West Lancashire LDWA Walkies

 

The West Lancashire LDWA ‘Tuesday Group’ lead some shorter walks, typically 10 – 12 miles, on, er, some Tuesdays. I joined them today for a wander around the very pleasant (ie not very muddy) Lancashire countryside.

Today’s walk, led by Doreen Viney, was a little over 11 miles. Kick-off was at 10am from Worthington Lakes, not very far from Wigan, where there’s a busy little factory where things are all the go, they don’t make Jakes or Eccles Cakes, or things you stick on walls, but night and day they work away at Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls.

Whoops, sorry about that….getting carried away again.

Anyway.

 Almost ready. Doreen, our glorious walk leader on the left.

Now I should point out that Doreen is no slouch when it comes to walking. Earlier today she complained to me that a recent 50 mile challenge walk had taken her 17 hours and she was a bit miffed at her poor time.

At bang on 10am the group set off, Doreen leading at a good pace. I knew better than to dawdle, if I lost sight of her on today’s walk I’d have been well stuffed. Walking in warm sunshine past Worthington Lakes (which are actually reservoirs) we headed east-ish to pick up the Leeds-Liverpool Canal. This canal has gone down in history as being the first Trans-Pennine canal to be started….but the last one to be finished. At a cost of 5 times it’s original budget I don’t think the accountants would have been too popular!

There are two reservoirs, Arley and Adlington. I think this is Adlington. Or Arley.

Our route followed everything from towpaths, field-footpaths, farm tracks, and just about every other sort of footway you could imagine. We could see Winter Hill for much of the walk, except when we couldn’t see it. But we knew it would still be there later, and it was. This is a Good Thing because it’s where our telly programmes come from and if it had gone there would be hell to play when I got home.

Winter Hill, famous for the telly. 

There were 16 on this walk. Some I knew, some others I recognised from other events. The good thing about LDWA events, certainly the East Lancs and West Lancs walks, is that everyone is made to feel very welcome. Even me – and I’m from Cheshire.

I spent some time walking with and talking to Terry who I’d first met on an East Lancs holiday earlier this year when we walked a section of the SW Coastal Path. You can see from the photo of Terry that he doesn’t like paparazzi!

Seriously (for a minute!), Terry is a good strong walker and good company.

We came across a couple of lads building a stone wall, although there didn’t seem to be any mortar visible, the presence of a small cement mixer suggested it wasn’t a true dry-stone wall.

At one point Blackpool Tower was clearly visible, but the cheap and nasty camera I had didn’t pick it out. I suppose I could draw one in to the photo below and just pretend it was the tower. Would that be cheating?

The weather remained good all day, unfortunately that meant that the pollen-count was up – sniffles and sneezes were audible from time-to-time. Doreen, not one to take prisoners, marched her charges on:

 

I was a little taken aback when I came across this sign. There are other references to things-Scottish in the area, Aberdeen Bridge for example. I’ve no idea what relevance these names have to this part of Lancashire.

Following a section of the Rotary Way for a while, we came to walk through part of Haigh Hall Country Park – a rather grand affair.

Terry approaching Haigh Hall Country Park. The look of disdain because the pub was shut.

At around 12.30 Doreen relented and allowed her followers a lunch break. She’s good like that. I mean, it wouldn’t do to have any in her party fading away through lack of food now, would it?

She found a nice bridge over the canal where we could enjoy our butties, before once again leading us onwards.

It’s good to know where you are! 

The River Douglas soon hove into view although it’s not much more than a large stream at this point. It rises not too far away at Rivington, ending up joining the River Ribble at Tarleton.

River Douglas 

More canals, stiles, footpaths and bits of farm track had us heading back to Worthington Lakes:

Although there was the odd obstruction:

The rest of the route was pleasant:

 

Back to the reservoirs again:

On the final approach to the car park I spotted this wonderful mushroomy-fungi thing on a tree:

We finished our little walk at around 2.35pm, 11.2 miles at in about 4 hours of walking = 2.8mph. Nice.

