A little while ago, Jen Darling gave me a copy of her book, 'Walks in West Cheshire and Wirral'. Most of the walks are fairly short, and I have to admit to the book, until I undertook this walk ('Walk Number 1. Appleton'), remained in fairly pristine condition. Then, last week, Jen indicated that the publisher may seek a new edition of this book, and if so may I be able to help by re-walking some of the routes?
Of course, I'd enjoy doing that, and why not walk the routes anyway, I'm sure they'll lead me to some interesting nuances to routes with which I'm familiar, and one or two friends who aren't up for longer outings any more may be happy to join me.
Walk Number 1 seemed a good place to start, so I drove to Warrington and parked behind what Jen's book describes as a Spar shop. It's now a Co-op, and that's the only significant factual 'edit' that I came across, though - as Jen knows - I could add a few non essential edits to aid anyone trying to do the walk by simply following the instructions in the book, without the aid of a map.
Jen used to live (almost if not in sight of the above-mentioned Co-op) here, so this would be a walk from her front door. Her book highlights some points of interest that I will not repeat here, not least because I've already mentioned some of them elsewhere on these pages! Here and here, for starters.
Jen mentions the original features of The Lodge, near the start of the walk, but they are now concealed by a high brown gate/fence, but the old gateposts shown below lead through a lovely avenue of beech trees next to Pewterspear Lane.
The double-faced sculpture of the Roman god Janus (also pictured above), marks the point where this walk leaves the Roman road and heads off to Hillside Farm.
Beyond Hillside Farm, which is skirted by a pleasant path with twittering birds in the hedgerow and mewing buzzards overhead, Dennow Cottage soon appears in the distance.
Bellfields was built by a retired naval commander, who modelled the interior on a ship. In front of the house is a sandstone pillar that is said to mark the spot where Cromwell's horse was buried, after being killed in a nearby skirmish in 1648.
Next to Bellfields is a duck farm.
Unlike other versions of this route, this one passes around Appleton Reservoir, where mallard, coot, moorhens, swans and great crested grebes keep the fishermen company. It's a permissive path in tranquil surroundings. Delightful.
There's no escape from Himalayan Balsam and Hedge Bindweed at this time of year.
Soon afterwards, the Bridgewater Canal's towpath is reached after crossing Hough's Bridge, on a very pleasant, heavily shaded stretch.
A short diversion in the direction of Moore leads after 300 metres to the entrance to Walton Hall Gardens, the former home of Lord and Lady Daresbury, where there's a bicycle museum and other attractions. (Click on the image to view it properly.)
After this distraction, the towpath leads back in the other direction, past housing, to Stockton Heath.
The canal is left behind at London Bridge, after crossing which bridge the route doubles back for a while, passing the old customs house and toll keeper's cottage, before ascending through a series of ginnels to a large cemetery.
Today, a mass of Green Alkanet foliage and flowers adorns some of the ginnels.
From the lychgate of Hill Cliffe Baptist Church, there's a good view to the spire of St Elphin's, Warrington Parish Church, and beyond to the tall mast on Winter Hill, and the South Pennines.
The walk enjoys a final flourish along a fine footpath beside a golf course (which is the other side of an impenetrable hedge), before reaching Pineways and skirting a delightful pond, from where the Co-op and its car park can be seen.
Near here I stopped for a chat with someone in his garden and told him what I was doing. He remembered Jen as having lived "just around the corner".
Thus ended a delightful stroll that amounted to 11 km including diversions and took me two and a half hours.
2 comments:
Sounds like can interesting project. I've often wondered about the business of writing a guide to walks and I reckon it would be much more onerous than one would think. At least you have a base to start from rather than starting from scratch. For me the most important thing is to keep the history and comments separate from the walk description. That avoids "turn right into the church yard...", followed by two paragraphs on church history before you get back to the walk description. In that respect you may be already stymied?
Yes Conrad, I enjoy this exercise. I find the history and comments inserted between the bits of route description works well, and I think this format is suitable for the target audience of these guide books. Otherwise there's a tendency for the reader to leave the history to be read later, at the expense of not dallying to investigate points of interest.
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