Manchester

Wednesday 21st December

Walkers: Chris, Dean, Tom, Peter, Micky, George, Alastair, John Jones, Eric, Mike, Lee.  (Andy later)

Diarist: John Jones

We met at 10.00 hours just inside main doors of Piccadilly station on a cloudy but mild day. Chris was meant to be our leader and after waiting for stragglers we set off, over the A6  foot bridge and westerly past the home of the Halle Orchestra and court house. We took a left to Chorlton Street bus station, turning west again to Canal Street and soon dropping down to the murky underworld of muddy and dark towpaths.

This is the area where about 90 or so men were killed and ended up in the canal some years ago. An oriental man was found guilty of some similar crimes later but never proved responsible for the main bulk of the killings.

A green edging to the far side of the canal and bright and cheerful graffiti art works took our minds from the dark past. The high modern block buildings dragged one's eyes away from the wonderfully ornate 19th century ones with their terra cotta brickwork. At some point we came off the canal and Peter who carried a rucksack (He was bearing gifts) declared that he knew the way better than our leader Chris who had spent many years working and drinking in the city centre. pete was so vociferous that he persuaded most of our number to follow him out towards Salford. Spotting the sun casting shadows across us we headed east back to the centre. Again there was a split and Chris and I were soon in the Kabana curry house, where the seats were plentiful along with the curry and chapatis. Curry and boiled rice was £7.50. After lunch we headed to a nearby pub, being joined by most of the wanderers.  Eventually and rather haphazardly we made our way from  pub to pub and in one of which we were joined by Andy. 

In all we covered 7.5 miles or 17,000 steps on Alastair’s app. The seven pubs visited were Yates, The Old Wellington, Lower Turks Head, White Horse, The Unicorn, Port Street Beer House and Trax Brewery.

Next week's wander will be led by Peter Beal from Hayfield's Sportsman’s pub, Kinder Road at 09.45 hours. 

Higher Poynton

 

December 14, 2022.

HIGHER POYNTON, MACCLESFIELD CANAL, GREEN FARM, LYME PARK, LYME HALL, ELMERHURST WOOD, RED LANE, ST MARY'S CHURCHYARD, THE WHITE HORSE AT DISLEY, DISLEY STATION, THE LADYBROOK TRAIL, MACCLESFIELD CANAL, THE BOAR'S HEAD AT HIGHER POYNTON

Distance: 8-9 miles.

Difficulty: Easy.

Weather: Blue skies and sunshine but very cold.

Walkers: Peter Beal, Andy Blease, Mike Cassini, George Dearsley*, Mark Enright, Hugh Hardiman, Alan Hart, John Jones*, Chris Owen, Jock Rooney with Milly, Julian Ross, Dave Willetts, Simon Williams, Cliff Worthington.

Apologies: Micky Barrett, Alastair Cairns (icy roads in Cumbria), Tom Cunliffe (supervising double-glazing installation), Dean Taylor (heavy cold), Keith Welsh (hospital appointment).

Non-walking drinkers: Tom Cunliffe and Terry Jowett.

Leader: Hart. Diarist: Hart.

Starting point: Outside The Boar's Head, Higher Poynton.

Starting time: 10.02am. Finishing time: 2.12pm.

Photos by Alan Hart, except where specified

This was a day like the one King Wenceslas looked out upon on the feast of Stephen. A carpet of snow lay all about crisp and even but on this occasion it was shallow. As we started under clear blue skies the dazzling winter sun was joined by the moon (which may have overslept)

It gave every appearance of being a hot summer's day, apart from the temperature, which hovered around freezing point throughout our journey.

We welcomed back our prodigal blogspotter, George Dearsley, who expanded a lucrative business trip from his home in Turkey to England so he could teach FIFA officials how to deal with the media by visiting family, former works colleagues and his pals in the Wednesday Wanderers.

We also welcomed for the first time a debutant wanderer, Mike Cassini, recently retired, who has friends among our Burnage Rugby Club contingent. We hope Mike understands that we don't finish all our walks with a Christmas lunch as we did on this occasion. Our dining party was increased further by the arrival of former B team walker Terry Jowett and of Tom Cunliffe, who had completed his domestic chores.

Because of transport problems George and JJ - another old friend recovering from health problems - joined us when we stopped for refreshment at the pub in Disley and accompanied the group on its three-mile return journey.

