Brickcroft Nature Reserve Ramble

Walk Waypoints

1. 1 Turn left outside the Visitor Centre, and head through the lower car park, through a kissing gate and alongside the lake. Turn left when the path splits, and go through a kissing gate, cross a small road, and go through another kissing gate opposite. Follow the path, passing the lake on your right and exit through a kissing gate. Follow the tarmac path until it meets a road, and cross. Turn immediately left, with the wall on your right, until you meet another road. Cross this road, turn left onto the track through a small woodland. When the track meets a tarmac path (in a small park), proceed right, and go through the metal kissing gate to the main road.
2. 2 Turn right along the main road. Proceed to a hardware shop, and cross the busy road to the bridleway opposite. Proceed along the bridleway until a T- junction, then turn left and follow this track, which passes housing on your left and opens out into countryside with hedges along each side. Follow this until a sharp left bend with a large garden wall on your right. Turn right into the enclosed public footpath between a wall and a fence. Proceed over a stile, cross the field diagonally to a stile in the far corner, and keep in a straight line ahead to the field gate and stile. Turn right, and proceed on a small road.
3. 3 Opposite the first house on the right, turn left over a footbridge. Proceed along the field, with the hedge on your right, until you meet a stile. Cross this, and head for the footbridge in the corner, ignoring the stile in the hedge on right. Continue in a straight line, with a water-filled gully on your right, to meet a marsh bank. Proceed left with Longton marsh on the right. You are now on the Ribble Way. Continue along the bank, and cross the stile with a large seat on the left. Proceed, ignoring the first stile and gate on your left, and cross the stile facing you. Cross the small field to a footbridge, keeping the hedge on your left. Continue straight towards the farm buildings, where a fence on the left meets a gate. Head for the field gate in the hedge straight ahead.
4. 4 Turn right onto the road, and continue for approximately 1.2km (3/4 mile), past the old stone railway bridge supports, and turn left onto a public footpath at the end of the houses on your left. Go through two concrete kissing gates that mark the old Preston-Southport railway line. Continue ahead, and cross the stile and footbridge. Keep the hedge on your left, and follow it to the road. Cross a stile, and turn right onto the road. Follow this road to a T- junction; Brickcroft Visitor Centre is opposite the main road.