Starting from the Glossop Circular route at the Whitley Nab gate head diagonally from the main track towards Monks' Road. Follow the path through the large gate, across the spring and up towards Herod Edge Farm. Through the gate and there’s a path over the stile through the field. This path leads to another stile on Monks' Road.
Charlesworth village sits at the foot of the Monks' Road, which was used by the monks of Basingwerk Abbey in North Wales. At the top of the road is the Abbot's Chair, the base of a monastic cross also known as the Charlesworth Cross.
Cross over Monks' Road and up the footpath, here you can choice to climb straight up on follow the gentler route across the stile and round to Coombs Edge. The path isn’t well defined but head east until you meet the wire fence, turn left and after about 350m there is another stile to cross over on to the Cowns Edge walk.
The Cown Edge Way is a 29 km / 18 mile walk, generally U-shaped route on the eastern edge of Greater Manchester rises to Cown Edge Rocks via Strines and Mellor, returning via Charlesworth and Werneth Low.
Walk along this path for 1km until you reach a path on your left. Follow this straight path south for 230m and then a sharp right along the track towards Robin Hood’s Picking Rods which is about 740m away.
What are Robin Hood's Picking Rods? Druid stones, Saxon cross, ancient route marker, forest boundary marker or as local legend says that Robin shot an arrow at the Picking Rods, to win the freedom for a fair maid. It is said that the arrow hit the stones leaving the mark that can be seen today.
For the return journey follow the track back to the sharp left turn and on your right is a gate, through the gate and follow the path for about 50m and left on to the path back to Cown Edge. Eventually you will see a plantation of pine trees, head left pass the trees for the gentle decline to Monks' Road or head right pass the trees to steep rocky decent you saw before to Monks' Road.
Just after the tree plantation and just before the steep decent was a triangulation (trig) point on your right hand side, it was probably brocken up in the 1990s and now cover by gorse.
Please let us know if you spot any issues along the route or any errors in the directions.
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