Chapel-en-le-Frith

CHAPEL-EN-LE-FRITH, SPARROWPIT AND ENVIRONS

Distance: 9.5 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Weather: Sunny

Walkers: Colin Davison, George Dearsley, George Whaites, Lawrie Fairman, Alan Hart, Peter Beal

Apologies: Jock Rooney (Azerbaijan)

B walkers : Ken Sparrow and Geoff Spurrell

Non-walking drinkers: Frank Dudley, John Eckersley and Tony Job

Leader: Fairman   Diarist: Dearsley   Driver: Whaites

Starting Point: The Station, Chapel-en-le-Frith

Starting Time: 9.49 am. Finishing Time: 1.30pm

A glorious day for walking saw the party leave the road near Chapel station and climb a sloping path to the right of the building.

At a fork we took the right hand path and at the top turned left. On reaching the top of the hill we went left over a stone stile and turned immediately right.

At this point our leader Mr Fairman confessed to a senior moment in that he had left one of the two maps covering our route on the roof of his car.

He was offered the chance to go back down the hill to retrieve it while the rest of the group sun bathed but declined.

At this point your diarist must confess to his own senior moment, pulling two left walking boots out of his car on Tuesday as it went into the garage, leaving him with rather unconventional but nevertheless effective trainers as footwear.

We crossed a field and passed what might have been an entry for the Turner Prize but turned out, in fact, to be an air vent for a railway tunnel.

The next field presented our first real obstacle, a glowering bull. Agreed it’s not exactly like defusing IEDs in Helmand but entering a field containing such an animal takes a degree of courage.

As my picture shows we gave the beast a wide berth.

Bull

We crossed a road and passed Sittinglow Farm, turning into the farm yard and going left and left again through a metal five bar gate.

We found ourselves on a road with Platting Farm to our left. We crossed a railway bridge and joined the main Chapel to Buxton road.

                                   View from railway bridge, before the Chapel to Buxton Road

We followed the road towards Buxton into that well known beauty spot that is Dove Holes, turning left into the Dove Holes Community Association grounds to soak up the atmosphere in the legendary tourist attraction known as the Bull Ring, a Neolithic “Henge”, like Stonehenge without the stones.

So alluring was the Bull Ring that we decided it was Pie Time (10.55am).

We set off again at 11.10am turning to the left side of the Bull Ring and immediately being split up like someone starting a game of pool.

The confusion was caused by the lack of a coherent path through a rather straggly copse with some steep slopes.

But eventually the group reconvened and found itself on the old Tramway.

After about 10 minutes we took a path to the right, through what appeared to be a cattle pen, through a five bar gate and across a field.

We crossed a stile, negotiated two more five bar gates and passed a barn to our left. Pretty soon the welcome sight of the Wanted Inn pub hove into view and circumventing a netted area containing two old boars (one of the group unkindly said we already had one of our own, pointing at Mr Davison) we duly arrived at the hostelry at 12.10pm, consuming pints of Unicorn at £2.90.

The derivation of the pub’s name caused some debate. It was allegedly owned in the Fifties by the Duke of Devonshire who later decided to sell various bits of his estate.

The Duke managed to sell farms and fields but the pub stuck and duly earned the local nickname the Unwanted Inn.

Finally it was bought by the Buswell family, the parents of Neville Buswell, who played Ray Langton in Coronation Street from (21 February 1966 to 15 November 1978).

You can learn more about the pub’s history here.

But briefly the Wanted was an old farmhouse, converted in 1700 and called the Three Tuns. It became the Devonshire Arms in 1839 before the re-branding outlined above.

Another point of interest is that the pub represents a watershed, a high point at which water runs one way to the North Sea and the other to the Irish Sea.

We left the pub at 12.57pm turning right out of the front door and up the hill to the right.

This stretch was a bit whiffy, possibly through muck spreading but more likely due to blocked drains.

Luncheon in sunny Derbyshire

We passed Bennett Well and at the top of the hill turned right, crossing a stone stile and negotiating a five bar gate before stopping for lunch at 1.15pm.

With the temperature at 16 degrees it was hotter than the Azores and Bodrum in Turkey and certainly much hotter than Mr Rooney was experiencing in Baku.

We resumed our walk at 1.23pm passing Londendale Nursery and crossing the A6. We followed the A6 for a few yards before picking up a footpath to the right up a hill.

With Chapel to our right we meandered on, finally reaching the cars at 2.30pm.

A post walk drink was taken in The Lantern Pike, Little Hayfield.

B walkers (Ken Sparrow and Geoff Spurrell) walked from The Lantern Pike up Clough Lane, passing the converted mill. They went round the left shoulder of Lantern Pike and then swung right towards Matley Moor, completing a circle at Clough Mill after a walk of five miles.

The non-walking drinkers were Frank Dudley, John Eckersley and Tony Job, who gave an hilarious account of his hip operation, which was abandoned at the last moment.  He had been in pain for nine months and was dressed in a nightie and paper pants when the would-be surgeon announced that he had studied Tony's X-rays and decided an operation was unnecessary.

Instead he has been given a cortisone injection which has led to a marked improvement and Tony expects to be joining the B walkers next week.

The walk on April 4 will start at 9.30am from Bollington. We are meeting at the free public car park opposite The Spinners Arms. We intend to have refreshment around 12.15pm in The Robin Hood at Rainow, finishing at The Vale in Bollington around 2.15pm.

Sadly your diarist will be unavailable next week. Work calls again.