A beautiful afternoon found Sue and me braving more icy paths, this time on a short walk around Rostherne.
Parking up at the Swan at Bucklow Hill, we crossed the busy A556 road and headed down Chapel Lane, which proved to be a sheet of ice. Soon we were able to take to the fields down a pleasant path with frosted grass.
A lovely thatched cottage marks the point where another road is joined.
Short of time, we turned left and stuck to the road to pass Millington Hall on our left, rather than take our usual route past Agden Brook to Booth Bank.
There’s a reluctance to allow the local lads to bag rabbits, etc.
Today we turned right down Millington Lane and headed back to re-cross the A556 and stroll down the quiet lane – closed for pipe laying – to Rostherne. On the way a narrow path is worth taking for the views it affords of Rostherne Mere, the largest natural lake in Cheshire at over 100 feet deep, and a haven for wintering birds.
After being hemmed between a barbed wire fence and a bramble hedge it was liberating to rejoin the icy lane and slither along to St Mary’s church, which sports the oldest lychgate in England – dating from 1640. The church was resplendent in the low afternoon sun.
The churchyard is dotted with tombs of the Egerton family (if you read yesterday’s entry you may recall that they were the owners of the Tatton Estate until it was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1958).
From here we could have returned along the lane directly to Bucklow Hill, but time permitted a diversion through frozen fields of beet, with a flock of fieldfare, to Home Farm, part of the Tatton Park estate.
A wide right of passage had been scoured and fenced off, perhaps for the pipeline, or is a road being built?
After a few metres along the road, a right turn led us back into fields, towards Mere Farm. The sun went down.
A right turn then took us to a final footpath to the left, across more fields to a small Mere, where a sign written in Polish explained that it was a Private fishing ground for Warrington Anglers.
Then we rejoined the lane to return to the car after this brisk 7 km excursion. The route is shown below.
Soon after returning home we noticed the first flurries of a snow storm that was to linger over Cheshire for the next 24 hours!
A full slide show (19 images) is here.
5 comments:
Looks so calm before the crazy snow fall of Monday night! I saw Gordon Buchanan tweeted that he'd seen Fieldfare in his garden this morning. Its a shame you can't get down to the mere at Rostherne, lovely village though and I've often sat on that bench behind the church looking over the mere and the rabbits in the field below. When I was in my late teens and depressed I used to drive out to the church at Rostherne and walk back to that tiny hump back bridge and sit above the trickling stream deep in thought. Thoughts that are so fickle now I'm a little older and wiser of course! ;-)
We have happy memories of an evening walk when champagne was quaffed on that bench.
I saw a couple of fieldfare in a hedgerow opposite Tesco's in Altrincham this afternoon.
BTW - I'm older, but still no wiser!
I'm loving the "tree starts" to your recent posts, Martin. Great photography altogether.
Thanks Mark (they are only snapshots...)
Trees are a very temporary theme; I'm pleased someone noticed, though.
Apologies - the birds opposite Tescos were Redwings, not Fieldfare. We saw more Redwings on Friday by the Bay Malton, looking for berries beside the Bridgewater Canal.
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