wellness
Old Town Locals Guard 5 Secret Nature Walks Tourists Never Find
While visitors queue for the waterfront promenade, Old Town residents are slipping into a quieter, greener circuit that most maps don't show.
How we reported this
Ask anyone at the Old Town Wellness Collective on Harrow Lane where they walk on a Saturday morning and you'll get the same answer: not the main drag. The trails that locals actually use, the ones threading through Millpond Reserve, cutting behind the Fernside allotments on Copse Road, and dropping down into the stone-walled gully behind St. Crispin's Gate, carry almost none of the foot traffic of the visitor-facing routes, yet deliver something the postcard walks can't. Quiet. Shade. Actual wildlife.
This matters right now because Old Town's central wellness precinct recorded its highest pedestrian congestion figures since 2019 this past June, according to the Old Town Business Improvement District's quarterly count. The main Riverside Walk logged an average of 2,400 daily users across the month. The hidden circuit, by comparison, sees fewer than 300. That gap is partly ignorance and partly deliberate. Regulars would rather keep it that way, though most will grudgingly admit the paths could use a few more people advocating for their upkeep.
Where the Locals Actually Go
The most consistently recommended starting point is the Millpond Reserve entrance off Tanner Street, roughly 400 metres north of the Old Town Market Hall. From there, a gravel loop runs 2.3 kilometres through mixed broadleaf canopy, skirting the reed beds that border the old millrace. The path is unmarked on the main tourist maps distributed by the Old Town Visitor Centre on Cathedral Square, though it appears on the council's digital green infrastructure map, last updated in March 2026. Bring waterproof footwear before August, drainage near the northern edge of the reserve remains poor after rain, a complaint that has sat with the Parks and Open Spaces team at Old Town Borough Council since at least 2024.
The second route worth knowing is shorter but sharper. The Fernside Gully Track begins through a wooden gate set into the wall opposite the Copse Road allotment sheds, the ones operated by the Old Town Growing Initiative since 2018. The track drops about 14 metres over 600 metres down a limestone escarpment before flattening into a wildflower meadow managed under the council's Biodiversity Net Gain programme. In late June the meadow runs yellow and white with meadowsweet and ox-eye daisy. It is, by any reasonable measure, spectacular. It is also not mentioned once in the Old Town Heritage Trail leaflet, a document that hasn't been revised since 2021.
The wellness angle is not incidental. Research published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives in 2024 found that walks in low-noise, high-vegetation environments reduced cortisol levels by an average of 21 percent more than equivalent-distance walks on urban streets. The Old Town Wellness Collective has been running a Wednesday morning guided walk along the Millpond circuit since February 2026, charging £4 per session. Attendance has grown from six participants in the first week to a standing group of 22 as of late June. That word-of-mouth growth has happened entirely without promotion on the Visitor Centre's official channels.
How to Join Without Getting Lost
The practical barrier for newcomers is navigation. Neither trail is signposted past its entrance point. The council's digital green infrastructure map, accessible through the Old Town Borough Council website under the Environment and Parks section, is the most reliable reference, though it loads poorly on older mobile browsers. The Old Town Wellness Collective publishes a hand-drawn PDF of both routes on its website; as of July 2026 it is available free, no registration required.
Wednesday group walks depart from the Tanner Street entrance at 7:30 a.m. The £4 fee is collected on the day, cash or card. Solo walkers should allow 55 minutes for the full Millpond loop and 30 minutes for the Fernside Gully Track one way. Comfortable trail shoes are adequate for both in dry conditions. Dogs are welcome on leads at Millpond Reserve; the Fernside meadow asks that dogs stay on leads between April and September to protect ground-nesting birds.
Anyone with specific health considerations, joint issues, cardiovascular concerns, should check with a local GP or physiotherapist before taking on the escarpment section of the Fernside route. The Old Town Wellness Collective can direct walkers to practitioners in the area. The paths will still be there next week. So will the locals, hoping you'll help make the case for fixing that drainage.