Torkington Park

TORKINGTON PARK, HOLLY TRAIL, HAZEL GROVE GOLF COURSE, CLOUGH HOUSE FARM, OAKFIELD FARM, MACCLESFIELD CANAL, MARPLE RIDGE, PEAK FOREST CANAL, RING O’ BELLS AT MARPLE, MACCLESFIELD CANAL (REPRISE), MARPLE GOLF COURSE, STOCKPORT GOLF COURSE, WHITE HOUSE FARM AND THE WILFRED WOOD (WETHERSPOONS) AT HAZEL GROVE

Distance: 11 miles.

Difficulty: Easy.

Weather: Dry, mainly cloudy with sunny intervals.

A walkers: Lawrie Fairman, Alan Hart, John Laverick and George Whaites.

Leader: Fairman. Diarist: Hart.

B walkers: George Fraser, Tony Job, Ken Sparrow and Geoff Spurrell.

Non-walking drinker: Chris Corps.

Apologies: Mickey Barrett, Peter Beal, Colin Davison and George Dearsley (various hols), Julian Ross and Jock Rooney (domestic duties), Steve Courtney and Mike Walton (w*^king).

Starting point: Torkington Park free car park, Hazel Grove, at 9.30am.

Finishing point: The Wilfred Wood (Wetherspoons), Hazel Grove, at 2.31pm.

A dry day, a mainly flat walk, three golf courses, two canals, a traditional pub and another selling (comparatively) cheap beer, plus a debutant walker and a birthday treat: it’s not just the Italians who enjoy la dolce vita.

Lawrie laughed in the face of Old Father Time as he celebrated his 79^th birthday by leading an 11-mile walk back to a pub of his choosing, where he bought a round of drinks. Among the recipients of this largesse was a newcomer to the Wednesday Wanderers’ ranks, “Geordie” George Fraser, who brought the number of Newcastle United fans in our group to three (Lawrie and John being the others).

We bid a warm welcome to George F (now one of three Georges in our team) and wish Lawrie many happy returns as he continues to defy the ravages of time.

This enjoyable walk was not without incident as Lawrie managed to fall before the first hurdle, tumbling in front of a stile, and then lost his bearings as he led us in the wrong direction. Happily he was unhurt and the unplanned diversion was mercifully brief.

From the car park we walked away from the A6 to pass Torkington Lodge on our right. This is a Grade 2 listed Regency building. It was bought in 1935 by Hazel Grove and Bramhall Urban District Council for council offices. The 34 acres of parkland surrounding it are used for recereational purposes.

We paid a brief visit to the Secret Garden, on our right, where a plaque informed us of the name of the volunteer who had created the garden in 1960 “by hand.” One would have thought the council would have provided him at the very least with a spade, but those were tough times.

We reached Torkington Road (7mins) and turned right. Where the way ahead became Offerton Road, we swung right with Torkington Road (15mins). After passing Torkington School on our right we turned right at a Public Footpath Sign marked Holly Trail (20mins). Just before our first wooden stile, Lawrie tripped over a hidden branch and sent his new birthday gift, an ordnance survey map, flying. Happily neither Lawrie nor the map was damaged.

 We crossed the stile into a field and another wooden stile led us into a copse from which we emerged in the grounds of Hazel Grove Golf Club. We kept to the left and after first failing to spot a well-hidden stile, we spotted it at the second attempt to exit the golf course and enter a field (37mins).

Another stile brought us to a lane leading to Clough House Farm. Upon reaching the road by this farm, we turned right (40mins). We then turned left (45mins) towards Oakfield Farm. Just before its entrance we turned right along a path which brought us to the A6, where we turned left (57mins).

After passing The Royal Oak and The Horseshoe on our left, we reached The Bull’s Head on our right (64mins). On the opposite side of the road from it, we turned left to reach the left bank of the Macclesfield Canal. We left the towpath at Bridge 8 (77mins) and headed right over the canal. 

We carried straight ahead through a metal gate where the lane swung right (79mins) and followed the path to a T-junction (81mins). We turned left and followed a sign for Strines. Our quartet went through a gate within a metal gate and took a path on the right of a high-fenced field normally occupied by deer (87mins).

When we reached the next gate and stile (90mins) we paused for pies and port. Resuming we crossed another wooden stile marked with a yellow arrow (92mins), crossed a third wooden stile and passed a row of cottages on our right. We turned left along a road to pass The Romper at Marple Ridge on our left (99mins) before entering Hollinwood Lane (100mins).

This took us down past Clough Bridge Cottage to the Peak Forest Canal (107mins), walking along the towpath with the canal on our left. At Bridge 19 we crossed to the left bank (122mins). This took us to Bridge 1 where the Peak Forest Canal links with the Macclesfield Canal (128mins).

A walk along the left bank allowed us to reach The Ring O’ Bells at Marple just before it opened (130mins). We stopped at a bench opposite the pub and ate our lunch and had just completed our repast when the doors opened. In The Smoke Room, where, ironically, smoking is of course banned, we enjoyed pints of excellent Robinsons’ cask bitter at £2-95 a pint.

Continuing, we returned to the right bank of the Macclesfield Canal at Bridge 2 and turned right to enter Marple golf course (145mins) by a sign warning of the dangers of speeding golf balls. We followed signs across the course, exiting the grounds (157mins), crossing a wooden footbridge (165mins) and entering Stockport Golf Club. We turned right, following a path beyond the right edge of the course until we exited via a yellow arrow on the left side of a pool (180mins).

We entered a field with a hedge on our left and reached a farm, which we passed and then turned immediately left and right (185mins). This brought us to a road where we turned left (192mins). This proved to be the wrong direction and we returned ten minutes later (202mins), this time heading right along Torkington Lane.

Our group passed White House Farm on our right (208mins) and Torkington School on our left as we started to retrace our footsteps. Instead of entering Torkington Park, however, we carried on until we reached The Bullock Smithy on our right (223mins). We had now reached the A6, which we crossed, turned right and reached The Wilfred Wood (226mins), where pints of Ruddles were £1-99.

Next week’s walk will start at 9.45am from The Rose and Crown on the A54 at Allgreave in the Wildboarclough area of Macclesfield. It is anticipated that after going past Gradbach Youth Hostel to Lud’s Church, we will stopping for a livener around 12.15pm at the Wincle Brewery, Danebridge, before returning to The Rose and Crown and, we trust, a warm welcome from its Estonian landlady, Luda, around 2.20pm.

However, as your diarist may be leading this walk, there could be a series of hesitations, repetitions and deviations.