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.