I don’t know the exact route we followed, but Doreen tells me it was something like: Worthington Lakes > Aberdeen Bridge > Little Scotland > Haigh > Haigh Hall Country Park > Arley Hall > back to Worthington Lakes.

More photographs of today’s walk can be found here.

Thanks for the walk Doreen, it was a good day out.

Even MORE music!

There are a fine band of lady musicians known as The Marmalade Band (known colloquially as ‘The Marmaladies’) who perform traditional songs and music at venues around the South Manchester / North Cheshire area - sometimes further afield. From time to time these fine ladies play for ceilidhs, and on these occasions my guitarist friend John and I are called on to be honorary ladies for the event. We provide the ‘grunt’ for the band whilst the female Marmaladies do the really clever stuff.

On 17th August The Marmaladies, along with their masculine sidekicks are playing a large festival event in the centre of Manchester – so we thought we’d better get some practice in! This time we have an extra honorary Marmalady, Mike, who plays stringy things like mandolins with a certain aggressive expertise. He’s a bit good.

Clare and John Mc playing something twiddly and difficult

We sat around Marian’s (who plays fiddle) kitchen table for 2 hours this afternoon and worked damned hard at a tune set that the ladies weren’t too familiar with. The ladies, being ladies, got stuck in and really came up trumps.

John has been messing about with bits of copper and plastic pipes and has managed to make some very effective flutes and tin-whistles. The photo above shows Clare playing a flute made from a length of 22mm copper pipe – it sounds pretty good.

I reckon the Festival Ceilidh in Manchester will be fun – particularly considering that John, Mike and I will be honorary ladies for the event!

Saturday 9th June, More music

On Wednesday next week, folk music superstars ‘Nelson-Peach’ will be performing with an extra – an itinerant melodeon player, singer and beer inspector….Me.

The performance will be on the Folk-Train running between Chester and Plumley. The plan is to  be on the 19.07 train from Chester where we will perform on the train until we disembark at Plumley. A quick beer (or two) in the Golden Pheasant and we perform in the pub.

Around 21.45 we will leave the pub and walk back to Plumley train station to catch the 22.03 back to Chester, performing again on the return journey.

Our musical gathering today was to thrash out a tune and song list – and then run through the set. We spent 3 hours working (playing!) on the set, I’ll spend a few hours running through the set at home (no, I WON’T be playing with myself!!) just to make sure the performance is up to scratch.

Nelson-Peach rehearsing

We’re happy with our set and the rehearsal went very well.

After such a demanding session we needed to rehydrate…so bottles of beer were produced and emptied in fast order.

If you’re around on Wednesday 13th June, come along – it will be fun. Even with me playing and singing.

Monday 4th June, A musical evening with friends

An invitation to an evening of music with mutual friends from Mark, a musician friend, had me travelling to Holmes Chapel in Cheshire on Tuesday evening. I don’t get to see Mark too much these days so I was looking forward to getting together for a beer, some music and a chat.

Mark

Mark’s an accomplished fiddler with a repertoire of classical, traditional British, and (as I was to discover this evening) Swedish tunes. 

A pleasant evening was spent chatting, playing tunes, singing – oh, and enjoying a few beers. In my case it was only one beer – I was driving. We were nine in all, playing music with others is always a pleasure….particularly if everyone remembers how the tunes go. Fortunately all the other did so I was able to 'hide' behind the competent musicians!

Mark & Alison in Scandinavian mode

Alison is a wonderful fiddler and violinist (there IS a difference) and along with Mark they played some Swedish tunes they had recently performed at a wedding. Traditional Swedish fiddle music is strongly influenced by the music of the surrounding countries, that includes Scotland and the Scottish Isles. It’s exciting and complex music, I’m afraid I just can’t get my fingers round it!

Alison, with Linda playing flute

 Brian in action on his bodhran

More tunes were played – some of which we’d not played for years, it certainly stretched the grey cells trying to remember how the tunes went.

At around 11pm we were treated to an impressive firework display from over the fields from Mark’s house – probably part of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee celebrations. A nice end to the evening. No photographs of the fireworks I’m afraid.

