Sutton

November 14, 2018.

SUTTON HALL, PARVEY LANE, LEE FARM, SUTTON RESERVOIR, MACCLESFIELD CANAL, BOSLEY LOCKS, NORTH RODE MANOR, YEW TREE FARM, RODE GREEN, GAWSWORTH PARISH CHURCH, THE HARRINGTON ARMS AT GAWSWORTH, GAWSWORTH HALL, DANES MOSS NATURE RESERVE, MACCLESFIELD CANAL AND SUTTON HALL

Distance: 10 miles.

Difficulty: Easy.

Weather: Dry, mainly cloudy with some sunshine.

Walkers: Peter Beal, Alastair Cairns with Daisy, Tom Cunliffe, Alan Hart, Chris Owen, Julian Ross and George Whaites.

B Walkers: Phil Burslem, George Fraser, Tony Job, Terry Jowett, Ken Sparrow and Geoff Spurrell.

Non-walking drinkers: Colin Davison and Lawrie Fairman.

Apologies: Mickey Barrett (supervising house improvements), George Dearsley (in Turkey), Mark Gibby and Hughie Hardiman (filial duties), Mark Kean (Spanish hols), Steve Kemp (recovering from bone marrow transplant),  Jock Rooney (Cyprus hols) and Barry Williams (Sri Lanka hols)

Leader: Owen. Diarist: Hart.

Starting point: Car park at Sutton Hall, Sutton, Macclesfield.

Starting time: 9.35am. Finishing time: 2.15pm.

Unseasonably warm weather and a dry day rewarded The Magnificent Seven who took part in this hike led by Chris along a route spotted by your diarist in the summer issue of Ramblers’ magazine “Walk”. The journey was predominantly flat which enabled us to proceed at a brisk pace. Consequently we had covered almost half the distance by Pietime.

This gave us the opportunity to spend 50 minutes in the first watering hole with our wounded soldier Lawrie and his ailing comrade Colin. The former gave a graphic description of the operation to provide him with a reconditioned left knee which left some of his listeners feeling decidedly queasy. After hearing the gory details I suspect there are few who would opt for a local anaesthetic like Lawrie did if such surgery became necessary.

With the aid of morphine, Lawrie has already broken through the pain barrier to start his recovery programme and promises to join us for Christmas lunch. He hopes to rejoin our weekly wanderings in the New Year. We wish him and Colin a speedy return to our ranks.

During our walk we skirted through several centuries of history from The Charge of The Light Brigade; the construction of a 27-mile canal which took five years to build within 10% of its original budget; and an aristocratic duel for the land we crossed which ended with both combatants lying dead in Hyde Park. Read on for more detail.

Our walk began from the car park of Sutton Hall, once the ancestral home of Lord Lucan, who was involved in a glorious tragedy during the Crimean War when he passed on an ambiguous order sent by Lord Raglan which led to 600 cavalrymen riding into The Valley of Death.

In fact a letter discovered a few years ago sheds new light on the disaster with a more junior officer Capt Nolan (played by David Hemmings in the famous 1968 film)  now apparently being mainly blamed for the calamity.

There is a link   here (click on the word here)

Or cut and past the following URL into your browser.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/10/letter-sheds-light-blame-blunder-light-brigade-valley-death/

Returning to the main road we turned left until we reached a green public footpath sign on our left and crossed a wooden stile to enter a field. Another wooden stile led us out of the field and along Parvey Lane. At the drive leading to Lee Farm we turned left until we reached a bridge across a stream. Immediately after the bridge we turned right, keeping the stream on our right and walked to the left of Sutton Reservoir.

At the end of the reservoir we swung sharp left (31mins) and soon crossed the A523 Macclesfield-Leek road before going over a footbridge to the far side of the Macclesfield Canal at Bridge 48A. We followed the towpath with the canal on our left until we reached the start of Bosley Locks (75mins)

The 12 locks raise the waterway by 118 feet in one mile, at the end of which an aqueduct 45 feet high carries the canal over the River Dane. The Macclesfield Canal was designed by civil engineer Thomas Telford, whose plans to build it at a cost of £295,000 were approved by Parliament in 1826. The 27-mile long canal linking Marple with Kidsgrove opened in 1831 and had cost £320,000.

We turned right along a road which brought us to the entrance to North Rode Manor, stopping for pies and port alongside a lake (91mins). Resuming we went through a wooden five-barred gate and turned right at Yew Tree Farm, through Keepers Cottage and through two metal gates. A wooden stile brought us to a road where we turned right, passing Rode Green Cottage on our left (113mins)

After crossing a road and heading through the metal kissing gate opposite we entered a field by a green public footpath sign, heading through a similar gate and a wooden stile to reach a path with an electrified fence on our right. We crossed a wooden stile and headed towards the distinctive tower of Gawsworth Parish Church in the distance.

