscape.

Built in the South Cheshire village of Austerton, the house was dismantled and then reassembled in Alvanley in the 1980s!

• Emerging eventually onto a lane, keep going straight on to continue on the Sandstone Trail. This will bring you out on Manley Road. Walking up to the T-junction, turn right to follow the road up to Alvanley village.

Alvanley was mentioned in the Domesday Book, and its name is thought to originate from the Anglo-Saxon words Ælfwaldan leah.

The suffix '-leigh', '-lee' or '-ley' is from leah, and refers to a forest clearing, a nod to the village's positioning within the ancient forests of Mara and Mondrem.

Meanwhile, the Ælfwaldan perhaps refers to the Anglo-Saxon founder of another woodland village.

• In the centre of the village, watch out for a footpath sign on your right, just before you reach St John the Evangelist's Church.

The Church was built in 1860, and paid for by Catherine Emma Arden, daughter of Richard Arden, First Baron Alvanley.

Richard Arden was a Whig politician and friend of William Pitt. Brought up in Manchester, he travelled around the county in his work as a barrister, and eventually became Chief Justice of Chester in 1784.

The churchyard is resting place to the war graves of a British and a Canadian soldier from the First World War.

• The footpath will take you straight up a long, sweeping field, before crossing into the next through a kissing gate. Instead of taking the path across this field, follow it straight up and away from Alvanley.

• Eventually, you will meet Commonside again. Just to your left, you will see another footpath. Take this if you'd like to extend your walk, or turn right down the road if you'd rather return to your car.

• If you plan to continue, cross the road to follow the footpath down through the fields, with Foxhill Wood in front of you.

• As the ground levels at the bottom of the hill, it might be difficult to see where the footpath goes – start walking to the left and then you will see it skirting round the edge of the field.

• Reaching a sign reading Alvanley / Woodhouse Hill / Helsby, continue to the right across two more fields.

• Eventually, the footpath will give way to Burrows Lane, which you should follow to the left.

Beacon Hill

Willington and Little Switzerland

Delamere Forest

Bickerton Hill