Charlesworth

CHARLESWORTH, HIGH BANK, COOMBS EDGE, COWN EDGE WAY, ROBIN HOOD’S PICKING RODS, SANDY LANE FARM, SYLVANDALE FARM, WARHURST FOLD FARM, RIVER ETHEROW, BROADBOTTOM, MOTTRAM IN LONGDENDALE, MUDD, GORSEY BROW, TRANS-PENNINE TRAIL AND GREY MARE INN AT CHARLESWORTH

Distance: 11 miles.

Difficulty: Moderate.

Weather: Always dry and sunny after a cloudy start.

Walkers: Mickey Barratt, Peter Beal, Colin Davison and Alan Hart.

Apologies: George Dearsley (prolonged Turkish hols), Tom Mud* (curry aftershock), Jock Rooney (domestic duties), Julian Ross (visiting relatives in Northumberland), George Whaites (dentist).

Leader:  Davison. Diarist: Hart.

Starting point: Outside the George and Dragon in Charlesworth.

Starting time: 9.50am. Finishing time: 2.26pm.

Not for the first time, Tom suggested this walk, nominated the pubs and offered to lead us, only to fail to turn up. This time the excuse given was spectacular after-effects following a visit to a New Mills curry house on Tuesday night.

We will spare our more sensitive readers the full details of his symptoms, conveyed by Peter B. on Tom’s behalf, but lack of research about the opening times of the chosen pubs led to his name being changed from Cunliffe*.

On arriving at the Harewood Arms in Broadbottom after a steep climb with powerful thirsts, we entered the pub to be told that they would not be opening until 4pm. Detours brought us more heartache as we discovered some nearby pubs had completely closed (The Cheshire Cheese at Broadbottom and The Pack Horse at Mottram), while others did not open at lunchtimes.

We then found that the George and Dragon at Charlesworth, which Tom had recommended as our final rendezvous, did not open till 3pm. Happily we were able to slake our now raging thirsts at The Grey Mare Inn opposite.

It seems surprising that a habit is developing for pubs to be closed on weekday lunchtimes, but to open their doors at 3pm or 4pm instead. Who, one wonders, are the likely customers on late afternoons ? Surely publicans can expect more custom if they open between noon and 2pm, close and then reopen at 5pm when some lucky workers have finished for the day.

Suffice to say this is a trend which is not helping the forward planning department of the Wednesday Wanderers.

From outside the George and Dragon we crossed the road and headed uphill, passing Charlesworth School on our right and immediately afterwards turning right along cobblestones. This brought us out at an impressive house called High Bank where we turned right at a green public footpath sign. For 20 yards we were heading downhill before we turned left along the edge of a field (5mins).

We crossed a wooden stile and turned left along a lane for 20 yards before heading right over a wooden stile marked with a yellow arrow (8mins). This was the start of a steady climb on a horseshoe-shaped ridge with the valley below getting gradually deeper.

Eventually the ridge evened out and we walked along Coombs Edge with a view back down to Charlesworth and a view for miles to the west. As we descended with the ridge we turned left (50mins) instead of plunging further downhill on the path ahead. This route becomes Cown Edge Way.

We reached Robin Hood’s Picking Rods – two stone pillars with a narrow gap between them – where we paused for pies and port (64mins). There are several theories regarding the history of these carved slabs of rock, which may once have been a single column.

It could have been a Druid Stone, but most historians believe it was carved in the 9^th Century by Anglo Saxons. Their subsequent use is also the subject of conjecture – an ancient route marker, a forest boundary marker put there by the Normans or as a county boundary marker separating Derbyshire from Greater Manchester.

Its name derives from the legend that Robin Hood rescued a damsel in distress by accepting a challenge to fire an arrow at the columns from a great distance, causing an indentation which is still there. The tale goes on that Robin then used the columns for bending and stringing the longbows of his merry men.

Resuming our descent we reached a road (72mins) which we crossed and followed a green public footpath sign. As we followed the path a large group of hikers approached from the opposite direction and introduced themselves as The Thursday Club, from Wilmslow.

Your diarist pointed out that they appeared to be a day ahead of schedule. However they explained that they met in a pub on Thursdays to plan their walks for the following Saturday and Wednesday. Perhaps we are missing a trick here...