A successful gathering and one to be repeated before too long I hope.

Thanks for the invitation Mark, I enjoyed the evening immensely! 

Sunday 3rd June, A 16-ish mile walk from Mobberley Church

Ding Dong Bell

I’d intended going for a brain-straightening walk on this day – hopefully managing to avoid Jubilee celebrations into the bargain.

Mate Steve ‘Fast’ Blackshaw had phoned a couple of days before asking if I fancied joining him on a recce of a route he’d been working on. I didn’t need asking twice. Continuing my theme of doing walks from very close to home, Steve’s route was just the job.

 Fast Blackshaw and me

Steve collected me at 8.30am and we headed of down to Mobberley, only a 10 – 15 minute drive from Timperley. We parked up across from Mobberley Church which dates back to 1206…so it’s pretty old. It was going to be a warm day but at 9am, as we started walking, it was chilly enough to need a windproof – although only for a short time.

We headed south through Mobberley Field (National Trust) to cross some fields to a short bit of tarmac but were soon back on footpaths again. This part of Cheshire has some beautiful houses and at this time of the year they look their best.

Bridges over Pedley Brook and Marthall Brook took us past what appeared to be old sites of peat-extraction, the ground appeared to have been excavated down to about 15ft over quite a large area.

A bit of a navigational faff delayed our progress a little, I blame little used footpaths but it was more likely down to yacking too much. Crossing fields of barley we had Knutsford to our right (west) and Ollerton village to the south. It’s more of a hamlet really – it’s got a pub, but we were far too early to partake. Anyway we had a long walk ahead and a couple of pints would have seen the pair of us off for the rest of the day!

A brief foray along the A537 at Ollerton and we entered peaceful woodland paths to Toft and Toft Hall. The woodland was commercially ‘harvested’ (if that’s the right word) for firewood. There were some really interesting old vehicles still in use:

Walking a little further we spotted a nice little pad standing in it’s own grounds:

The rather grand Toft Hall

The Peover villages were next on our agenda. There are lots of Peovers - Peover Superior, Peover Inferior, Peover Heath….and many more. My late mother was evacuated to Peover in WW2, I only recently discovered the actual building she moved to - I gather it wasn’t a happy experience for her. The house she was evacuated to is now a very swish des-res occupied by fully paid-up members of the Cheshire Set, like so many of the houses in this affluent part of the county.

The Bells of Peover is now a gastro-pub, judging by the prices on the menu it’s aimed at the well-heeled of Cheshire.

Around the back of the pub is the 11th century St Oswald’s Church, decorated for the Jubilee celebrations later that day. Rather than eat in the pub (we’d probably need another mortgage) we enjoyed a very lazy lunch of butties in the grounds of the church. We savoured the hot sunshine – I’d seen the weather forecast for the next day and it wasn’t good.

If it wasn’t for the grass-cutting playing merry-hell with my hay fever I’m sure we’d have stayed longer.

A rare sight: A static Fast Blackshaw

The Elizabethan Peover Hall, a most magnificent moated building dating back to 1585, is set in expansive grounds with enough footpaths to get good views of the hall. The grounds are beautifully well-kept, I shudder to think what the overheads of that place are!

Peover Hall

Over more fields dotted with buttercups we spotted some bold wildlife – it must have been bold, it didn’t budge when I crept up to take photographs:

The bright sunshine really enhanced these patriotically-coloured rhododendrons:

The Post Office closures continue in Over Peover:

Our bearing was now very north, heading back in the direction of Mobberley. Another rest stop to finish off the last of our butties and drain the flasks and it got peculiarly cloudy.

Off again and a number of footpath diversions later we had a couple more navigational faffs and an unpleasant encounter with Mrs Angry-Farmer.

NF No1: What was once a farm is now a croquet club (this IS a posh part of Cheshire). Signs indicated there was a legitimate path diversion, fair enough. The signs even pointed us in the right direction….but then left us to our own devices. There was absolutely no other indication of the new route. So we did what I would have done in the Scottish Highlands: I took a compass bearing aimed at the croquet lawn / field exit and followed it. Sorted!

