Thursday 25 September 2025 - GM Ringway Trail Stage 12 - Norden to Bury

Knowl Hill (click on any image for a slideshow)

Lovely weather again for this twelfth stage of the GM Ringway walk. It's about the furthest starting point from Timperley, requiring a tram at 8am to Victoria, then a train to Rochdale, and a taxi to Norden. With four of us on board, the taxi was a similar cost to the bus fare, and much more efficient for me, Sue, Paul and Rick. As we pulled in to the fish and chip shop in Norden, another taxi arrived behind us and disgorged Alan and Sheila. Nobody else was expected*, and the café was not yet open, so we started walking soon after 9:30.

*We wondered whether Viv, Steve and Roger have abandoned this project?

The route retraces stage eleven's steps up to Greenbooth Reservoir, passing en route the quiet fishing lake known as Doctor Dam.

Most of today's team at Doctor Dam

We soon left the previous stage's route and headed across the dam wall, with good views up to the end of Greenbooth Reservoir and beyond.

Looking back, a tall chimney provided a foreground for a view towards the tall buildings of central Manchester.

Waterworks paraphernalia on Greenbooth Reservoir

On passing a high waterfall, our GM Ringway step by step guide informed us that we had reached Step 22 on this 211 Step day!

Looking towards the low sun, Sue's picture offers a flavour of autumn, today's weather being a little cooler than on some of our previous stages. Ideal walking weather.

As on most stages of this walk, our view from near the edge of Greater Manchester encompasses the city centre skyscrapers, with - in this photo - the lesser high rises of Salford Quays on the right.

Most stages have started with a long climb. This one was no exception, climbing from 173 metres in Norden to the 419 metre summit of Knowl Hill. An ornate gate was encountered en route.

There were good views down to the series of Naden Reservoirs and a magnificent old incline slope.

We paused for another group photo before continuing along the Rochdale Way footpath all the way with the gradient increasing, to the summit of Knowl Hill.

Alan's blog posting - here - has far more detail than this record of our walk. He reports that the metal enclosure we passed on our way to the summit was the fence around a disused rain gauge.

Alan has gone into a lot of detail that isn't repeated in any depth here, so his entry is well worth a read.

It's mushroom season - this one is a Meadow Waxcap. Tasty.

We dawdled on the summit of Knowl Hill before descending from the cool breeze to a fine sheltered spot for elevenses with a panoramic view over Lancashire.

Sheila has been busy knitting Alan an alpaca woolly hat. He didn't wear it for long as it would have caused what's left of his brain to overheat.

A good path led easily down to Edenfield Road and Ashworth Moor Reservoir.

A few metres along the road, we passed Owd Betts Inn, an establishment dating from 1796 that used to be called the Hare and Hounds. We'd just had our elevenses, so a pause here wasn't necessary.

Soon afterwards, we dropped down a steep path to Cheesden Brook and Cheesden Lumb Mill.

There used to be up to 20 mills in this area, employing around 2000 workers. Whilst times have changed, there are many remnants going back to about 1780. Alan reports that there is evidence of human visitors here as long as 4000 years ago.

Beyond the derelict mill, our path wended its way beside Cheesden Brook, passing some fishing ponds before reaching Buckhurst Lodge, a lovely building in idyllic surroundings, but currently looking rather unkempt, with farming and building detritis littering the site.

Our path continued beside the brook and through scenic woodland, heading to Deeply Vale and a chimney that indicated we were passing the site of Deeply Valley Mill.

A great spot for lunch

Fuelled by our lunch, we stormed up a steep incline to Scotland Lane, where the gradient eased and we passed Valley View Tea Pod, at this time of year open only from 11 to 3 on Sundays. A shame. Here's a view from near the café.

Beside the Tea Pod, a field of alpaca, one of whom was particularly attentive.

Scotland Lane becomes Birtle Road, with views to central Manchester and home to some posh gated housing that benefits from those fine views.

We could have stopped at the Pack Horse, but we'd only just enjoyed our lunch break.

To our left, a lovely tranquil park, and an oblong pond.

There was a bigger pond beyond the oblong one.

Alan found a horse with pigtails.

A little further on, we reached the end of the larger pond (the oblong one is by the white house in the distance) at Gallows Hill, near the Church Inn. After several stages lacking in refreshment stops we now seemeed to have lots of opportunities, all of which we have ignored!

Just before crossing the M66 motorway we came across a lovely patch of autumn crocuses.

Beyond the motorway, a nice path through Chesham Green Wood led to open fields and a view to Peel Tower and the route of the next stage.

Clarence Wood was then negotiated, followed by a pleasant path to the side of Lowes Park Golf Club. The route goes through more woodland, eventually descending steeply to a path beside the River Irwell.

The Lamppost café was an obvious place to stop. But they were closing and we weren't welcome. The drinks were very average. After this Sheila became unwell and was confined to bed. Was she poisoned? This will be an obvious place to stop on Stage 13, which heads north through Burrs Country Park and the Irwell Sculpture Park. We'll see about that; other options may be available.

Here, we are in Burrs Country Park at the end of the Irwell Sculpture Trail. We will see more of both during the next stage of the walk.

From the café we emerged onto a path that led to a bridge over the River Irwell, beside which we walked into Bury, leaving the river shortly after passing an impressive weir. Paul proudly confessed to having kayaked over an even higher (but perhaps less steep) weir.

The four of us from South Manchester said farewell to Alan, and to Sheila dealing with her emergency, in the centre of Bury before we jumped on our respective Metrolink trams for the easy Squaredle journey home.

Here's our route - 22km with 450 metres ascent, taking us less than 7.5 hours.

That was another excellent walk. One of the longest stages. The next stage (13) starts at Bury Metrolink on Tuesday 30 September at 11:00am. It's just 18km. Here's the flier.

GM Ringway Trail - Stage 13 - Bury to Bromley Cross. Meet at Bury Metrolink at 11:00 for this thirteenth 18km stage of the 20 stage circuit of Greater Manchester.
Return to Victoria by train from Bromley Cross (every 30 minutes).