Heavy traffic problems also postponed our start by 17 minutes, with Peter and Jock both held up in Disley, but this proved to be a useful delay because it saved us from arriving at The White Horse before it had opened.

“New boy” Mike Cassini

We crossed the road opposite the Boar's Head, went through a gate and descended steps to reach The Middlewood Way, turning right. After passing the picnic tables we turned left and headed up another flight of steps to enter a park containing a soccer pitch.

Crossing the field diagonally left we reached a gate leading to the Macclesfield Canal where we turned right with the waterway on our left. On reaching Bridge 16 we crossed to the far side, keeping to the right of a field and going through a kissing gate (13mins)

An enclosed path then led us left and right through gates before we swung right before a cottage and then turned sharp left along a public footpath to the right of Green Farm. This led to a ladder stile which we climbed to enter Lyme Park (23mins)

A few inches of snow on the higher ground

The path from the ladder stile was leading us towards the car park at Lyme Hall but en route we passed a herd of deer some 20 yards away.

A stag party

Photo my Mark Enright

At Dave's suggestion we varied the planned route so we could visit Lyme Hall and enjoy Pietime sitting on benches in the garden. However when it was announced by National Trust officials that we would have to pay £9 for the privilege we reverted to the original route. (Some wanderers with Scottish or Yorkshire blood coarsing through their veins were seen to turn a whiter shade of pale)

Outside Lyme Hall

After taking a team photograph we headed downhill towards a lake and NT cafe. Outside were picnic tables where we paused for refreshments free of charge.

Resuming we went back uphill for a few yards and then turned left along a footpath some 20 yards to the right of a boundary wall and followed it with the distinctive Lyme Cage coming into view above us on our right. When we had passed the cage by some 250 yards we followed steps downhill towards the boundary wall and crossed a stone step stile leading into Elmerhurst Wood (90 mins)

A path then led over footbridges through the wood before exiting by a wooden ladder stile over a wall (100mins). Here we turned right and followed a track which took us past the wooden entrance hut and through a gate which exited Lyme Park.

We now walked uphill along Red Lane, passing some impressive and no doubt hideously expensive houses on both sides before reaching the car park and then the graveyard outside St Mary's, parish church of Disley.

Here we looked at the Legh family's plot of elevated graves, where members of the family had the shapes of large keys on their gravestones. Lyme Park was given to Piers Legh and his wife Margaret (nee D'anyers) by King Richard 11. It was a belated gift in memory of Margaret's grandfather, Sir Thomas D'anyers, who had retrieved the royal standard of The Black Prince during the Battle of Crecy in 1346.

In 1415 Sir Piers Legh 11 was wounded at Agincourt and his loyal mastiff stood over his master and protected him for many hours during the battle. He became the foundation of the Lyme Hall mastiffs which continued until the strain died out at the beginning of the 20^th Century.

In 1946 Richard Legh gave Lyme Park to The National Trust. Perhaps it is best known for its depiction of Pemberley in the BBC's 1995 adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Ladies of a certain age went weak at the knees throughout the land when they saw bare-chested Mr Darcy (played by Colin Firth) emerge from plunging into the lake next to the hall with his breeches dripping.

From the churchyard we walked back uphill to the car park and turned left following a footpath which led between other graveyards and crossed a footbridge over a stream. On our right was a former pub, now a Quaker meeting house, which still has its inn sign for the Ring o' Bells on its wall. We turned left down Ring o' Bells Lane until we reached The White Horse on our right (115mins).

Photo my Mark Enright

We had just started to enjoy pints of excellent Dizzy Blonde cask bitter at £3-90 when George and JJ joined us, thereby increasing our numbers to 14. Suitably refreshed we all sallied forth on the return journey, turning left out of the pub's front door and left again at The Ram's Head. Walking through that pub's car park we continued towards Disley railway station and then turned left up a steep flight of steps which brought us back on to Red Lane.

Turning right we retraced our footsteps past the wooden entrance gate but instead of carrying straight ahead we took a right fork, passing a cottage on our left to cross a ladder stile, turn left and cross a footbridge before turning right at the start of the Ladybrook Trail.

