BOLLINGTON, WHITE NANCY, MACCLESFIELD CANAL
Distance: Ten Miles.
Difficulty: Easy.
Weather: Sunny
Walkers: Colin Davison,
Lawrie Fairman, Alan Hart, Jock Rooney and Tip, George Dearsley
B Walker: Geoff Spurrell
Non-Walking Drinker:
John Eckersley.
Apologies: Peter Beal (Domestic duties),
George Whaites (Visiting relatives), Frank Dudley (Hospitalised), Ivor Jones
(Receiving dialysis) and Peter Miles (Still recovering from knee op).
Leader: Fairman. Diarist: Dearsley
Starting Point: The Pie Shop, Bollington
Starting Time: 9.51am. Finishing Time:
2.01pm.
Mr Hart’s amnesia caused early
consternation. Having diaried that “next week’s walk will start from outside
the Vale pub at Bollington at 9.35am” he promptly decamped opposite The Pie
Shop, Bollington with Messrs Davison and Rooney and it necessitated mobile
telecommunication to gather all the Wanderers together.
The Pie Shop having been visited for its
renown comestibles, the group set off (turning right out of the shop) then
right past the church with the Crown pub on our left.
We turned right again and headed for the
track up to White Nancy.
White Nancy was built in 1817 by John
Gaskell junior of North End Farm to commemorate the victory at the Battle of
Waterloo. It originally had an entrance to a single room which was furnished
with stone benches and a central round stone table, but the entrance is now
blocked.
Before White Nancy was built the site was
occupied by a beacon described as a small rotunda of brick. Such beacons were
erected on high points across the land in which fires could be lit to warn of
invasion. It was white-washed from the beginning, but painted green during
World War II so as not to provide a landmark for enemy aircraft.
In the mid-1940s, the Royal Signal Corps
Trials Unit based at Catterick would drive a truck-mounted dish-shaped
transmitter/receiver up to White Nancy. Here they tested cathode-ray tube
transmission and reception (data-based, not images), to a mobile receiving
station on another truck. The receiver would be driven further and further
south over time, until eventually the lads at White Nancy were sending a signal
to the south coast of the country.
White Nancy, Colin and Jock
Having reached the edifice (adorned with a
painted Christmas Pudding) we stopped
for “hot Pie Time”. A discussion quickly developed about Andrew’s Nob. Not
boys’ talk apparently but an attempt to spot a local landmark on his horizon.
Several Wanderers offered their considered
opinions in what might have been described as the rambling version of
Call My Bluff. (geddit?)
More on the aforementioned Nob can be found
here.
We traversed the ridge that offers a vista
of Hurdsfield Industrial Estate to the right but fortunately lovely countryside
to the left and eventually descended onto the Macclesfield to Whaley Bridge
road, turning right and after 100 yards taking a left up some stone steps.
View from the ridge.
Crossing fields we reached the road from
Tegg’s Nose to Rainow.
We turned right and after 150 yard ascended
some stone steps on the left that we quickly discovered led absolutely nowhere
apart from the rusting skeleton of a farm vehicle which duly provided a
makeshift picnic seat for our official Pie Time at 11.08am. However, the
diversion at least afforded another wonderful view (below)
Official Pie Time vista
We set off at 11.21am back to the road with
echoes of the refrain The Grand Old Duke of York ringing in our leader’s ears.
A conversation with a nearby dry stone walling local offered no greater insight
into why the carefully crafted stone steps had been constructed in the first
place, unless simply to fool adventuresome walkers.
The road we were on was Bull Hill Lane and
at the end we turned left onto the road from Buxton.
Then, after a few yards, we turned right
over s stile. Crossing a field we turned right along a path that ran alongside
a stone wall. We hurdled a wire fence on our left on to what looked like a
easier track and this eventually led to a fork, offering some woods to our left
and a main road to our right.
Throwing caution to the wind, we opted for the
woods but this was to prove the second erroneous decision of the day and after
a few minutes the Wanderers were forced to retreat and take the road instead.
Mr Davison wittily suggested a sign should
be erected: “Caution, Lawrie’s Turning”.
After some minutes on the road we turned
left up Back Eddisbury Road, leading to Buxton Old Road and then to the canal,
via Blakelow Road.
We turned right on to the canal, stopping
for lunch (but alas no alcoholic beverage) at 12.44pm at the Puss in Boots pub
on the canalside which infuriatingly was shut.
We set off again at 12.52pm following the
canal all the way into Bollington and leaving the waterway at Aqueduct Cottage.
One notable landmark is the Adelphi Mill.
Adelphi Mill
Constructed circa 1868 by Martin Swindells,
a local cotton spinner who also owned Clarence Mill in Bollington, he built The
Adelphi Mill for his two sons, hence the name 'Adelphi', which is Greek for
brothers. It is now converted to offices.
The mill began with the spinning of cotton
but was soon converted to the production of fine silk. Within three years of
the mill being built, the railway came to Bollington, running virtually along
side the mill. This soon led to a decline in canal transportation, but the
Macclesfield Canal remained navigable and the UK’s very first narrow canal
cruising club, the North Cheshire Cruising Club, was established there in 1943.
The group then divided, Mr Fairman and your
diarist crossing the road and negotiating Bollington Recreation Park to reach
our cars outside The Vale at 2.01pm. The
remaining Wanderers plus Mr Eckersley joined us at The Vale, which was, sadly,
full of guests lunching. After one pint (Bollington Best at £2.70 and an
interesting Czech lager called Moravka at £3.10) we reconvened at the less
crowded Dog and Partridge. We were joined there by Mr Spurrell who had
conquered White Nancy.
On Sunday, January 1, the annual New Year’s
Day walk will start from St George’s Church, Poynton, at 10am heading up
Prince’s Incline to the Macclesfield Canal and right to The Miners Arms at
Woods Lane. We hope to time our arrival to coincide with 12 o’clock opening
time. We will return to The Farmer’s Arms, Poynton, around 2pm. Wives and
girlfriends are most welcome.
The next Wednesday Wandering will start
from Ridgegate Reservoir, Langley at 9.45am, hoping to reach the midway point
The Hanging Gate at 12.30pm and finishing at The Smithy. Your diarist will
liaise with Messrs Beal and Davison to coordinate lifts.
No comments:
Post a Comment