Castlehead
Distance: 1.75 miles
Total Feet of Climbing: 250 feet
Suggested Time: 1 hour
Starting Point: Moot Hall, Keswick (NY 266 234)
For the effort involved in reaching the top of Castlehead the rewards are quite spectacular: an impressive view down the length of Derwentwater towards Borrowdale and the highest mountains in England.
1. From Moot Hall, leave Market Square on the road past the Lodge Hotel (St.Johns Street). Continue past The George Hotel, the cinema and St.Johns Church. Just before the road begins pulling sharply uphill turn right on to Springs Road (0.5 mile)
2. Two hundred yards along Springs Road is a signposted surfaced pathway towards a wooded hillock - Castlehead. After passing through the kissing gate the path branches in two - Follow the right hand branch. When you reach the corner post to a field this path also branches in two, uphill to the left, down to the right - Follow the left path to the top of Castlehead (0.25 mile)
3. From the summit retrace your steps. At the corner post head left, down the Borrowdale side of Castlehead and cut across to a very obvious wooden bench where there is a path leading to Borrowdale Road (please be careful!). Cross straight over onto the footpath on the other side of the orad (0.12 mile)
4. Follow the footpath downhill for about fifty yards to where a flight of steps leads off to the right giving access to an enclosed pathway leading to Cockshot Wood. On entering the copse turn left and this path follows the boundary of the wood, eventually leading to a surfaced roadway following the shoreline of the lake. (0.5 mile)
5. Turn right and follow the road past the jetties and rowing boats. At the new theatre stay on the footpath which veers away from the road and passes beneath it by way of a subway. This brings you to a short bricked roadway. On reaching the top of this road turn left to return to the centre of Keswick (0.5 mile)