The path was on the left of the brook initially as it took us under a tunnel beneath the Manchester-Buxton railway line. It then led us via a stile across the line to descend a flight of steps leading to a lane (140mins). Two more stiles took us across the lane and into a field where we followed the path past a derelict wooden summer house on our left. A stile and a footbridge took us towards the Macclesfield Canal as the Ladybrook went to our right through a culvert under the canal (153mins)

Ladybrook flowing under the Macclesfield Canal

We continued over another footbridge and up a flight of steps to reach the canal, turning left to reach a World War 2 pillbox by the side of Bridge 13. We crossed over the bridge and turned left towards Macclesfield with the canal on our left.

Leaving the canal at Lord Vernon's Wharf we walked through a gap on our right to go through the Nelson Pit Museum car park to reach The Boar's Head (185mins), where we joined Tom and Terry for our annual Christmas lunch, with pints of Wainwrights, Timothy Taylor's Landlord and Black Sheep cask bitter available.

Next Wednesday's walk will start at 10am from the war monument outside Piccadilly railway station, Manchester. Chris will lead a tour of historic and interesting pubs in and around the city centre as well as an authentic curry lunch. Don't forget your drinking boots.

Happy wandering !

Marple Bridge

December 7, 2022

 

 

MELLOR BOUNDARY WALK

 

 

BRABYN’S PARK, MARPLE BRIDGE, LONGHURST LANE, TOPCLIFFE LANE, MILL BROW, HOLLYWOOD END, SMITHY LANE, CLOUGHEND, PISTOL FARM, GUN ROAD, SHILOH ROAD, POLE LANE, CASTLE EDGE FARM, SHAW FARM, FOX INN AT BROOK BOTTOM, STRINES STATION, ROMAN LAKES, MELLOR MILL, LOW LEA ROAD, MARPLE BRIDGE

 

Distance: 10.5 miles​Total ascent/descent: 1,550 ft

 

Difficulty: Moderate

 

Weather: Cold and sunny

 

Walkers: Micky Barrett, Peter Beal, Andy Blease, Tom Cunliffe with Daisy, Jock Rooney with Milly, Julian Ross, Dean Taylor, Dave Willetts, Simon Williams,

 

Alternative walkers: Colin Davison

 

Apologies: Alan Hart and Chris Owen (both car maintenance duties), Cliff Worthington (cold), Mark Enright (w***ing), Alastair Cairns (fitting solar panels), Keith Walsh (hospital duties), George Dearsley (Turkey)

 

Leader: Beal​Diarist: Beal

 

Starting point: Brabyn's Park, Marple Bridge

 

Start time: 9.40am​​Finishing time: 2.30pm

 

 

 

The temperature was a couple of degrees below freezing as nine Wanderers gathered at Brabyn's Park and stayed not much above that for most of the day. But we enjoyed near-cloudless skies with no wind, which made for almost perfect walking conditions and some striking views on this quite lengthy but unchallenging walk.

 

We first tackled the ten-and-a-half-mile Mellor Boundary Walk in July this year and it was repeated by popular demand. The route was conceived in May 1992 by the Mellor Society around the parish boundary, although the route strays occasionally in to Derbyshire.

 

Such a walk around a parish used to be known as ‘beating the bounds’

 

We left the Brabyn's Park free car park, turned left at the road, and crossed at the pedestrian lights in to Marple Bridge Town Street. This led us to Longhurst Lane and at the brow of the hill, where a postbox was set in to the wall, we turned left then immediately right in to the roughly-surfaced Topcliffe Lane.

 

At the top of the lane at some cottages we bore left along a track signed Mill Brow. We soon came to a cobbled courtyard at cottages and went straight on, immediately taking a narrow path on the left. This went through a gate with the wooded valley of Mill Brook below us on the left. A second gate brought us in to an open field and we descended to reach a stile.

 

We crossed this to reach a track descending from our right. We turned left and left again at another surfaced track to cross a bridge over Mill Brook and ascend a surfaced lane. This emerged on a minor road opposite the Hare and Hounds pub in the hamlet of Mill Brow (2 miles). This has been declared a protected Heritage site.

 

We turned right up the road here and where a road with a ‘no through road’ sign branched off on the left, we swung right to cross a bridge and took an unsigned track on the left past cottages at Hollywood End.

 

We went through a gate in to fields, where a distinctive green and white Peak and Northern Footpath Society sign on the stream bank pointed us towards Cown Edge via Ludworth Moor. The path went through a garden in front of two picturesque cottages and soon after we ignored a track in front of us and turned left, following a footpath sign, to drop down to cross the stream on a small wooden bridge. The path climbed to a stile and through newly-planted saplings to a gate.

