Distance: 6.3 miles

Difficulty of the terrain: medium

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Walk from Kidsgrove to the unique Grade One listed Biddulph Grange garden and country park via Mow Cop and Biddulph town centre.

The Story

Route Notes

Getting Back

A Rare Survival on Staffordshire’s Northern Edge

Biddulph Grange, standing on the northern edge of Biddulph, pretty close to Staffordshire’s boundary with Cheshire is a place of two halves.

One half is the Victorian manor house and gardens now in the care of the National Trust. The gardens were developed during the mid-19th Century on the instruction of James Bateman, a north Staffordshire coal and steel owner, who moved to the site from Knypersley in 1840.

What is primarily significant about Biddulph Grange’s garden is that they are unusual in being expansive examples of gardens created in the interregnum between the 18th Century Capability Brown style and late Victorian and 20th Century forms of garden design. Typically the kind of gardens looked after by organisations like the National Trust are either surviving or restored examples in the 18th Century style, or were redeveloped in the years immediately prior to them coming into the care of a charity or public body and remain in that fashion. This is due to the somewhat gaudy, quite mannered, style of garden design on display at Biddulph falling out of favour during eras when less obviously contrived styles have attracted wider favour, especially amongst the wealthy and other tastemakers.

The National Trust opens Biddulph Grange’s garden to their members and paying public all year round apart from Christmas Day and Boxing Day.

To the east of the Biddulph Grange gardens lies Biddulph Grange Country Park. This is a larger site amounting to 30 hectares, and is a wilder, albeit still fundamentally human created, counterpart to the highly organised gardens around the big house. This is because like the gardens the area now comprising the country park was created on the instructions of James Bateman and later owners of the Biddulph Grange. Unlike the gardens the country park is freely open to all comers at all times.

Since 1984 both halves of the site have been Grade One Listed due their uniqueness. In 1900 a stream flowing through what is now the country park was dammed for hydroelectric power, at a time when in rural areas especially, the majority of electricity, for the tiny number of users of the utility at the time, was produced in this way. In 2000 the system was restored and now produces power for the visitor centre on the site.

Route Notes

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

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This walk from Kidsgrove to Biddulph, via Mow Cop and the Mow Cop Castle folly, begins from Kidsgrove Railway Station.

Upon alighting the train walk across the station forecourt approaching the main road and head down a flight of steps onto the towpath of the Trent and Mersey Canal.

Once on the towpath turn left, and walk a short distance along the towpath until you reach a road bridge.

Upon reaching the bridge turn off the towpath and head to the right until you reach the main road.

Here cross over the road at a set of traffic lights on the western edge of Kidsgrove. On the far side of the main road walk straight ahead along a road which runs beneath a railway bridge heading into a residential area.

On the far side of the road, turn left along a track which runs alongside the railway past a storage shed. Soon this track turns into a footpath running through woodland besides a brook.

Leaving the woodland, walk straight along the path, which continues to follow the line of the brook, across a series of meadows. The end of the gritstone ridge where Mow Cop sits is now clearly visible ahead of you. 

Presently you cross the brook and then head to the right across a field coming out on a lane besides a dog kennels.

Here straight ahead on the far side of the lane there is a footpath lined with thick vegetation in front of you which you walk along, and then cross a field, coming out through a hedgerow to reach the lane running up into Mow Cop’s lower sibling village of Mount Pleasant.

Once on the lane turn right and begin ascending the ridge. 

In the centre of Mount Pleasant turn left and cross the village green, before turning right and heading steeply uphill.

Continue to follow the road as it curves around to the right, and still ascending, you continue until you reach a footpath on the right, which enables you to cut the corner and enter Mow Cop.

Upon emerging from the footpath into Mow Cop turn left, and begin following the road uphill through the village.

Almost at the summit of the village, now over 300 metres above sea level, with spectacular views in both directions, turn right onto a footpath which runs down past an old gritstone quarry.

Soon you reach a wider path where you turn left and begin to gently ascend towards Mow Cop Castle.

Upon reaching the castle there is a flight of steps which takes you up to the top of the gritstone outcrop.

Having climbed to the top of the outcrop to take in the views, descend by the same means and continue to follow the path, which now becomes an unpaved track, heading north.

Soon you reach a main road lined with houses. Here turn right and follow the road for some distance uphill, until you crest the ridge and begin to descend quite steeply.

On reaching a larger road turn left and taking care as cars travel fast along the road, start walking along it. There are superb views across to the Peak District on the right as you walk.

Soon you emerge at the very top of the ridge, and on good visibility days, Greater Manchester can be glimpsed to the north.

Continue along the road, along the top of the ridge for some distance. Part of this section of road comprises a stretch of the Gritstone Trail, a long distance walk down the eastern edge of Cheshire from Disley near New Mills to Kidsgrove, on or near the gritstone ridge.

Presently on the right you reach a footpath running down hill beside a car turning space. Turn right and head along this path heading downhill towards Biddulph.

After crossing a farm’s driveway you continue straight downhill across a series of fields.

Reaching the valley bottom, almost on the edge of Biddulph you reach a lane. Walk straight along this road for a short distance and then turn right along a track beside a farm.

Soon you emerge onto the side of a bridleway formed from the trackbed of the railway line that once served Biddulph. Here you walk straight across, crossing a small linear park type area to reach a modern housing estate.

Follow the cul-de-sac across this estate, and then follow a network of roads and short stretches of snickers, walking more or less straight to reach the side of the major A527 running across along the western edge of Biddulph town centre. 

Cross the A527 and walk across a small landscaped park, to reach a road where you turn left to head up to Biddulph high street.

Now on Biddulph High Street, turn left, and follow the road to the edge of the town centre where you emerge near a roundabout near the A527.

Here, cross the road and turn left towards the A527.

Once on the A527 follow the road for some distance, passing a Victorian church St. Lawrence on the edge of Biddulph.

Just past St. Lawrence turn right off the A527 onto Grange Road.

Here you soon come to a driveway on the right which leads to the entrance to the National Trust’s Biddulph Grange Garden. Or You can carry on a little further along Grange Road to reach the entrance to Biddulph Grange Country Park.

This is where the walk ends.

Getting Back

At the time of writing in September 2025 the 94 bus ran every ninety minutes on weekdays and Saturdays along the A527 between Congleton, which has a mainline railway station, and Newcastle-under-Lyme, via BIddulph town centre, providing the nearest public transport connection to Biddulph Grange. From Biddulph Town centre a range of buses run frequently to Kidsgrove which also has a main line train station, to other Potteries destinations, and to Hanley, including on Sundays. which is around a mile away from Stoke-on-Trent Railway station.