Poynton Pool

POYNTON POOL, POYNTON PARK, HIGHER POYNTON, MACCLESFIELD CANAL, BOLLINHURST BROOK, MANCHESTER-BUXTON RAILWAY LINE, LYME PARK, LYME CAGE, LORD VERNON WHARF, LYME GREEN MARINA, THE MINERS’ ARMS AT WOOD LANE ENDS, DAVENPORT GOLF CLUB, PRINCES INCLINE AND THE BULL’S HEAD AT POYNTON

Distance: 10-11 miles.

Difficulty: Easy.

Weather: Dry, warm and sunny; clouding over later.

A walkers: Tom Cunliffe, Colin Davison, Lawrie Fairman, Alan Hart, Julian Ross and George Whaites.

B walkers: Ken Sparrow and Geoff Spurrell.

C walker: George Fraser.

Non-walking drinker: Tony Job.

Apologies: Mickey Barrett (hols), Peter Beal (hiking with wife in Lakes), George Dearsley (w*^king in London), John Laverick (visiting father-in-law in Surrey), Mike Walton (painful legs), Phil Welsh (suffering from the squitters)

Leader: Hart. Diarist: Hart.

Starting point: Poynton Pool car park off Anglesey Drive.

Starting time: 9.39am. Finishing time: 2.28pm.

This walk was delayed because your diarist failed to spot a text message from Phil stating he was ill and would not be attending. It could be argued that the message arrived while I was in the shower and while my mobile phone was being charged, but the fact remains that I am a fool and must be punished.

September proved to be the driest on record, and October started in similar style with unseasonably warm temperatures and dry conditions. There was a slight mist but visibility was good for many miles from Lyme Cage. 

Furthermore our walk round Poynton Pool not only took us past the normal wading birds such as swans, ducks, geese, coots and moorhens, but also the rarer sight of a cormorant. We were later to see two herons at close quarters and to hear the warning call of a buzzard.

There was also the welcome return of Julian, after a prolonged absence renovating a house he has bought to let in Edgeley. It may prove to be a fleeting appearance as he struggles to cope with his new job, which involves working one day every month. One can only sympathise with his plight.

Finally we were treated to a platter of free sandwiches from Barbara and Sally Bromley at the Bull’s Head. These were gratefully received and despatched with indecent haste by the usual suspects.

From the car park five of the A team walked with Poynton Pool on our left, admiring the bird life. At the end of the footpath we turned left into South Park Drive, admiring the houses owned by Poynton’s elite. We entered the park through one gate and exited by another before turning right into Towers Road (30mins).

At a public footpath sign we turned left through a kissing gate, passing on our right a mound known as “the ice house” where food was once stored underground at low temperatures for Poynton Hall, which was demolished in 1830. Built in the early 16^th Century, this had been the home of the Warren family, who owned all the village farmland.

We walked straight ahead until we came to a wooden stile on our right marked with a yellow arrow (41mins). This took us along a narrow path flanked by hedge and fence which swung left at the end so we could proceed forward in the general direction of Lyme Park.

After crossing Middlewood Road (43mins) we went up a gravel track which passed on our left the studio of the late Wednesday Wanderer Ian Price, a notable local landscape artist and bon viveur. We crossed Hilton Road and entered Prince Road which took us across a bridge over The Middlewood Way (47mins).

The path led us to the Macclesfield Canal where we turned left (51mins). At Bridge 13 we were joined by Colin who had walked from his home in High Lane. The World War 2 pillbox, which stands by the bridge and appeared to have been appropriated by a barge owner, has now been extended and given a colourful makeover. Hanging baskets adorn the walls and it looks both quaint and charming. How long, one wonders, before a planning bureaucrat orders its demolition ?

We crossed to the far side of the canal and turned left after the pillbox before turning right at a green public footpath sign towards Bollinhurst Brook (55mins) The path took us over three footbridges and across two ladder stiles which enabled us to cross the Manchester-Buxton railway line (68mins)

The path now took us across another footbridge and a wooden stile towards Bollinhurst (77mins) before going under a railway arch and turning left (79mins) By this time your leader’s pace was too much for some fainthearts who mutinied and stopped for pietime.

This did not include port as your leader had by now entered Lyme Park (82mins) and seated himself on large rocks outside a cottage for solo Pietime at 11.03am (84mins). Resuming he walked to the right of the park’s entrance cabin, left off the lane and steeply uphill to Lyme Cage (100mins) As he admired the views (105mins) the rebels joined him.

We then went downhill and, with Lyme Hall on our left (114mins), descended a flight of wide steps, swung left into the car park, and then swung right along the lane. Another right turn off the lane took us to a path which we followed with a high deer-proof drystone wall on our right. This took us out of Lyme Park via a gate(128mins).

The path took us to a bridge over the Macclesfield Canal at Lord Vernon’s Wharf where we turned left with the canal on our left (140mins) We crossed the aqueduct over Shrigley Road (153mins) and passed the numerous boats and barges of Lyme Green Marina on our left. We exited the canal towpath at Bridge 18 (164mins) and walked down to crossroads. The Miner’s Arms was diagonally on our right across the road (167mins), and the depleted B team of Geoff and Ken had just started their drinks. We learned the Miner’s is up for sale again after the sudden death of the landlady’s mother.

Geoff and Ken had taken a modest stroll after parking at The Coppice in Higher Poynton, and were planning a similar stroll back before driving to The Bull’s Head. Geordie George, we learned later, had just missed his fellow B-teamers and taken a solo hike to The Miner’s, presumably leaving again just before they arrived.

 After pints of Theakstons or Dizzy Blonde at £3, the A team turned left immediately after the end of the pub car park and followed a path which led through various fields to a country road (183mins) Here we turned right for 20 yards and then followed a public footpath sign left down to a stream which we crossed by a footbridge and climbed up to a lane where we turned right (185mins) along a gravel track.

This brought us out on a road which we crossed (197mins), went over a wooden stile and stopped at a second stile for lunch. Continuing, we followed the beaten path through a series of fields reached by stiles and gates, passing stables on our right as we emerged into Anson Road (208mins).

We crossed Middlewood Road and headed uphill to the right of a row of miner’s cottages, Petre Bank, built in 1815, and uphill into Davenport golf course (Davenport Golf Club was re-located in Higher Poynton after its original course in Stockport had been sold for redevelopment).

At a gate we turned left, crossing the fairway (213mins), leaving the course by a gate and heading uphill to follow a path which emerged in Towers Road (220mins). We crossed the road and proceeded down Princes Incline, the former railway line which used gravity to take tubs full of coal downhill.  Just before London Road North, these tubs were emptied at a coalyard. The weight of the full tubs coming down then forced the empty tubs back uphill to provide fuel-free perpetual motion.

We reached the road (230mins), turned right and arrived at The Bull’s Head on our left (234mins) for pints of Thwaites’ Original at £2-95 or Bosley Cloud at £3-10.

By an extraordinary coincidence, we had already decided that next week’s walk would include a trip over Bosley Cloud. It will start at 9.50am from the public car park behind the Knott Inn pub car park at Rushton Spencer, which is on the Leek road out of Macclesfield. Our bracer will be around 12.15pm at The Coach and Horses, Timbersbrook, before we return for our final drink at The Knott Inn at about 2.30pm.