In Greenfield Valley

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Walk directions

Take the footpath that emerges from the back of the car park on the lefthand side and follow it around the abbey.

Turn left between the visitor centre and the Old Schoolhouse joining a track that passes Abbey Farm. Take the left fork by the stone walls of Abbey Wire Mill, following the sign to the Fishing Pool, a lily-covered pond.

Beyond the Lower Cotton Mill take the lower right-hand fork then bear right past some fixed iron gates to pass the crumbling remains of Meadow Mill. Beyond the mill, turn left up some steps, climbing up by a weir and then turn right back onto the main track.

Pass the ruins of Greenfield Mill, take the right fork, signed St Winefride’s, then continue down to a kissing gate and wind out to the road. Turn left along the paved road as far as St Winefride’s Chapel and Well. When you’ve viewed these, go back down the road to the Royal Oak Inn.

Climb the lane, called Spring Bank, that begins from the opposite side of the road and take a right-hand exit on a bend. Beyond the houses, bear off right along a stony track. Keep ahead past the entrance to a small housing estate on a sunken hedged path. Enter a field over a stile at the top.

Go straight ahead, running parallel to the field edge and through a wide gap in the mature hedge, and continue at the edge of the next field. Maintain your northwesterly direction to a stile just past a slate wall (the stile is easy to miss) and keep going to another stile opposite, and then another part-way down the boundary. Walk on with a hedge and a parallel farm track on your right, eventually exiting over a stile onto that track.

Leave the cart track where it swings round to the right and follow a signed footpath across a meadow and then through trees to the banks of Afon Marsiandwr. After crossing the stream the path climbs out of the woods and crosses a field to reach a country lane.

Turn right along the lane following it down to reach the coast road (A548). Cross the busy road with care. The continuing footpath to the seashore lies immediately opposite you, over a step stile. Cross a field and then a railway track – again cross with extreme care as trains are not infrequent – and continue walking until you get to the flood embankments where you turn right.

The footpath comes out by Greenfield Dock. Turn right here along the paved lane back into Greenfield. Turn left to return to the car park.

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Location

Nearest postcode:

Additional information

Terrain - Woodland paths and tracks, lanes, field paths and coastal embankment, many stiles

Landscape - Wooded former industrial valley, pastured hillside and coast

Dog friendliness - Dogs should be on a lead

Parking - Car Park just off A548 at Greenfield

Toilets en route - In the visitor centre

About the walk

A good head of water has served the Greenfield Valley well over the centuries, and that water gushes out from a spring high on the limestone hillsides beneath Holywell. Geologists will tell you that this is a natural phenomenon, but romantics tell a different story. These folk say St Winefride’s...

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Been on this walk?

Send us photos or a comment about this route. Or recommend a route of your own.

Find out more

Walking in Safety

Read our tips to look after yourself and the environment when following this walk.

Learn more

Get an AA guide

Explore our range of ‘50 Walks in’ guides - they’re the ideal companion for a ramble.

Learn more

About the area

Wales’s most northeasterly county contains little in the way of big blockbuster attractions, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to see or do. Bounded by the Dee Estuary to the north and the Clwydian mountain range to the west, with the bright lights of Chester just over the border to the east, Flintshire has been described as both ‘the Gateway to Wales’ and ‘Wales in miniature’.