Thursday 24 September 2026 - Spunch Northenden

Sue and I were pleased to be joined by Jenny and Fechin for this exploration of our local area. The Spunch HQ was set up outside 'Northenden Untapped', a lovely little bar on Church Lane. I once nearly bought a house on nearby Royle Green Road. (I settled for 10 Adria Road, Didsbury in the end.) Anyway, we are very familiar with the paths in Wythenshawe Park, including a thorough exploration when I did a 'virtual' London Marathon here.

After the usual pre-Spunch faffing (I always seem to forget to change the display settings from 1 minute to a more comfortable 10 minutes), the four of us congregated on the banks of the River Mersey at point 10. We then wound our way through the housing estates that border Royle Green Road on one side and Didsbury Golf Course on the other side. The housing was linked by various ginnels and bits of woodland such as that shown above.

On reaching Alpha Point on Bradnor Road, we paused to admire a sculpture that none of us had seen before. This is the 'Spire' artwork, classified as a 'localised architectural sculpture'.

Apparently, while the spire has been an established landmark on Bradnor Road since at least the mid-2000s, there is a surprising lack of public registry documentation regarding its exact commissioning date or the specific independent sculptor behind it. It stands as a classic piece of corporate/industrial estate placemaking art from Manchester's late-20th or early-21st-century regeneration era.

The route I'd plotted went through the Industrial Estate to a ginnel that emerges into a housing estate on Roundwood Road. An easy route then led us to Palatine Road and under Princess Parkway. Then into Wythenshawe Park and paths around the eastern perimeter to reach and cross Altrincham Road at Gib Lane. Sue got a bit behind due to encountering a bog and a fence after pausing for a call of nature and failing to secure a short cut.

We passed Jan's house (according to Sue), passed a few more Spunch points, and crossed the main road again by a pharmacy. A familiar gap in the hedge gave access to point 36, after which we romped along paths through the park like the one shown below. You can see that Jenny and Sue, who both have a fast walking pace, have again got ahead of me and Fechin on the lovely sunlit evening. 

After a successful stumble through the park to the Lodge, we again found ourselves in unfamiliar territory as we hastened down Rackhouse Road to a right turn along Yewtree Lane. At one point I thought I was far enough ahead of the others to nip 'off plan' to bag point 27 down Dane Avenue. It took me until the bridge that extends Yewtree Lane over the Parkway to catch up. I was still a bit behind the ladies...

... but I was ahead of Fechin as the sun set behind his right shoulder.

We made our way back to Northenden Untapped pretty quickly from here, picking up an unplanned Spunch point and arriving at the HQ with time in hand that could have permitted another point to be ticked off.. Anyway, we were happy to have visited 38 (39 for me) of the 83 points available, at Sue and Jenny's walking pace. Though Fechin and I would be the first to admit that we had to deploy our jog/shuffle techniques in order to keep up with the comparatively youthful ladies. Fechin and I are both 77 and in his day Fechin was a sub 2½ hour marathon runner. Old age takes its toll! Fechin was further disabled by the end, having blistered both feet. (Should he not know better?!

Here's the route that I took to bag just 39 out of the 83 Spunch points available.

Afterwards it was great to see Andy T ('Spunch Man') and Michelle, with good beer and even better pizzas to round things off, as well as bumping into old acquaintances (Paul Muldoon) and missing others (Alistair Pooler - lost in the dark?)

Here are the official results for the 120 minute participants (there were another 56 people in the 60 and 90 minute categories).

Sunday 13 September 2026 - Spunch Altrincham

Fechin joined me and Sue for a couple of hours' Spunching on a fine Sunday morning. The Spunch points were mainly close together, so we got our best ever scores. A little local knowledge helped, though I missed an obvious short cut at the end and was penalised for going 19 seconds over the two hour limit.

These two photos were taken on the long straight track that some allege to be the course of a Roman road. It may be more recent, but it's a delight to walk down.

The route that we planned crossed the canal at Altrincham Bridge and took in lots of points between the canal and the railway, before re-crossing the canal at Seamons Bridge. The towpath was then followed all the way back to the environs of Timperley Brook and West Timperley Nature Reserve. In places the canal is full of weed; very few boats come this way these days due to the canal being closed at Dunham thanks to the breach that occurred a couple of years ago. A little further on, a heron chose to ignore the fact that we were only a couple of metres away on the towpath.

Sue went ahead and collected a couple of extra points that Fechin and I didn't have time to visit, and Fechin got a time penalty after failing to keep up and getting slightly misplaced.

Kickback Coffee provided welcome refreshments, and then we returned a few metres to the host venue, Twisted Running, where Sue spashed out on a t-shirt and shorts.

Here's my Garmin 245's take on the route we took - it recorded 11.7 km, whereas Spunch's 'MapRun' app recorded 12.7 km. Click on the next two images for better detail. The second image is an extract from the '120' results for the 53 finishers

Well, that was fun. Our next Spunch will be at Northenden on the evening of 24 September. See here for a link to future events.

Tuesday 18 August 2026 - Spunch Lyme Taster

This was a free of charge 'Taster' Spunch event, supported by the National Trust in Lyme Park.

Sue and I were joined by first timers Fechin, Richard and Jenny. The map was at 1:4000 scale rather than the usual 1:12500 scale, and there were only 45 Spunch satellite points compared with the usual 90 or so.

After coffees from the kiosk, the five of us went to see Michelle and Sue in the courtyard and soon everyone was set up with the MapRun app and ready to go past the starting flag.

In a reverse of my original plan, we started by going around the gardens, picking up many points on the way. The little red circles on the MapRun app were rapidly turning green.

