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About The Roaches | About Hen Cloud | Parking Location | OS Map | Current Weather
The roaches is a favourite walk of ours, it's not too far away has good parking and some fantastic views. It recently features on Britain's top 100 walks at 53. We had a little look at the walk suggested on there and found it different to our normal route so we decided we would head off on a sunny day and complete the route suggested, we also added in Hen Cloud (it's hard not to when you are walking past it anyway!)
Parking where we usually would we headed off through the wood, which was a little muddy after all the rain but not impassable. Once through the wood we headed up the stepped climb to the top of the rock face and as usual the views out in every direction are amazing. Moving along to the left across the ridge you soon come to doxy pool which on a nice day is a great place to take photos and have a cool down.
Moving on across the ridge gives you multiple different terrains, there are sandy bits, muddy bits and even sections where it's very rocky. You never need to scramble, but every now and then you might put your hand onto a rock to steady yourself. The going is pretty easy and there is never a time when the climb feels too tough or hard and it's never the most strenuous.
Moving along the ridge you eventually come to the peak which is marked with a trig point and is the obviously high area. Not too far from here you start the decline and get to the end not too long after. Here we would usually continue over to Luds Church or turn left and follow the road back along to the car. However, for this route we follow the road to the right and head up a bit higher again.
Following the road along is easy enough, it's not a busy road or a fast road (we saw one car) and it's not the hardest of walks. After moving back parallel with the roaches for about half the walk, you move up a lane to the right and head through a stile. Once through you move across a few fields (one of which was extremely muddy), eventually you make your way around the small valley between the Roaches and Hen cloud, it's here we decided that we would also complete Hen Cloud while walking past it. It's a much steeper climb up than the roaches, but it's not too high and there are no difficult sections. It doesn’t take long to reach the top where you are again met by really good views.
After coming back down the way we came up (your only option unless you want to climb!) we headed to the left and back round to the road where the car was parked. It was great to check out a different route, we will look at combining this and the Luds Church route soon.
