Fernilee

March 22, 2017

Fernilee

SHADY OAK PUB AT FERNILEE, LADDER HILL, TUNSTEAD FARM, TUNSTEAD MILTON, HILLTOP, BUGSWORTH BASIN, PEAK FOREST CANAL, SOLDIER DICK PUB AT FURNESS VALE, RINGSTONES, STONEHEAD, TODDBROOK RESERVOIR DAM, MEMORIAL PARK AT WHALEY BRIDGE, HORWICH END, FERNILEE

Distance: 9 miles

Difficulty: Moderate, very wet ground

Weather: Intermittent light rain

Walkers: Peter Beal, Chris Owen, Jock Rooney with Tip

Apologies: Tom Cunliffe (Spain), Colin Davidson (Malaga), Alan Hart (fearing rain), Steve Kemp (unspecified), Laurie Fairman (recovering from op), George Dearsley (Turkey)

Leader: Beal                         Diarist: Beal

Starting point: Shady Oak at Fernilee

Starting time: 9.37am                     Finishing time: 2.29pm

The weather forecast for today's outing was atrocious and after Alan's announced non-participation your temporary diarist arrived at the starting point fully expecting no-one else to be there and to be making an early trip back to a warm home.

He had reckoned however without the fortitude of Chris, Jock and Tip, who were in the pub car park waiting,

As it turned out the forecast continuous heavy rain was nowhere near as bad as predicted and the expected deluge arrived only after we had stopped walking. We had however to contend with very soggy ground, although our threesome surprisingly avoided any falls.

We left the pub car park and turned left up a narrow lane at the side of the pub, soon reaching the minor road of Elnor Lane, leading to Whaley Bridge. We crossed this and took a track immediately opposite to reach another lane.

We turned right here and almost immediately left up another track running across the flanks of Ladder Hill. We followed this, climbing steadily and soon the tall television mast topping the hill came in to view.

At the high point of the ridge we crossed a stile on our left, marked by a footpath sign, in to a field (23 minutes). We descended diagonally to our right, over very wet grass, to reach a track emerging at the bottom corner. We passed through a gate to reach the end of a lane at Tunstead Farm (37 mins).

We turned left through a gate in to a yard and immediately climbed a ladder stile on the right and through a gate in to a small paddock which a sign proclaimed contained Houdini Goats. There was indeed one there, obviously not having inherited the skills of his human namesake. Brief research indicates that perhaps Houdini goats are not a breed but a whimsical term applied by owners due to the tendency of all and any goats to escape from wherever they are contained.

We scaled a stone stile out of the paddock and descended a large field, heading for a small tunnel which could be seen leading under the Buxton-Manchester railway line.

Emerging at the other side we crossed a field to a ramshackle stile and steps descending over very wet ground to a wooden bridge over a stream. We turned left over another footbridge, swung right on a path to a stile, after which we emerged on the Chapel-en-le-Frith to Whaley Bridge road at the hamlet of Tunstead Milton (58 mins).

We crossed the road and took a lane immediately opposite which soon began climbing quite steeply. At a farmhouse here Jock stopped to greet two old caving chums loading their pick-up truck.

We joined Eccles Road near the top of the hill near the imposing dwelling of Ollerenshaw Hall. We turned right and almost immediately left up another minor road. Shortly, on the crest of the hill, we took a path through a gate on the left leading, muddily, in to a field.

A line of electricty poles stretching to our left marked the route to a stone stile, afer which we descended left to a gap in a stone wall at a line of trees. Ahead of us and below we

could see a grass track exiting the field. We headed for this and at the remains of a low stone wall, we declared pietime, the rain now having stopped (87 mins).

After a leisurely 18-minute break we continued down the track which soon emerged alongside houses to bring us into the top of Buxworth, a village now split in two by the noisy A6 relief road.

The village was formerly called Bugsworth and, earlier Buggesworth, because of medieval associations with a Peak Forest bailiff called Bugg, or possibly a man called Bugge who owned iron forges.

My Peak District Companion records: 'But the residents were more sensitive to persisent joked about bugs than they were to medieval history. They made three attempts to change the name and at the third attempt they managed it - in 1929 the parish voted to substitute 'x' for'gs'. The snag was, of course, that this prim striving for dignity became as big a joke as Bugsworth'.

We turned left and soon right downhill to cross the relief road on a bridge and arrived at the canal basin, which still carries the original Bugsworth name. In the 19th century this was a major inland port that served as a terminus for both the Peak Forest Tramway and the Peak Forest Canal.

The tramway, which functioned from 1796 to 1926, connected to the limestone quarries at Dove Holes. Limestone and lime were loaded on to barges at Bugsworth, transported to Dukinfield and along the Ashton-under-Lyne canal to complete the trip to Manchester and the Mersey.

We continued through the restored basin now used by pleasure craft, and along the canal, which was still used commercially until 1959, towards Furness Vale. Here, we went under a white-painted bridge, climbed immediately up a ramp to our right to turn right again over the bridge and climbed up the road to emerge on the A6.

We turned right and crossed the road to reach the Soldier Dick pub (129 mins), where the Wainwright's was still a more than reasonable £2-85 a pint.

After a slightly extended refreshment stop we resumed, turning right out of the pub and right again after the Imperial Chinese restaurant. We climbed the hill with houses on either side and soon after the road became a rougher track it divided. We took the left fork, signed Ringstone Caravan Park (139 mins).

The caravans came in to view on our right and the track dropped to a stream, which we crossed before immediately leaving the track and climbing a path on the right which brought us to an elevated stretch of pleasant grassland, dotted with clumps of gorse bushes.

The path crossed two muddy fields to emerge on the road between Whaley and High Disley (165 mins). We descended left and at Start Road turned right and immediately left over a stile to descend through a quagmire on a path which brought us to a road at the side of Todd Brook reservoir.

We turned left here and almost immediately right over the dam of the reservoir, which serves as a feeder for the Peak Forest Canal. At the end of the dam we took a surfaced path to the left and descended at a sign reading War Memorial. This brought us in to a park where we turned right to emerge on the Macclesfield Road near the traffic lights at Horwich End.

We turned left and immediately right at the lights to cross the road and take a narrow lane on the left. This went past terraced houses and at some more modern housing brought us to the bottom of the Shallcross Incline, the former route of the Cromford and High Peak Railway, now surfaced for pedestrians (189 mins).

At the top of this we emerged on a residential street, turned left and immediately right in to Shallcross Avenue, which brought us to Elnor Lane, where we turned right and 12 minutes later reached the small lane on the right where we retraced our steps to the pub car park.

The barmaid at the Shady Oak ruled that we looked too wet to sit anywhere but on the leather seats in the sideroom, which we were warned would soon be occupied by a wake. She then charged us £3-50 for pints of unremarkable EPA.

Chris Owen has gallantly volunteered to lead next week's walk through the Macclesfield Forest. This will start at 9.40am at the free car park at Tegg's Nose reservoir, reached by going through Langley village, and turning left in to Holehouse Lane, signed as a dead-end. Refreshments en-route will be at the Leather's Smithy at Ridgegate reservoir around 12.20pm and after debooting we will drive to the nearby Sutton Hall for around 2.15pm.

Happy wandering!