and went out with Becky and their two boys for a walk over Alderley Edge. Now, I know how difficult it can be to encourage children to go for a walk, so we made sure we found one with plenty of interest! This walk over Alderley Edge had a definite mystical theme! We essentially followed a combination of 2 walks found here. We started on the Mottram Quarry Walk, and then when we reached The Beacon, we diverted for a short while onto The Wizard walk, then back to the Mottram Quarry walk to the end from The Beacon again. 
The start at the Mottram Quarry car park is at the bottom of the hill, although I believe you can park at The Wizard Inn car park and avoid most of the climb. We walked through the woods, with the dog running around in the trees and the children playing. The walk kept us on fairly level ground for quite some time before we found our uphill path. It wasn't too steep or too long, and the kids managed it easily. Once at the top we started looking out for all things magical!The story of The Wizard is essentially that many years ago a farmer was walking across The Edge taking his mil-white horse to market to be sold. He is stopped by an old man who offers to buy the horse, but the farmer refuses. The old man tells him that at the market, although many will admire the horse, none will offer to buy it, and that he will therefore buy it on the farmer's return trip. Sure enough, the farmer has no luck at market, and returns back over The Edge again, only to be stopped once more by the old man, who has now turned into a tall and imposing wizard. The wizard leads farmer and horse to a rock, and with a magical tap of his staff, he reveals large iron gates leading into a cavern. Following the wizard inside the farmer finds a cave full of sleeping knights, each with a milk-white horse (also asleep).
there is one knight who has no horse. The wizard shows the farmer a cave full of jewels, telling him to take what he wishes in exchange for the horse, which the wizard buys for the currently horseless knight. The wizard goes on to explain that the knights are waiting for the time when they will awake for battle during which they will save the country...needless to say, that despite much searching, no one has ever been able t find the magical gates ever since...(and neither did we...)The story kept the children interested in the walk, and they were particularly impressed by the Wizard's Well, where someone has carved the face of a wizard into the rock above the well. It's a bit indistinct, but I think that only added the mystery of it all! In addition to the wells, there was the 'Golden Stone' to find, which looked more green to me (see the photo with the children on a rock), and the Druid's Circle, which I'm afraid to say is not a real druidic construction! There used to be a building on the top called
The Beacon, but this has fallen down long ago. As you might have expected, beacons were lit here in the past - most notably to warn that the Spanish Armada had been spotted!Probably the best find on this walk, however (particularly for Bethan, Samuel and Harry) was the rope swing! We found it in the woods, and the kids had a great time playing on it. There's something irresistible about rope swings I think, and I was very tempted to have a go myself, but I'm sure it would have ended in disaster if I'd tried! We managed to engineer the walk so that we went to it twice, which kept them walking!
There were two view points during the walk. One from 'Castle Rock', which is the site of an attempt to build a castle in the past - apparently they didn't get further than the foundations, then built it at Beeston instead.
The views from here were expansive and we could see Manchester to the North. The other view was towards the end of the walk and looked more Eastwards - we could just make out White Nancy sitting above Bollington.All in all, this was a great walk. We all enjoyed the trees, the views and the mystical stories. Thanks to Becky, Samuel and Harry for a great day, and hill number 35!
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