Wood Lanes

April 4, 2018

Wood Lanes

MINERS ARMS AT WOOD LANES, HARROP BROW, BIRCHENCLIFF, DALE TOP, SPONDS HILL, BRINK FARM, BRINK BROW, ANDREW'S KNOB, BERRISTALL HALL, HARROP BROOK, THE HOLLY BUSH AT BOLLINGTON, CLARENCE MILL, MACCLESFIELD CANAL

Distance: 10 miles

Difficulty: Moderate

Weather: Mainly dry with occasional spots of rain

Walkers: Peter Beal, Colin Davison, Laurie Fairman, Hughie Harriman, Alan Hart, George Whaites

B walkers: Phil Burslem, Tony Job, Terry Jowett, Ken Sparrow, Geoff Spurrell, Barry Williams

Apologies: Alastair Cairns, Mark Gibby, Chris Owen (all walking the Coast to Coast), Tom Cunliffe (heading to join them), Steve Kemp (poorly), Jock Rooney (back and knee trouble)

Leader: Beal Diarist: Beal

Starting point: Miners Arms, Wood Lanes

Starting time: 9.27am Finishing time: 2.21pm

Today's walk saw a new route, a first en-route refreshment stop in Bollington that anyone could remember and a new watering hole in The Holly Bush, which proved to be cosy and welcoming.

Gloomy weather predictions proved unfounded, as seems to happen so often of late, and our main hazard was thick mud on much of the route, which nevertheless failed to claim any fallers.

Alan, who made a weekend visit to the Yorkshire Dales, to join our three chums walking Wainwright's Coast to Coast, reported them fit and in good heart midway through their journey, although later they had to amend their route as blizzards swept Swaledale.

We left the Miners Arms (apostrophe sadly missing) car park, turned right and at the road junction turned left to cross theMacclesfield Canal, with Lyme View marina on our left. We continued along a metalled lane to reach a farm (9 minutes). Here we crossed two stiles in to a field, turned sharp right to reach a double stile and scale that in to another field, where we aimed diagonally right to reach a small gate leading us in to a hedged footpath.

We went through a large metal gate and emerged on the Pott Shrigley road (17 min). We turned right here, passed the Coffee Tavern on our left and turned left along a lane leading to the hamlet of Birchencliff, a charming collection of restored cottages in former farm buildings (27 min).

Here, we went through a gate, crossed a ford and headed upwards with the outskirts of Lyme Park ahead of us. At a T-junction we turned left along another track and soon reached the tree-surrounded Keeper's Cottage (38 min).

We turned right here to climb steadily up the moorland, following the line of a broken wall on our left. We crested the hill at Dale Top (51 min), crossed a stile and descended briefly before climbing again with the white farmhouse of Bowstonegate visible over to our left.

After crossing another stile (68 min) we reached the track from Bowstones (71 min) and turned right towards Sponds Hill, the highest point on the Gritstone Trail. As we started to descend we found a hollow in a mound on the slope providing some shelter from the wind and declared pietime and port, kindly provided by Alan (91 min). There were excellent views here towards Taxall Nick and Windgather Rocks.

Resuming, we descended quickly to the mud-covered Charles Head to Pott Shrigley road and turned right to reach Brinks Farm. Here we turned left through a gate along a muddy track (100 min) before heading off over open fields, following a line of posts marking the route of the Gritstone Trail.

We slanted right uphill across a broken wall (108 min) to follow a path through trees, emerging on a driveway near a cattle grid (113 min).

We turned left here to follow a wall on our left taking us across the flank of Andrew's Knob, a medieval barrow. This modest hill featured recently in a poll of the rudest place names in the UK.

It was sadly outdone by (and readers of a sensitive nature should skip this paragraph) by:

Titty Ho (Hants), Back Passage (City of London), Fine Bush Lane (West London), Crapstone (Devon), Sluts Hole Lane (Norfolk), Penistone (South Yorks), Dick Place (Edinburgh), Pennycomequick Hill (Plymouth), Minge Lane (Worcester) and Butt Hole Road (West Yorks). End of childish sniggering please.

After two fields we turned left through a rusty gate and descended down a muddy path with a wood on our left. We came to a gate with the farmhouse of Berristall Hall below us and again followed Gritstone Trail posts down a slippy slope to reach the farm's duckpond (131 min).

We skirted this on the right on a very muddy track and then dropped down to a small packhorse bridge over a stream (136 min). We climbed through a field to reach a road at the house and cottages on the site of the former Cheshire Hunt pub (145 min).

We followed this a short distance to a road, where we turned left, bearing right at a fork, then right again at the Poacher's pub. This brought us in to Bollington, where we turned left, passed Smith's pie shop and reached the Holly Bush (161 min).

Here Hughie generously treated the company to pints of Unicorn (£3-30) to mark his recent 54th birthday, ranking him as a mere stripling among the Wanderers. Despite the apparent inability of the barmaid to replace a barrel of Guinness, the pub was generally regarded as a welcome addition to our drinking repertoire.

We turned right out of the pub down Bollington's main street and just before the aqueduct took a road on the right to climb to the Macclesfield Canal at the massive Clarence Mill (171 min), a former cotton spinnng works that had 320 looms, and opened three years after the canal was built in 1831. It now houses apartments, small businesses, a radio station and the Bollington Discovery Centre, a heritage project.

We crossed an impressive footbridge, built in 2009, to reach the canal towpath and turned right on the straightfoward three-mile route back to Wood Lanes, keeping on the towpath to the left of the canal all the way.

Back at the Miners Arms the staff were having similar difficulties with their beer barrels before finally producing pint of Wells' Bombardier and Jennings' Cumberland at £3-25 and £3-20 respectively.

We found the six B walkers already ensconced here, having completed a route of around five miles in to and out of Lyme Park, calling at the Boar's Head in Higher Poynton.

Next week's walk will start at the Angler's Rest in Millers Dale (parking on the road) at 9.50am. We will call at the Red Lion in Litton for refreshment at 12.15pm, returning to the Angler's around 2.15pm.