Delamere Forest the forest, and Ashton Road runs east–west. The National Cycle Network Cheshire Cycleway (Regional Route 70) follows Ashton Road. The nearest town is Frodsham, to the north-west; nearby settlements (anti-clockwise from the south) include Delamere, Cuddington, Norley, Kingsley, Mouldsworth and Kelsall. The majority of the modern Delamere Forest falls within the Mouldsworth Gap, a break in the Mid Cheshire Ridge which runs north–south through the centre of Cheshire. This region originated at the end of the last ice age, when glacial meltwaters formed a vast lake in the West Cheshire basin which burst through the sandstone ridge, and deposited large
Delamere Forest remained wooded well into the 14th century. It retained a population of wild boar and wolves. The remaining part of the southern part of the Forest of Mara remained classed as a hunting forest until 1812 when an Enclosure Act was passed disafforesting the remaining forest (that is, returning its legal status to ordinary land) and transferring ownership of the remnant half to the Crown and half to surrounding major landowners. In April 1821, the King's Bench determined that Delamere was one of four new parishes within the old Forest of Mara during a case about a pauper from Oakmere.