NF No2: It’s difficult to tell from the map, but I think it’s on the land belonging to Ash Farm (SJ774756) where we valiantly tried to follow a completely inadequately signed R.o.W. We spent a good 10 minutes trying to identify the path on the ground, but we clearly got it wrong.

It wasn’t that we deliberately went wrong, after all, who wants to go off-track? Anyway, this path wiggled around a hedge in a most odd manner, but we kept our eyes skinned for footpath signs – we didn’t spot any.

The wibbley-wobbley path

We made the best of a bad job and headed to the edge of a field where we KNEW there was another footpath that we needed to follow.  The field was uncultivated and quite rough – we weren’t damaging anything. Honest.

In the far distance I heard a tractor, engine running flat-out by the sound of it. I thought nothing of it until the engine noise was really quite loud – we were being chased by Mrs Angry-Farmer. (Double-barrelled names aren’t uncommon around these parts)

The vitriol hurled at us took me aback, such was her anger. Whatever we said in our defence wasn’t going to do any good – our protest that we weren’t deliberately off-track fell on deaf ears, we were guilty and should be hanged!

I walked away, and wished her a cheery good day – I hope it wound her up.

Reassured that we were now on the right track, the last few miles whizzed by. We spotted a fox and one of it’s cubs in a hedgerow – but I wasn’t fast enough with the camera. Buzzards have become a more common sight in towns these days but it’s still refreshing to see them hunting (‘quartering’ according to my ornithology teacher) in the open.

Entering the village of Mobberley, and passing the delightfully named Spout Lane, we were saddened to see the sorry sight of the Roebuck Inn – closed. Fortunately the Bull’s Head across the road is still open for business although that in itself isn’t all good – the new owners of the pub seem to have turfed off the crown-green bowling club. (Do you get that? Turfed, bowling green? Geddit? Oh never mind) The bowling green is now an extension to the beer garden.

The village cricket team was in action although I’ve no idea who they were fighting. If a typical English village really exists then Mobberley could be it!

The church came back into view, signifying the end of our walk. I’m not entirely sure if the brain-straightening part of the walk worked, but it was a grand day out!

Today’s vital statistics: 16 miles with around 450ft up upness.

Sunday 27th May, a walk in Cheshire

 

I had only arrived home from the TGO Challenge 2 days earlier and here I was, involved in leading a long walk for the East Lancashire LDWA. The walk, entitled ‘Jump in the Lake + Afternoon Tea’ was a slight variation on the route I had previously been involved with.

The route covered 16 miles in the gentle countryside of North Cheshire – and it had a trig point.

I awoke at Stupid O’Clock on the Sunday morning and thought ‘Ooh-er, it’s not raining. And the sun’s shining…..perhaps people WILL turn up for today’s walk!’

I arrived at the start to find 17 walkers milling around the genteel back streets of Hale, much to the consternation of the local residents. They hadn’t seen so much on-street activity since, well, the riots of last summer? Perhaps not.

Expeditionary Force of the East Lancs LDWA on a sortie into Cheshire

At 9.03am prompt we set off, all of us were well-plastered with suncream, wearing hats etc, such was the strength of the sun.

Walking through pleasant woodland (well I thought it was pleasant!!) we soon gained the banks of the River Bollin, it’s rippling surface dappled by the bright sunshine that flickered through the leafy trees.

There’s artistic for you. It goes downhill from here.

I’ve been involved in leading this walk before, but this time the route has been changed ever-so slightly. Previously we went through Castle Mill, but this time we bypassed the place and climbed away from the river bank across green fields. The climb was to prove to Norman that there were climbs in our part of Cheshire. There was a trig point too. There’s to be a commando-type raid soon, the idea being to clean up the trig point and paint it in an attempt to return it to it’s former glory. But I’ve no idea who may be responsible for that. Honest.

Norman & Barbara. And a mucky trig point.