 

At the next lop-sided stile we ignored a small gate in front of us and bore left up a grassy field and right through a gate at the top, where we turned right to reach Smithy Lane.  Immediately opposite was another path alongside farm buildings which we took, fording a stream and climbing on an indistinct path to skirt a house at Cloughend.

 

We reached a minor road and immediately took a track on the right. Ice was still covering the road here and Tom took quite a crashing fall on to the tarmac, but regained his feet and bravely pronounced himself unscathed.

 

This track swung right after a short distance but we took an unsigned path uphill on the left that brought us to Gun Road which links New Mills and Charlesworth (3 miles). We continued along the track opposite on a diversion on to Ludworth Moor that reduced the amount of road walking that was to follow.

 

Pie time was declared at a sport with extensive views towards Greater Manchester shortly before we took the first path signed on our right and crossed a small ladder stile to cross moorland, took another stile and then a large crumbling wall stile on our right. 

 

We crossed the field to cross yet another stile to join a track that brought us back on to Gun Road opposite Pistol Farm. We now faced an unavoidable mile-and-a-half road walk along Gun Road and Shiloh Road but dispatched it in 25 minutes. It took us past a development of smart apartments that some will remember as the Moorfield Arms pub before its closure many years ago.

 

It brought us to a road junction known locally as Five Lane Ends (5.5 miles), where we took the track immediately ahead of us marked on maps as Pole Lane. 

We were alarmed here by the appearance of a large group of the species I believe are known as ‘ramblers’,arriving from the direction of Mellor, prompting concerns that should they arrive at the Fox Inn before us drinks might be unduly delayed.

 

We pressed on promptly along the track, which took us past a covered reservoir on the left and arrived at a junction of tracks (6 miles). We went straight on, on a surfaced road and almost immediately turned right towards Castle Edge farm.

 

We took a stile on the left, through a small gate. The path went through a series of small fields and over four stiles, after the last of which, at the foot of a copse of trees, we swung left downhill towards Shaw Farm across a field badly rutted by cattle.

 

At the farm buildings we crossed a stile in to the yard and at the other side went over a stile and took a gate along a track straight ahead. This soon brought us to a tricky stile on the left which we crossed in to a wood and descended steeply to cross a wooden plank bridge. We climbed the bank opposite and went through a gap in the wall to descend on a stepped path, skirting a house, and going down a drive that brought us to the Fox Inn in the hamlet of Brookbottom (7 miles).

 

Here we were pleased to be joined by Wanderer Colin, who was completing a six-mile round trip from his home in High Lane and who accompanied us on our ongoing route as far as Strines station.

 

It has to be reported that some pints of Robinson’s Unicorn had to be sent back and replaced here – a not-unknown occurrence at this pub where beer doesn’t turn over quickly at early lunchtimes.

 

Resuming, we turned right out of the pub and immediately right again down a track signed as being the route of the Goyt Way, a 10-mile route between Whaley Bridge and the Etherow Country Park in Compstall near Marple. This descended to the railway station at Strines, where we crossed under the tracks on to cobbles.

 

At the end of the cobbles we took a track on the right, again signed Goyt Way. This climbed steadily to re-cross the Manchester to Sheffield railway line over a bridge and at a track junction we bore left after some buildings. At another junction of paths we kept right.

 

We soon reached the Roman Lakes on our right (9 miles), the former mill ponds for Samual Oldknow’s nearby textile mill 

 

We continued along the good track, soon reaching the remains of the mill, the largest of its kind in the world when it was built in1793. 

 

We turned right through the site along Bottoms Mill Road, which climbed before descending down Low Lea Road to the top of Marple Town Street (10.5 miles). From here it was a short walk back to our cars, although your diarist and Jock called at the Norfolk Arms for refreshment

 

Next week’s walk, as Alan has already circulated, will end in the Wanderers’ Christmas lunch at the Boar’s Head in Higher Poynton (SK12 1TE) and the walk will start from outside there at 9.45am. Alan asks that we park on the road near the pub or around the corner in Anson Road to avoid filling the car park up. We aim to call at the White Horse in Disley around noon.

 

Happy Wandering!  

 

                       Pictures by Simon Williams