Furness Vale

FURNESS VALE, THE DIPPING STONES, MOORSIDE GRANGE, THE BOWSTONES, LYME PARK, LANTERN WOOD, LYME HALL, LYME CAGE, THE DANDY COCK AT DISLEY, THE PEAK FOREST CANAL AND THE SOLDIER DICK AT FURNESS VALE

Distance: 9-10 miles.

Difficulty: Strenuous becoming easy.

Weather: Crisp and dry with blue skies and wintry sunshine.

Walkers: Micky Barrett, Peter Beal, Colin Davison, Malcolm Halley, Alan Hart, John Laverick and George Whaites.

B walkers: Tony Job, Peter Morrall, Ken Sparrow, Geoff Spurrell and Mike Walton.

Apologies: Tom Cunliffe (man-flu symptoms), George Dearsley (w*^king again), Lawrie Fairman (driving campervan to French Riviera), Jock Rooney (w*^king in South Africa) and Julian Ross (family hols).

Leader: Beal. Diarist: Hart.

Starting point: Car park of Soldier Dick, on the A6 at Furness Vale.

Starting time: 9.33am.Finishing time: 2.18pm.

A late call from Tom reduced our numbers when he reported that he had awoken with a sore throat “and was sweating like a Scouser in a Job Centre.” 

Nevertheless we were left with a Magnificent Seven A walkers, and a record number of five B walkers created a Dirty Dozen back at our final watering hole.

Some of you may have noticed another theme developing with our choice of pubs, The Dandy Cock and The Soldier Dick. To complete the metaphor here follows the usual bo*^^*cks from your diarist .

Once again the weather gods were favourable to The Wednesday Wanderers, with a crisp, dry start in wintry sunshine. We also enjoyed minimal mud and excellent visibility.

From the Soldier Dick car park we turned right along the A6 for 30 yards, then turned right at The Imperial Palace. Lest there be confusion, this is a Chinese restaurant which has little in common with its namesake in Beijing.

Our route for more than an hour was a steady slog uphill, passing The Dipping Stones on our left. Legend has it that these large rocks, with two scooped out sections in their middles, were used for purchasing food in 1665 at the time of the great plague. 

Villagers where the epidemic was rife were discouraged from trading . But at The Dipping Stones, food was left on trust, and paid for with money left in vinegar in the dips in the rocks so it was germ-free.

Beyond The Dipping Stones we reached a road (56mins) where we turned left and then right (57mins) at a public footpath sign marked to Bowstonegate and Lyme Park. This path continued uphill until we made our first descent of the day with Moorside Grange on our right.

Moorside Grange

This former hotel, once owned by The Hilton Group and by Stakis, has a checkered history. It was the “love-nest” where Manchester United manager Tommy Docherty was caught enjoying a secret tryst with the wife of Old Trafford physiotherapist Lawrie Brown. 

After their illicit affair had been exposed by the tabloids, United fans enlivened the next home game with chants of “He’s up Mrs Brown: he’s up Mrs Brown. Eee-aye-addio, He’s up Mrs Brown.” That proved the final straw and The Doc was sacked.

It was also the venue chosen by Coronation Street actress Pat Phoenix to hold a party, paid for by The Sunday People, to say farewell to her cast colleagues after 20 years of playing femme fatale Elsie Tanner. 

In recent years a succession of entrepreneurs tried and failed to make it pay. Even the hiring of Peter B’s daughter as a waitress failed to halt the slide.

Local people objected to plans to convert the hotel into a retirement home. They were successful and instead it is to become a residential home for wayward juveniles. (Be careful what you wish for).

We crossed Mudhurst Lane (62mins) and continued our ascent following a wooden footpath sign for Bowstones passing Dissop Head Farm. The final section of our climb presented us with stunning views in every direction. We could see the highest points of three counties at Kinder (Derbyshire), Cheeks Hill (Staffordshire) and Shining Tor (Cheshire).

The Bowstones themselves are two shafts of late Saxon crosses which were probably landmarks or boundary stones as well as objects of devotion. Local legend has it that if you walk between the stones you will become pregnant (This only applies to women, I was assured).

The Bowstones

After crossing a wooden stile to enter Lyme Park, we paused for Pietime (85mins). Continuing, we kept a drystone wall on our right and passed a memorial to Allan Monkhouse, the playwright, novelist and literary editor of the Manchester Guardian, who was born in Disley and loved these hills.

