Higher Poynton

Poynton

January 4, 2017

BOAR'S HEAD AT HIGHER POYNTON, HARESTEADS FARM, FOUR WINDS, LYME PARK, BOW STONES, DALE TOP, KEEPER'S COTTAGE, BIRCHENCLIFFE, LOCKGATE FARM,  MINER'S ARMS AT WOOD LANES, MACCLESFIELD CANAL

Distance: 8 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Weather: Dry. Some cloud at first, sunny later

Walkers: Peter Beal, Laurie Fairman, Alan Hart, John Jones, Steve Kemp, Jock Rooney and Tip, Julian Ross, George Whaites

Apologies: Colin Davison (man 'flu), Tom Cunliffe (pub business), Micky Barrett (plantar fasciitis), Mark Gibby (medical appointment), George Dearsley (Turkey)

Leader: Beal​​Diarist: Beal

Starting point: Car park of Boar's Head, Upper Poynton

Starting time: 9.30am​Finishing time: 1.50pm

A good turn-out of Wanderers rejuvenated after the festive season marked the first Wednesday walk of the New Year. There was an outbreak of the dreaded 'dry January syndrome' among some members, but this did not detract from a walk in sunshine with some fine views from the highest points of Lyme Park.

The walk was to have been Mark Gibby's leadership debut, but sadly he could not make it. It was left to the rest of us to follow a route that did its best to conform to Mark's intentions.

A  party of only six walkers left the planned starting point of the car park at the Boar's Head

only to discover within minutes that Laurie and Steve had disobeyed instructions and parked instead at the Nelson's Pit information centre on our route.

The information centre provides detail of the once thriving, if modest in scale, mining industry around Poynton, the scene of 74 working pits in its heyday.

We crossed the Macclesfield Canal and climbed gently up a metalled lane through fields and across a catle grid (10 minutes). After a second cattle grid the lane descended to cross a brook and climbed gently again to Haresteads Farm, the home of timber and butchery businesses.

The track became rougher and at a white house named Windgather - though marked as Four Winds on OS maps - we went through a pedestrian gate in to the extensive grounds of Lyme Park (20 mins).

The track rose gently alongside a high drystone wall, where a rebuilding operation that has been ongoing for several years was still taking place. Here we were joined by Wanderer John Jones, who had made ground to catch us up from his narrowboat at Lyme View marina a short distance down the canal.

We came to a junction with other tracks joining from our right and bore left downhill on a metalled track towards Lyme Hall (27 mins).

Within sight of the extensive car park we crossed a cattle grid (32 mins) and turned immediately right uphill. This brought us to a gate leading in to woodland with a view of the hall on our left.

The word 'lyme', formerly used to describe a section of royal forest, is a corruption of the latin for 'limit' or 'boundary' (so my Peak District Companion tells me).

Until 1946 the hall and park were owned for 600 years by the same family. In 1346 Edward 111 granted the land to Sir Thomas Danvers, one of the heroes of Crecy. His descendants were to fight at Agincourt, Flodden and apparently any other battleground within reach. One of the bloody family was beheaded and another fatally wounded in a duel.

In 1388 Sir Thomas's daughter and heiress married Sir Piers Legh, from a wealthy Cheshire family, and they founded a line which was to keep the estate until the hall and 1,323 acres were transfered to the National Trust by descendant Richard Legh, by then Lord Newton.

We exited the woods by another large gate (45 mins) and bore slightly left to begin a steady climb up a track over the open moor. To our right we saw a group of young hinds, part of the extensive roe deer herd kept in the park.

We reached a ladder stile (57 mins), which we crossed in to a small paddock and immediately after scaled a smaller stile to reach the end of a lane at the dwelling of Bowstonegate.

The two Bow Stones, preserved in a walled enclosure next to the house, may be the surviving chunks of 11th century crosses that once marked the boundary of Macclesfield Forest.

We turned right here along a track towards Sponds Hill, went through a gate, and before reaching the highest point turned right along a boggy track towards open moorland (71 mins).

We followed the track, still very boggy, with a wall on our right, over the moor to cross a stile and descend and then climb gently to the rise of Dale Top, with good views over the Cheshire plain and to Manchester.

Pietime was declared and we sought shelter from the chill breeze in a crater-like, boulder-filled depression (89 mins). Opinion varied over whether this was a 'bell pit' - a crude method of mining coal - or the result of a World War 11 bomb. Research fails to reveal the truth - but the former seems most likely.

A leisurely 15 minutes later we resumed, to cross a stile and descend to a track next to the Keeper's Cottage, a former gamekeeper's lodge (103 mins). We turned left along a track and soon right through a gate on to another track.

This brought us to a ford in a stream and slightly uphill to the hamlet of Birchencliff, an extensive gathering of restored former farm buildings (113 mins). We continued downhill on a metalled track to reach a minor road (120 mins).

We turned right here and soon took a footpath signed on the left at a house called Harrop Brow (125 mins). At a stile the path bore slightly right over a field to reach Lockgate Farm (131 mins). We crossed a stile and immediately turned left at another to cross the farmyard on to a lane which brought us to the Macclesfield Canal at the entrance to Lyme View marina.

We continued over the canal and turned immediately right to reach the Miners Arms, one of a growing number of establishments that seems to have mislaid its apostrophe (142 mins).

Theakston's XB bitter was £3-10 but the bargain of the day was the 60p-a-pint lime and soda order by our dry January chums George and Julian. As Alan remarked, at that price it  was enough to make us all give up drink - but not quite.

The rest of the walk was simplicity itself. We rejoined the canal, turned left with Lyme View marina on the far bank and followed the waterside to regain our starting point at the Boar's Head (182 mins), which was amazingly busy for a mid-week lunchtime. The Black Sheep bitter was more than acceptable, but your diarist was remiss in not noting the price.

Next week's walk will start at the Lantern Pike Inn in Little Hayfield (for possibly the last time under Tom's stewardship) at 9.30am. En route refreshment will be at the Lamb Inn, near Peep o' Day on the Hayfield to Chapel road around 12 noon.

Happy wandering!