The route
Most of the way is easy walking across pleasant meadows and through woodlands, mostly in the county borough of Wrexham in Wales, but partly in Cheshire and Shropshire in England.
Many parts of the walk follow waterways: Grindley Brook, the Llangollen Canal, the River Dee, and the river Ceiriog in the Ceiriog Valley.
The way also passes through towns and villages: Overton-on-Dee with its ancient yew trees, one of the Seven Wonders of Wales; Penley, where the wartime Polish Army Hospital once boosted the population threefold, Hanmer, situated on the peaceful mere which gave the village and its local aristocracy, the Hanmer family, their name, Chirk featuring Chirk Castle and Thomas Telfords Chirk Aqueduct.
Llangollen is a small town and community in Denbighshire, north-east Wales, on the River Dee at the edge of the Berwyn mountains and the Clwydian Range and Dee Valley AONB. It had a population of 3,658 at the 2011 census.
Historic Denbighshire is one of thirteen traditional counties in Wales, a vice-county and a former administrative county, which covers an area in north east Wales. It is a maritime county, bounded to the north by the Irish Sea, to the east by Flintshire, Cheshire and Shropshire, to the south by Montgomeryshire and Merionethshire, and to the west by Caernarfonshire.
The Ellesmere Canal was a waterway in England and Wales that was planned to carry boat traffic between the rivers Mersey and Severn. The proposal would create a link between the Port of Liverpool and the mineral industries in north east Wales and the manufacturing centres in the West Midlands. However, the canal was never completed as intended because of its rising costs and failure to generate the expected commercial traffic.
The Llangollen Canal is a navigable canal crossing the border between England and Wales. The waterway links Llangollen in Denbighshire, north Wales, with Hurleston in south Cheshire, via the town of Ellesmere, Shropshire. The name, which was coined in the 1980s, is a modern designation for parts of the historic Ellesmere Canal and the Llangollen navigable feeder, both of which became part of the Shropshire Union Canals in 1846.
The River Dee is a river in the United Kingdom. It flows through parts of both Wales and England, forming part of the border between the two countries.
Chirk is a small town and local government community in Wales. It is located in the traditional county of Denbighshire, although is currently administered as part of Wrexham County Borough. In the 2011 census, it had a population of 4,468. It is located 10 miles south of Wrexham.
The Maelor is an area of north-east Wales along the border with England. It is now entirely part of Wrexham County Borough.
English Maelor comprises one half of the Maelor region on the Welsh side of the Wales-England border, being the area of the Maelor east of the River Dee. The region has changed counties several times, previously being part of Cheshire and later a detached portion of Flintshire. The area is currently in Wales, despite its name, and administered as part of Wrexham County Borough.
Overton or Overton-on-Dee is a small town and a local government community, the lowest tier of local government, part of Wrexham County Borough in Wales. It is situated close to the Welsh-English border on the edge of an escarpment that winds its way around the course of the River Dee, from which Overton-on-Dee derives its name.
Chirk Aqueduct is a 70-foot (21 m) high and 710-foot (220 m) long navigable aqueduct that carries what is now the Llangollen Canal across the Ceiriog Valley near Chirk, on the England-Wales border, spanning the two countries.
The border village and civil parish of St Martin's is in Shropshire, England, just north of Oswestry and east of Chirk.
The Ceiriog Valley is the valley of the River Ceiriog in north-east Wales. It is also the name of a ward of the County Borough of Wrexham. The ward is the largest ward of the county borough by area and forms a strikingly-shaped salient of the county borough between Powys and Denbighshire.
Grindley Brook is a small village in Shropshire, England, on the A41 trunk road around 1.5 miles north west of the market town of Whitchurch. It is the most northerly settlement in Shropshire and borders directly onto Cheshire, and is within the civil parish of Whitchurch Urban.
Glyn Ceiriog is the principal settlement of the Ceiriog Valley in north-east Wales. Glyn Ceiriog translates simply as Ceiriog Valley, though there are other villages in the valley. The village and community is technically known, in traditional Welsh naming style, as Llansantffraid Glyn Ceiriog or sometimes Llansanffraid Glyn Ceiriog, which means church of St Ffraid in the Ceiriog Valley, but it has come to be known simply as Glyn Ceiriog, or even Glyn for short. The name Llansanffraid is now more associated with other villages of the same name.
The South Cheshire Way is a 32-mile (51 km) long-distance footpath running east–west mainly through Cheshire, England, though parts lie in Shropshire and Staffordshire. The western section from Grindley Brook, near Whitchurch, runs through farmland; the eastern section from Mow Cop, near Biddulph, runs through low hills. The footpath is waymarked with black and yellow discs inscribed 'SCW'.
The Marches Way is a partially waymarked long distance footpath in the United Kingdom. It runs 351 kilometres / 218 miles through the Welsh–English borderlands, traditionally known as the Welsh Marches and links the cities of Chester in the north and Cardiff in the south.
The Wych Brook or Red Brook, formerly known as the River Elfe, is a small river in the north-west midlands of the United Kingdom. It forms both the historic and present-day border between England (Cheshire) and Wales. It is a tributary of the River Dee.
The River Ceiriog is an 18 miles (29 km) long river in north east Wales. It is a tributary of the River Dee. It rises at an altitude of around 1,800 ft (549 m) on the south east slopes of Moel Fferna in the Berwyn Mountains, and flows through the Ceiriog Valley in Wrexham County Borough. It flows below Chirk Castle and the town of Chirk, where the Chirk Aqueduct carries the Llangollen Canal over the river. The Ceiriog joins the Dee east of the town. In its lower reaches the river forms the border between Wales and Shropshire in England. Home to a Trout fishing club, the river and its valley were described by British prime minister David Lloyd George as "a little bit of heaven on earth". As well as being a home to trout the first grayling to be artificially reared in Wales were released into the river in 2009.
Bettisfield is a small village of about 150 dwellings in Wrexham County Borough, Wales and stands on the Wales-England border, and in the community of Maelor South. It lies south of the Llangollen Canal on the border with Shropshire, England within the historic English Maelor region which was formerly part of the historic county of Flintshire. The village lies close to Fenn's, Whixall and Bettisfield Mosses, an area of peat bog which was declared a national nature reserve in 1996 because of its importance for wildlife. The English market towns of Whitchurch, Ellesmere and Wem each lie about 6 miles distant to the northeast, west and southeast respectively.
