Marple

MARPLE

April 6, 2016

MARPLE, PEAK FOREST CANAL, MARPLE AQUEDUCT, REDBROW WOOD, ETHEROW COUNTRY PARK, ERNOCROFT WOOD, MILL BROW, MELLOR CHURCH, MELLOR, MARPLE

Distance: 10 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Weather: Mainly fine and dry. Some hail briefly

Walkers: Peter Beal, Colin Davison, Laurie Fairman, Mark Gibby, Graham Hadfield, George Whaites

B walkers: George Fraser, Tony Job, Terry Jowett, Malcolm Smith, Ken Sparrow, Geoff Spurrell

Apologies: Tom Cunliffe (electrical inspection at pub), Alan Hart (Caledonian Canal), George Dearsley (Turkey)

Leaders: Fairman and (sometimes) Davison​Diarist: Beal

Start point: Main road at Marple Rec 

Start time: 9.35am ​Finish: 1.34pm

Today's excursion could well have been dubbed The Samuel Oldknow Memorial Walk. We passed several remnants of the 18th-century industrialist's local empire and ended at a new drinking establishment in Marple named after him (more of Samuel Oldknow later).

The walk was somewhat curtailed when our planned refreshment stop at the Devonshire Arms in Mellor turned out to be closed. Later research by Colin revealed that the pub is in relatively new hands and closes only on Wednesday lunchtimes, when the landlady apparently does something she can't do at any other time.

Another gloomy weather forecast turned out to be over-pessimistic and apart from one brief flurry of hail we enjoyed fine weather.

The walk was essentially a circuit of the junction of the Goyt and Etherow valleys, which converge near Brabyns Park. As late as the early 20th century the confluence was regarded as the start of the River Mersey - but later wisdom moved this down to the centre of Stockport.

We turned right from our parking place on the main road at Marple recreation ground (possibly a first) and immediately reached the bridge spannng the Peak Forest canal at a point four locks down on the 16-lock flight. We turned right down the towpath and passed, on our right, Samuel Oldknow's imposing former warehouse, now flats and offices.

Lancastrian Samuel (1756-1828) was at one time the country's biggest muslin manufacturer, operating out of Stockport. He bought land in Mellor and Marple in a bold enterprise to create a self-supporting community combining industry and agriculture.

His development included a mill, a factory estate, coal pits, quarrying and lime kilns. He bought herds of beef and dairy cattle, introduced the Merino sheep and drained the pastures. His mill at Mellor once employed 2,000 people. He actively promoted the construction of the Peak Forest canal.

His vision was to create a project like his friend Richard Arkwright's village at Cromford, near Matlock. But he was less fortunate and died with debts of £206,000.

We crossed the Marple to Marple Bridge road and continued down the flight of locks, which carry the canal down a drop of 200 feet in a distance of a mile-and-a-quarter.

This brought us to the Marple Aqueduct, 90 feet above the River Goyt and the highest in England. It is also the highest masonry-arch aqueduct in Britain, outdone only by Telford's 120-foot high Pontcysyllte metal structure near Llangollen.

At the end of the aqueduct (28 minutes) we turned sharp left down steps which brought us under the aqueduct to the bank of the Goyt. We turned left alongside the water before striking uphill left across an exceptionally muddy paddock that brought us to Upper Watermeetings Farm.

We crossed the first of so many stiles encountered during the day that your diarist will make no attempt to detail them all. Signs proclaimed we were following the Valley Way and also the Midshires Way, which for some peculiar reason links Bledlow in Buckinghamshire with Stockport.

The Goyt completed a wide sweep to rejoin us from the right and we continued along its bank through the nature reserve of Redbrow Wood. We passed a weir and reached the Romiley road a short distance from the site of the George pub, a former Wanderers' starting point, but sadly no more (55min).

We turned left for a short distance before turning right in to the bottom of the Etherow Country Park (60min). We soon reached the large lake on our left where Laurie identified sand martins swooping low over the water. We also admired many Mandarin ducks that have made the park their home.

We continued up the canalised Etherow before reaching a large weir with a convenient bench and shelter, where pietime was declared (73min).

A leisurely 12 minutes later - Tom was absent - we crossed the bridge over the weir and turned right up a good track climbing steadily through Ernocroft Wood. This bore sharply left up a steep slope to emerge on the Marple to Glossop road (96min).

We turned right and soon crossed the road to take a stile in to a field (more mud), where we climbed to a house at the former Ernocroft Farm. We followed a lane to the left which became a track to bring us to the hamlet of Mill Brow on a lane grandly named as Hollywood Road (126min).

We turned left here and immediately right along a footpath taking us past a large goose farm on our right. We reached a junction of tracks at which there was a discussion between Colin, who now seemed to have seized control, and Laurie over the best way to Mellor Church.

We turned left up a track, crossed a steep field, and reached Townscliffe Farm, from where the grassy path over two fields to the church could be clearly seen. We turned right and left around the farm to climb up to St Thomas's Church (148min), noted for having the oldest wooden pulpit in England, hewn from a single oak.

There was no time to seek to admire this, for the Devonshire Arms beckoned. We reached the pub by walking through the churchyard and turning right and then left down the lane, which crossed a stream and climbed up a track to reach the Marple Bridge to Mellor road (165min).

We were dismayed to find the pub shut, at which point Colin buried his head in his hands and denied responsibility for the whole walk.

We decided to head for Marple by the most direct route. This involved taking the road downhill towards Marple Bridge for around a mile and turning left on a track at the Royal Oak pub (also shut).

We immediately turned left in to Old Mill Lane and followed a track downhill to reach Bottoms Hall on our left and the Roman Lakes, which in fact were the millponds for Oldknow's aforementioned mill (210min).

We turned right and slanted up a track with the railway line above us on the left. We emerged on a residential road and turned left to reach the recreation ground (228min).

After debooting we walked the short distance to Marple's Market Street precinct and the Samuel Oldknow, which had been open for less than two weeks and was described by one of its owners as a "compact pub". Apparently he didn't like the term micro-brewery.

Most of the party enjoyed the excellent Anagram pale ale from the Cryptic Brewery at a very reasonable £2-80 a pint. We were joined by the SOB walkers, who had completed a circuit of around 4 miles from Brabyns Park via the Roman Lakes.

Laurie will lead next week's walk, starting at the public car park at Wettonmill in the Derbyshire Dales at 10am.

*** For any Wanderers who might not have seen Colin's message, the funeral of sadly-missed former Wanderer Frank Dudley will be at 11.30am on Tuesday, April 12, at St George's Church, Poynton. Afterwards at the sports club. RIP Frank.