Sunday 15th June 2014, A Peover Plod

Our Glorious Leaders: Fast Pike & Even Faster Blackshaw

At 9am on the Ides of June (Eh?) a dozen walkers gathered in the pretty Cheshire village of Mobberley – right in the heartland of East Lancs LDWA (Timperley Chapter) walking country.
The Plan might have been to plod through fields and meadows and get our feet wet. If that was The Plan, the result was a success. Wet feet or not, it was a cracking walk!

The Congregation

George Mallory: Bottom left

‘Before’ photographs were taken against a backdrop of the Grade 1 listed St Wilfrid’s Church famous for being very old and having a window dedicated to the memory of mountaineer George Mallory who was born in Mobberley.
Off we jolly-well went, walking in a sort of south-ish direction, keeping Knutsford on our right. There was a very light mizzle in the air but we were all expecting it to brighten up considerably and so not many waterproofs were in evidence. Not yet anyway.
The village cricket pitch was deserted as we passed by – many of the good folk of Mobberley were probably still in their beds.

Continuing south to open country (well farmland actually) we met the first obstacles of the day: high stiles (that get higher every year) and thigh-high crops – that get higher every day. The crops had benefited from a good soaking from the previous night’s rainfall which resulted in all of our party getting wet legs. Oh well.

The mizzle continued and by the time we were approaching Ollerton the whole party had donned their waterproofs. It was about this time that we met a Ramblers group walking the other way. They were shocked to find that we were intending walking 15 – 16 miles.

Bob leading through the dry bit Windmill Wood.

The footpaths through Windmill Wood have been bone dry every time we’ve walked through in the past. Not today, they were muddier than a very muddy thing and those who’d escaped muddy feet so far just had to admit defeat. Or should that be defeet? Or even de muddy feet?
Never mind.

Brew stop en-route to Toft Hall

Toft Hall through the mizzle

Next landmark was Grade II listed Toft Hall, a rather grand 17^th Century country house. Property developers got hold of the place a while back, spent a load of dosh doing it up and they now describe it as a ‘sumptuous 21st Century residence’. It’s certainly a bit nice.
The paths around Toft Hall were quite squelchy. A mixture of cows, rainfall and badly drained ground saw to that. Our gallant band of walkers weren’t overly mithered about staying dry by this stage – we were all so wet and muddy it really didn’t matter any more.

Entering Pee-Over Peover

Peover – pr: Peever, NOT Pee-Over. Alma.
Well anyway, there’s a lot of Peovers: Peover Inferior, Peover Superior (well it IS Cheshire), Lower Peover…..you get the idea.

Our route took us through Smithy Green (which is in Peover Inferior) and then into the village of Lower Peover which was designated as our lunch stop. We stopped and had lunch – fairly quietly….’cos the only shelter from the mizzle most could find was in the church’s porch. And there was a service going on. Either that or they were having choir practice.

St Oswald’s church is a Grade I listed building. There’s been a church on this site since 1269 and although there’s not a right lot of the original building left these days there are certainly parts of this building that date back to 14^th Century.
See? Come on one of our walks and you learn something every time. Although it might not be of much use….
Lunch done and dusted, our next waypoint was Peover Superior and Peover Hall, a Grade 2* listed building. Whatever that means….but I’m sure it’s important. It’s a large Elizabethan family house dating from 1585 – must have been awful to be their window cleaner. The house is situated in around 500 acres of landscaped 18th Century parkland. A bugger of a job for the gardeners.

Peover Hall

Peover Hall and it’s adjacent church provided an excuse for a sit-down and another cuppa, and that’s just what we did. The mizzling had eased off considerably by this time and the sun was threatening to make its debut appearance of the day.
We were now heading north, back to our starting point – although we still had a goodly few miles to cover before we could kick our soggy boots off.

We were very fortunate to have Bob join us on this walk. Bob works locally and his lunch breaks are often spent wandering the footpaths of this area so he was able to fill in the (many!) gaps in our local knowledge. Thanks Bob!

Like I said, it IS Cheshire!

Back north we headed, across even higher stiles and the odd fetid swamp.

 One of those pesky growing stiles. And Mary & Viv.

One field we had the pleasure of crossing was populated with very frisky and inquisitive young cows. Norralot of fun for some of our party!

At 4.35pm we arrived back at our cars. We’d a had a cracking day out in excellent company. Shame about the weather early on. And the mud. Oh well.

The End

….apart from where we went. 16+ miles of pleasant, if muddy in parts, flatness:

More photos here