We headed round the back of the pond and managed to visit all the satellite points in the garden by using just about every path available. Families and children were having a great time Spunching and I regretted not having the grandchildren with us. They would love it.

The satellite points had been set so as to encourage participants to go round the gardens before exiting through the way out clearly marked on the map.

By then, a light drizzle was falling.

The second half of the outing involved going up to 'The Cage', an Elizabethan hunting tower, and descending back to the Hall via an assortment of paths.

There was very little running - it was clear that walking pace in the beautiful scenery (despite the drizzle) would easily get us to all the relevant points in plenty of time.

It was breezy up at The Cage, and the ground was welcoming a bit of lubrication after months of drought.

Here's Fechin, on his first visit to Lyme Park, approaching The Cage.

My last photo of the day was taken as we strolled down from The Cage, picking off the remaining Spunch points and not forgetting point number 3, which could easily have been missed.

By the time we got back to base in about an hour and ten minutes, we had been to all the satellite points and like the majority of today's 130+ participants we had excelled, with maximum scores of 900 all round apart from Fechin, who had a bit of technical trouble with his app, but he did finish with the rest of us and get a perfect score.

Here's our track - 5km with just 100 metres ascent.

An extract from the results is given below. Click on the image for a better version and you might spot another of the 'Oldies', John Archer, who seems to have taken his time over this event. It's a shame he didn't join us.

After lunch and a chat at the café, and birthday wishes to Fechin - 77 today (and he thanks Mike Curley and others for their best wishes) - we adjourned in the knowledge that this taster session had worked brilliantly, with all three 'first timers' hungry for more. The Spunch website gives details of forthcoming events, and those that Sue and I are booked on are shown on topwalks.com.

Edits and comments are welcome.

Tuesday 7 July 2026 - Spunch Mellor

Spunch comes to Mellor, where the satellite points to be visited are almost all in the lovely countryside of the margins of the Peak District, so today's outing was somewhat undulating but offered some lovely early evening views. Sue and I started soon after 5:30, after when the cloud cover slowly cleared, providing the sunlit view of the church at Mellor seen in the picture above.

Back to our start... As I am suffering from Ischia Bursitis (Bum Pain) I've been told not to run for six weeks, so I enjoyed a two hour walk, covering about 10km, and Sue set off running in the opposite direction, covering over 14km in the two hours allowed for this event.

I soon met her coming the other way, in the fields on the path to/from Moorend.
 

It was a slow plod up to a high point, next to a hedge on an overgrown path, with good views in my rear view mirror.

Sue had time to pause for a picture of some Yellow Loosestrife.

Spunching is a family activity as well as a challenging activity for runners.

After a short diversion to pick up point 42, I went back up to a small pond and a high route to the disused quarry that houses a large cross. We've been here on evening walks with Stockport Walking and Outdoors Group (SWOG). En route to the quarry there were good views back into the Peak District.

After a short dogleg to pick up point 17, these two came flying past me.

While they went down the hill towards The Banks, I joined others in a bid to find all five points within the vicinity of the quarry. I don't know how I managed to miss point 4!

Meanwhile, Sue was approaching from the other direction. She had no trouble in finding all five points in the quarry.

After that, Sue headed along Black Lane. "You must be Spunchers, Andy will like that picture!"

Rosebay Willowherb is coming into flower beside Black Lane.

After crossing Longhurst Lane at point 68, I enjoyed a final climb up through vineyards to Mellor Church.

Then it was a short dash past the archaeological excitements in the vicinity of the church (see here for more details on a more leisurely visit) to grab point 27 before strolling down the hill and there and back to point 29, before finishing nearly 9 minutes inside the 120 minute deadline.

Sue soon arrived and we were tucking in to chicken curry and pints with over 100 other participants on a lovely evening in the garden of the Devonshire Arms.

Here are the results for the 33 '120' participants. Walking the route I'd chosen seemed to work well, and Sue managed on her own despite some 'uncertainty' at the golf course.

Here's a screenshot of my 10km route with 300 metres ascent. The green circles are the 40 points I visited and the solid blue line shows my approximate route between the points.

Here's the same screenshot for Sue - full page this time as she covered 51 ppoints in a wider area.

This final screenshot shows Sue's route in the context of the whole area. (Click on the image.)

That was a lovely outing in wonderful countryside, though I fear my Ischia Bursitis didn't appreciate it, so I'll be a bit slower next rime!

Wednesday 1 July 2026 - Spunch Urmston

Whilst followers of England's World Cup football match were enduring a stressful but ultimately successful evening, Sue and I set off on a two hour Spunch event in Urmston.

Sue took the above picture in Davyhulme Park before we split up as I had to revert to walking pace due to a painful occurence of Ischia bursitis (aka A Pain in the Bum).

HQ for this event was the Bevano (after Aneurin Bevan) Lounge on Flixton Road near Urmston railway station. Aneurin Bevan opened nearby Park Hospital, now Trafford General, on 5 July 1948 - the first NHS hospital.

During the evening I'd bumped into parkrunner Frank Cordingley - "Just out for a run - never heard of Spunch". Well, he has now.

Back at HQ after two hours of exercise, beer and a meal, whilst we waited for Alistair Pooler, who we knew was out there somewhere. He and his mate Dan did very well, as did another parkrunner who lives close to us in Timperley, Paul Steane, who joined us after the finish.

Here are the 120 minute event results - click on the image for a clearer version:

The route I took - about 12km - is shown below in blue. I went wrong at the bottom left and at the end, but it was a reasonable effort considering I walked the last few km.