August 12, 2020.
BOLLINGTON RECREATION GROUND, MACCLESFIELD CANAL, ENDON HOUSE, KERRIDGE RIDGE, RAINOW, BULL HILL LANE, TEGGS NOSE COUNTRY PARK, SADDLERS WAY, BOTTOM RESERVOIR, LANGLEY, SUTTON, YE OLDE KINGS HEAD AT GURNETT, MACCLESFIELD CANAL, MIDDLEWOOD WAY, THE COCK AND PHEASANT, BOLLINGTON
Distance: 12 miles.
Difficulty: Moderate but some stiff climbs in sweltering conditions.
Weather: Hot and sunny throughout.
Walkers: Peter Beal, Andy Blease, Alastair Cairns, Tom Cunliffe with Daisy, Alan Hart, John Jones, Chris Owen and Julian Ross.
Alternative walkers: Colin Davison and Lawrie Fairman.
Apologies: George Dearsley (in Turkey), Mark Gibby and Hughie Hardiman (self-isolating), Jock Rooney (planning to walk with Tony Job), Dean Taylor and George Whaites (hols)
Leader: Owen. Diarist: Hart.
Starting points: Alternative car parks next to Bollington Recreation Ground.
Starting time: 9.48am. Finishing time: 3.08pm.
On the hottest day of the summer it seemed the fates had conspired against us when roadworks were erected minutes before our intended start time outside the car park where we had arranged to meet. Those arriving before 9.25am were able to enter the car park. Those arriving after 9.27am had to find a way to enter the alternative car park on the opposite side of the road.
When that confusion had been resolved and just as we were setting off, JJ arrived with a screech of tyres in a cloud of dust. He then entertained us for five minutes with the worst attempt at parking ever demonstrated by a male motorist.
From that inauspicious beginning it was sunshine all the way – literally – as Chris led us on a new route combining paths familiar from other walks in the area. We made a welcome return to a pub which had once been a favourite haunt and may become one again. We also welcomed Alastair back to the fold for the first time since the covid lockdown disrupted our activities. And Chris celebrated a series of family landmarks – birthdays, a silver wedding anniversary and the birth of a fifth grandchild – by buying a round of drinks. We offer him our warm congratulations.
From the car parks we walked across the sports fields to the right hand corner of Bollington Recreation Ground, crossing the River Dean and mounting steps to reach the main road. We crossed it, turned left and after 25 yards turned right up a steep flight of stone steps which brought us out on the right bank of The Macclesfield Canal (7mins)
We walked with the canal on our left, passing The Adelphi Mill on our right (14mins) before reaching Bridge 28 and crossing it to leave the waterway (20mins). Following a track we reached a T junction where we dog-legged right and left to head up Higher Lane (26mins). This took us to the left of Endon House, a distinctive building with a large clock on its front wall (31mins)
After passing the house we turned left (32mins) up a steep flight of steps to reach a road where we turned left (34mins). After 50 yards we turned left at a green public footpath sign and began another steep climb past Endon Quarry as we puffed and panted our way on to Kerridge Ridge (41mins). This gave us a lovely view of the village of Rainow on our left and a less than lovely view of the Hurdsfield Industrial Estate to our right.
We turned right along the ridge, going through a metal kissing gate to continue uphill (44mins), passing the Trig Point (50mins) before starting our gentle descent into Rainow. On reaching the main road through the village we turned right (64mins). After 80 yards we crossed the road to ascend a flight of stone steps (66mins) on our left to enter a field.
The climb continued through the field and on reaching a road through a metal gate (74mins) it carried on as we turned right along Bull Hill Lane.
At the T-junction with the A537 (80mins) we turned left for 30 yards before crossing to follow a wooden public footpath sign into a field. At a stile we followed another sign for The Gritstone Trail which brought us to the unlikely sight of two overgrown trestle tables with benches in the middle of a field. Here we paused for pies and port (87mins)
The route took us through a series of four metal kissing gates (89, 92, 95 and 97mins) to a stone step stile which brought us on to a road. We turned right (98mins) and then left (100mins) to walk to the right of a cafe at Teggs Nose Country Park. Without pause we plunged down the bridle path at Saddlers Way (101mins), reaching a lane and turning right (108mins)
At a three-way junction we went right along the Teggs Nose Trail, through a wooden gate and across stepping stones over a brook (117mins). We started passing Bottom Reservoir on our right and then a pond on our left before reaching Main Road, Langley, where we turned right (132mins).
This road took us past St Dunstan's pub on our right and The Church House on our left before reaching Ye Olde King's Head at Gurnett on our right (160mins) where Chris treated us to pints of Wincle Waller. We were reunited with Lawrie and Colin, who had met us at the start in Bollington before driving to Sutton Hall for a five-mile walk around Sutton Reservoir and the former Fools Nook pub at Oakgrove before returning along the shoulder of Croker Hill. We were also joined briefly by Chris's wife Vanessa during her lunch break.
For the final leg of our journey we walked back past the pub on our left and then turned immediately up a flight of steps leading to the Macclesfield Canal (162mins). We turned left with the waterway on our right until Bridge 43 where we switched to the opposite towpath, pausing for a brief lunch. This would normally have been the route all the way back to Bollington but the canal bank was being repaired and we we diverted away from the canal through Macclesfield's streets before returning at Bridge 37 (186mins) where we were able to return to the towpath and walk with the canal on our left.
We finally left the canal at Bridge 30 in Bollington (232mins), turning right on to The Middlewood Way (234mins).
The Middlewood Way is an 11-mile linear nature trail which follows the course of the Macclesfield, Bollington and Marple Railway. It was closed under The Beeching Axe in 1970 and remained derelict until 1986. Macclesfield Borough Council acquired the land and paid £1 for the viaduct across Dean Valley at Bollington which had been threatened with demolition.
As we joined the route for hikers, cyclists and horse-riders, we passed on our right the Bollington Labyrinth. This was built in 2009 by sculptors based on an ancient Greek unicursal maze of 78 standing stones. The intended spiritual effect was somewhat marred by the fact that it had been allowed to become overgrown with grass.
We crossed the rescued viaduct over the main road (259mins) before turning right and swinging back down hill to the car parks to de-boot (263mins). As all the nearby pubs were shut, your leader and his diarist adjourned to The Cock and Pheasant, Bollington, where a traditional country pub has been sanitized to within an inch of its life. After being thoroughly scrutinised by a martinet at the pub's new reception desk we were able to drink pints of Wainwrights' cask bitter in the unremitting sunshine and to contemplate a bygone era of five months ago.
Next week's walk will start at 9.30am at the top of Laneside Road, New Mills (SK22 4QN). Heading towards Hayfield turn right at The Hare and Hounds. Grid ref: SK020847. JJ will be leading us via Chinley Churn, Mount Famine, White Lady, Bottom Kinder Low, to The Sportsman Inn, Kinder Road, Hayfield, (eta 1215) before returning along The Sett Valley Trail: a total of 9 miles.
Happy wandering !
pictures by Alan Hart
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