The memorial to Allan and his wife Dorothy was erected by their children, who clearly followed their father’s liberal leanings. Patrick Monkhouse (1904-81) was a Guardian journalist and a member of the Peak Park Planning Board; Rachel Natzir (1905-85) was a district county councillor and chairman of the governors of Styal Prison; John Monkhouse (1908-90) was a headmaster; and Elizabeth Monkhouse (1912-2011) was a lecturer and president of the Workers’ Education Association.

There was no mention of the black sheep of the family, Bob Monkhouse. He once told his stand-up audience: “When I told my parents I wanted to be a comedian, they just laughed. Well nobody’s laughing now.”

As we continued with the wall on our right, Lyme Hall appeared below us on our left. The building, now managed by The National Trust, is the largest in Cheshire. It is at the heart of a 1,300 acres estate in the Peak District National Park.

The estate was granted to Sir Thomas Danyers in 1346 by Edward 111 for his services to The Black Prince at The Battle of Crecy. It was passed to his granddaughter Margaret, who married Piers Legh in 1388. The Legh family then held it for more than 500 years until it was taken over by The NT in 1946.

Lyme Hall dates from the late 16^th Century with modifications in the 18^th and 19^th centuries which give it a predominantly Palladian and Baroque style with other fashionable influences added.

Historians among you may be interested to know that the original Piers Legh, who was granted his coat of arms by King Richard 11 in 1397, was executed two years later by Richard’s rival, Henry Bolingbroke. But his son, Sir Piers Legh 11, fought with Henry V at Agincourt. When he was wounded, Sir Piers’ loyal mastiff stood over him and protected his master for several hours as the battle raged.

The mastiff’s reward was to return to Disley and become the founder of Lyme Hall mastiffs, which were bred at the hall and kept separate from other strains until their purity died out at the beginning of the 20^th Century.

But I digress. We ignored a ladder stile ahead and turned left, again keeping the drystone wall on our right until we reach a step stone stile and crossed it into a wood (99mins). We passed The Lantern (106mins) on our left and exited Lantern Wood.

Here we encountered a stag party in full swing. A herd of some 40 red deer had congregated a few yards to our right and were totally unmoved by our emergence from the trees. However the sight of a wheezing jogger bearing down on them caused the deer to trot away.

Our group mustered for the final major ascent up to Lyme Cage (122mins), a former hunting lodge and gamekeeper’s cottage which was also used as a jail to hold poachers. The first structure in 1580 was knocked down and rebuilt in 1737.

The sundial on its wall had not been advanced to British Summer Time, as we had the previous weekend. The motto above it advised “Vive Hodie,” which, as all you Latin scholars will know, means “Live Today.”

We turned right downhill in the direction of Disley, reaching the park’s entrance hut from the exiting direction, and turned right. This took us to the gate leaving the park and into Red Lane (137mins). After a short climb, we headed downhill into Disley, crossed the A6 and reached The Dandy Cock (152mins). The Robbies’ cask bitter here at £2-65 was deemed to be in excellent form.

After a leisurely two-pint stop, we continued by turning right out of the pub and immediately right again down Hollinwood Lane before turning left into Sherbrooke Road (158mins). We reached the Peak Forest Canal and turned right along its right bank (160mins). At Bridge 20 we switched to the left bank (163mins) and stopped at a bench for lunch (164mins).

After passing the Carr swing bridge (197mins) and Furness Vale marina, we left the canal at Bridge 31, turning right (205mins) past The Crossings pub on our left. We turned right along the A6 for a few  yards, then crossed to The Soldier Dick car park to de-boot (209mins).

The B-teamers had arrived some five minutes earlier, having driven to High Lane, from where they walked to The Romper at Marple Ridge and along the Peak Forest Canal. They diverted to The Queens Arms at Newtown, New Mills, for a livener and strolled along the Goyt Valley before returning to the canal for the same route as the A team to The Soldier Dick, a journey totalling five miles.

Next week’s walk will begin at 9.30am from the Poynton Pool car park off Anglesey Drive, Poynton, heading up Princes Incline for the Macclesfield Canal, then towards Pott Shrigley to enter the other side of Lyme Park before dropping back down to The Boar’s Head, Higher Poynton, around 12.15pm. We expect to finish the walk at the Bull’s Head, Poynton, around 2.20pm.