On 24 January, Fairfax's force scattered a small Royalist force which attempted to bar the road to Nantwich at Delamere Forest.
As Fairfax approached Acton, Colonel Richard Gibson (deputising for Byron's Sergeant-Major General, Sir Michael Erneley, who was ill), deployed four regiments of infantry (his own and those of Sir Michael Erneley, Colonel Henry Warren and Sir Robert Byron, younger brother of Lord Byron) to face Fairfax.