Heading towards Manchester Airport’s now not-so-new Runway 2, we walked through a lot of ‘manufactured’ countryside. When the runway works were approved, a condition of the development was that the Airport Authority return the surrounding area to a habitat suitable for the wildlife that was once common in the area. This they have done with great success with lots of small ponds, woodland, buildings suitable for bats and so on. It was the area used by the environmental protestor ‘Swampy’ to stage his demonstrations.

We were soon level with the end of one of the airport runways and spent a good few minutes watching planes land and take off. It’s a man thing.

Another splendid rear view

Once again following the River Bollin and on airport-only roadways and tracks, the River Bollin culvert appeared. Norman was impressed….so it MUST be good. Again, wildlife is well catered for in this man-made tunnel, nesting boxes and wild-life ‘runs’ had been provided by the developers. On a previous walk through the tunnel anglers were fishing for trout – although I don’t know if they were successful.

River Bollin culvert under Manchester Airport’s Runway 2

A first lunch stop was called, and a pleasant 20 or so minutes was spent in the sunshine before we wandered of in a southerly direction, alongside Runway 2.

First lunch stop

Alongside Runway 2

Our route took us through more (flat) pleasant countryside, and around mid-day a second lunch stop was called for on a green and grassy bank close to the Manchester – Chester railway line. Setting off once again, one of our group pointed out that the A380 Airbus was due to land at Manchester Airport at 12.20 – and that we were directly under the flightpath. At 12.20 precisely, the earth moved. If you’ve ever seen the opening scene from Star Wars it might give you some idea of how enormous the A380 is – absolutely huge. It’s another man-thing.A big ‘un

Skirting the village of Mobberley, we walked through lots of horsey fields. Two horses, separated by an electric fence, were leaning over the barrier to, er, lick each others backs. It was tragically comical to hear the loud neighs of protest when they accidently touched up against the high voltage line.

Electric horses

Onwards through to Knutsford – and a stop at an ice-cream shop. Very welcome in the heat.

Into the cool shade of Tatton Park’s woodland and alongside Tatton Mere. This was the body of water used by No1 Parachute Training School to practice water landings by parachute during WW2.

Monument to No1 Parachute Training School

A very poignant memorial to the training school provided us with another photo opportunity, not just of the memorial, but also the views over the Peak District – the distinctive profile of Shutlingsloe being very prominent.

The very grand Tatton Hall (NT), once the seat of the Egerton family, and it’s equally grand outbuildings provided yet another stop – for comfort if nothing else. The courtyard was teaming with day-visitors, all enjoying the hot sunshine.

To leave the park we had to pass Home Farm which provides a picture of rural life where time has stood still since the 1930s.

Across to farmland and following a church track, we soon arrived at the main attraction of the day: St Mary’s Church, Rostherne.

St Mary’s Church, Rostherne

Tea, coffee and scones (pronounced SCONS) were provided by the church at minimal cost to us, but more importantly we were made extremely welcome and enjoyed a fascinating talk about the church’s history.

What DID our lecturer think of these boot-clad, sweaty Lancastrian walkers?

Little is known about the early history of the church. There is no reference to a church at Rostherne in the Domesday Book but a deed dated 1188 states that a church had been on the site. Prior to that it was a site of Pagan worship – like so many now-Christian churches.

Norman insisted he show us where he used to go birdwatching by Rostherne Mere….although I couldn’t quite make mind up if he was talking of the feathered or un-feathered variety.

It wasn’t long before we once again crossed the River Bollin and we were back at our cars.

We were at the end of the day’s expedition and the sun was still very hot. I’m sure that, even with suncream, many of the group will suffer some degree of sunburn.

It was a cracking day out and thanks must go to everyone who turned up to make it such a success – especially John Bullen who arranged the Afternoon Tea bit – a brilliant idea!.

The only sad bit was that John, still suffering from South West Coast Path-itis was unable to join us. John: you missed a grand day out!

My photo album of the day is here.

 

Vital statistics:

16 miles with 240m of upness

or 26km with 780ft of up