Another wooden stile was crossed and we walked to the left of a pond. This brought us to a metal kissing gate which we went though. With the church on our right we turned left down Church Lane to reach the Harrington Arms on our right (144mins)

This is one of two pubs called the Harrington Arms owned by the Robinsons’ Brewery of Stockport. They are two miles apart, the other being in Bosley, and the landlord of the Gawsworth hostelry confirmed this was a constant source of confusion for unfamiliar drinkers over the decades who had waited in vain for their chums in the wrong Harrington Arms.

The Robbies’ Unicorn cask bitter at £3-30 was given the ultimate accolade by Tom of being “not bad” as we listened to Lawrie’s eye-watering story of his operation and the subsequent infection which delayed his recovery.

Continuing our journey we went back up Church Lane passing the 15^th Century St James Church on our right and swinging left away from the entrance to Gawsworth Hall.

Gawsworth Old Hall, a Grade 1 listed country house, was built between 1480 and 1600 replacing an earlier Norman structure. It was originally owned by the Fitton family, later by the Gerards and Stanhopes. Since 1930 it has been in possession of the Richards’ family.

Notable residents included Mary Fitton, a maid of honour to Queen Elizabeth 1, who was rumoured to be the “dark lady” mentioned in Shakespeare’s sonnets. Another was Samuel “Maggoty” Johnson, a playwright described as the last jester in England, whose grave lies nearby in Maggoty Wood.

In 1712 a dispute about ownership of the Gawsworth estate led to a duel in Hyde Park, London, in which Baron Charles Mohun, 37, from the Gerard branch of the family, fought the Duke of Hamilton,  54, from the Fitton side. Both swordsmen died. Baron Mohun had won two previous duels and twice been charged with murder, for which he was twice acquitted. So for him it was third time unlucky.

Just beyond the hall entrance was a large statue of Sir Robert Peel, the founder of Britain’s police force, who gave them their nicknames “Bobbies.”

We went through a metal kissing gate and reached a road where we turned left. Where this road swung left we carried straight ahead along a footpath (174mins).

 We turned right at a sign for Danes Moss Nature Reserve where we learned that 72 different species of birds had been spotted. We were also informed that no healthy bog was complete without a super plant called sphagnum which can hold 20 times its own weight in water.

After pausing briefly for lunch (176mins) we continued and crossed the main railway line between Manchester and London via a footbridge. The path led on to Bridge 41 of the Macclesfield Canal, where we followed the towpath until we exited at Bridge 44 (210mins). From here we crossed the road to enter the car park of Sutton Hall to de-boot (213mins)

As mentioned earlier, this was the ancestral home of the Bingham family who were the Earls of Lucan. The 3rd Earl, Field Marshal George Charles Bingham (1800-1888) was at the Battle of Balaclava in 1854 when he sent an order via Captain Louis Nolan to his brother-in-law Lord Cardigan, who commanded the Light Brigade. As a result of a misunderstanding Cardigan ordered his cavalry to charge the Russian guns and many of them were mown down in what poet Alfred Lord Tennyson described as “The Valley of Death.”

In more recent times Richard John Bingham, the 7th Earl of Lucan (1934-?) , disappeared in 1974 after the family nanny had been murdered. It was believed Lord Lucan had mistaken Sandra Rivett for his wife Veronica, with whom he was involved in acrimonious divorce proceedings, and had battered her to death in the dark. In 2016 he was pronounced dead by a judge and his son, George Charles Bingham, became the 8th Earl of Lucan.

Inside Sutton Hall we enjoyed pints of Lord Lucan cask bitter for £3-50.

Next week’s walk will start at 9.45am from the car park beyond the viaduct on the way to Upper Booth near Barber Booth, Edale. To reach it take the A625 from Chapel-en-le-Frith towards Castleton and after three milesfollow the sign on the left for Barber Booth. At a bridge there is a sign for Upper Booth which leads under a railway viaduct to a car park on the left.

 Peter intends to lead us up a fairly stiff ascent to Crowden Tower on Kinder Scout before descending to Edale for a livener in The Nag’s Head around 12.30pm. After returning to our cars at 2.15pm to de-boot we will drive back towards Chapel, stopping for further refreshment at The Fickle Mermaid (formerly The Fallow Deer) at the side of the A6 on the outskirts of Chapel at about 2.30pm.

Happy wandering !