Millennium Walkway & Riverside Park
2 miles or shorter: An easy footpath walk, parts can be muddy.
Outside the Heritage Centre go left and descend the steps to the valley bottom. You are now on the site of Rock Mill, one of the mills built in the valley from the end of the 18th Century to take advantage of water power. Turn right towards Torr Vale Mill, still standing and which operated until the end of the 20th Century. At this point until 2000 you would have had to retrace your steps, because there was no way to get through the narrow gorge between the mill and the enormous wall which supports the railway line. The Millennium Walkway has made it possible for walkers and for two long-distance footpaths to go through, which we will now do.
Go ahead on the river bank path and then on the road, past a Mousley Bottom sign and then past some houses By the last house, which was originally an old cruck barn, go through a gate and in a couple of yards left on the Goyt Way. The pleasant woodland you now walk through was once the rather unpleasant site of the council tip. Since the seventies the land has been reclaimed, planted with trees, many by local school children, and developed into a nature reserve.
There are many footpaths to explore in the area, which is contained between the river on one side and the railway high up on the other.
Go on to the end of the path where several paths meet. Go through a stone gateway on the right and go across to the Goyt Way sign indicating the smaller path along the river bank. Stay on this, keeping to the river. After almost half a mile there is a reed bed project on the right described on an explanatory board just past it. The path then bends right and goes through a wooden fence opening. You come out onto a grassy area and here if you wish to shorten the walk you can take any path to the right back to the start.
Otherwise bear left still following the Goyt Way sign, and stay by the river. You pass a wildlife pond behind a hedge on your right. Carry on by the river, through a wooden gate and come to steps on the right signed Goyt Way. You can go up these to the car park, or alternatively stay by the river to the end of the path and turn right up the road. It is a quiet road with a good pavement.
You come to a car park with picnic tables and a small playground. Cross diagonally to the far left-hand side of the playground, to a public footpath sign.
(You are no longer following the Goyt Way, which has gone up the road.) Go along this footpath, with the railway now on your left. After passing some allotments the path can be quite muddy. Boards have been put down but care must be taken in case it is slippery.
Come down to retrace your steps for 100 yards until your former route goes off with the river to the right and you go straight ahead, to a reed bed with a viewing platform and an explanatory board. The path continues on a good boardwalk then goes up into the wood, through a wooden gate and straight on to the gate and the road with the row of houses.
You now return to the Heritage Centre either by going up the steep road ahead and past New Mills Central railway station, or by going down the path by the river and back over the Millennium Walkway to the steps up to the Heritage Centre.
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