After crossing a wooden stile we went straight ahead along a lane (82mins), passing Smithy Lane on our left (89mins) and turning right at a wooden public footpath sign (91mins). Colin, who stepped into the breach left by our absent leader, is to be commended for choosing a route where not only ripe blackberries were in abundance but there was also a supply of windfall apples to sustain us.

 After passing a house we turned left along a gravel track (95mins) and then right before a garage. The path took us through a wood which we left by a wooden stile to enter a field (99mins). Keeping a drystone wall on our right we proceeded, going over a wooden stile and now keeping the wall on our left.

Two more wooden stiles were crossed as we walked downhill through fields (110mins). A third wooden stile brought us to the side of cottages. Where the paths crossed we turned left (118mins) passing Sandy Lane Farm on our right.

After crossing a road we went through an unmarked 8-barred metal gate (121mins) and headed downhill towards some overhead power cables, exiting the field by a similar gate (127mins). A steep descent then led us to a wooden stile and a footbridge, followed by steep stone steps on the other side.

We turned left at the top and passed a house on our left which was being refurbished. We went through a wood which was covered in Himalayan balsam, the foreign invader which has formed ghettoes around Britain’s riverbanks. We crossed a wooden footbridge, went through a small wooden gate and then a large wooden gate (137mins).

Our quartet passed a cottage on our left and then turned right past a duckpond on our right until the gravel tracks formed a T-junction (144mins). We turned left, passing Sylvandale Farm and Warhurst Fold Farms on our left. By following a wooden public footpath sign straight ahead, we crossed the River Etherow by a footbridge and turned left (149mins) before swinging right up Well Row.

This led us to the main road in Broadbottom where we turned left to reach the Harewood Arms (161mins). To our disappointment, we were informed it did not open until 4pm. An eight-minute journey down the main road led to further horror when we discovered that The Cheshire Cheese had closed and was no longer a pub (169mins).

At this point Peter B raised our flagging spirits with his story that the village had been forced to scrap its annual carnival queen contest. There had been a lack of entrants for the title “Miss Broadbottom.”

We now found ourselves going uphill for the second time, passing the Harewood Arms and the railway station on our left, passing the sign for Mottram and arriving at a pub called The Waggon on our right (191mins). Despite promises to the contrary by locals in Broadbottom, it was closed.

Desperation was now setting in and Tom’s name was mentioned on several occasions: never in a favourable light. We continued for another mile further into Mottram in Longdendale where we found The White Hart (201mins) was also closed and the nearby Pack Horse shut down with scaffolding surrounding it.

Although we were told another pub a mile further along would be open, it would have taken us further from Charlesworth and our final watering hole. We stopped for lunch by the village stocks, which some suggested would be a suitable fate for Tom.

                                      

                                     Some suggested Tom Cunliffe should be puts in the stocks

Instead of retracing our footsteps along the main road, we went back for 30 yards then turned left up Church Brow (203mins). Soon we were in a hamlet called Mudd which we passed through on the way back to the viaduct in Broadbottom at Gorsey  Brow near the site of the extinct Cheshire Cheese (226mins).

We turned left at the main road, crossing the Etherow and heading uphill back to Charlesworth. At the George and Dragon we turned left and crossed the road to enter The Grey Mare Inn with a chorus of Halleluyah (252mins).

To be frank we would have drunk anything at any price by that stage. The Copper Dragon cask bitter was £3 a pint, but Mickey found it almost undrinkable and switched to Hobgoblin, describing it as marginally better.

The Grey Mare Inn has been licensed since 1841 and was used during the 19^th Century to hold inquests at a time when juries would view the bodies. Another pub in the village at that time might have been more suitable – it was called The Cradle and Coffin.

Charlesworth’s main claim to fame is that in 1990, while visiting the Peak District, Princess Diana waved at crowds of well-wishers as she passed through it.

The route for next week’s walk has been selected by Lawrie, who is celebrating his last birthday before becoming an octogenarian. It will start at 9.30am from the free Torkington Park car park opposite The Rising Sun pub at Hazel Grove and finish around 2.30pm at The Wilfred Wood VC (Wetherspoons) on the A6. Lawrie assures me we will be informed of the halfway pub in due course when he thinks we need to know.

Happy wandering.