Gritstone Trail day 2, with Matt, Peter, Rob and others

This post follows on from Gritstone Trail day 1, and took place the day after...

After a very much appreciated night's rest and then breakfast at the vicarage, we prepared to walk again. Half of us attended the 8.30am church service, while the others raided the village shop for supplies for the day, coming back with rolls and various fillings for sandwiches. We were joined by Andrew, Pete and Ian, making us a party of 9 today. We headed swiftly to the base of:


Tegg's Nose with Matt

And then we started climbing. I think it was a good job
that we were fresh after a good night's rest, because although it didn't take long to get to the top, it was a bit of a steep climb. By the time we reached the summit, Matt was already in need of a blister plaster for his heel, and we were all a bit hot and out of breath. If the exertion hadn't been enough to take our breath away, then the views might have done! You could look down to the reservoirs below in Macclesfield Forest, across to Shutlingsloe and Shining Tor, and also, of course, back to where we had come from, Croker Hill with The Cloud just visible behind. Tegg's nose was a fascinating place to be. The hill has been extensively quarried for the stone in the past and there are a few old and now rusting quarrying tools/machines left behind with info boards telling you all about how things used to be. The thought of climbing up the hill before starting your day's work was quite sobering, apparently whoever arrived first had to light the fire for the blacksmith. I'm not sure who reached the top in our group, but they certainly didn't start any fires. Matt did amazingly well to complete the challenge of the Gritstone Trail, as I think his blisters started to form as soon as we left the train at Kidsgrove station. It is therefore with great pleasure that I can announce that Tegg's Nose is now 'Matt's Hill'!

We left Tegg's Nose, and stopped for a bit of DIY surgery to Matt's blisters (he has the most amazing Swiss Army Knife I have ever seen) at the Tegg's Nose Coutry Park Visitor Centre before heading off down the North side of the hill, eventually to cross the Macclesfield-Buxton Road into a field of cows, their calves, and a large bull. It was at this point that I was glad that: a) I had not brought Monty (the dog) on the walk and b) I was with Ed (brought up as a farmer) and Matt (who for reasons too complicated to explain has experience with bulls...). Fortunately we negotiated the field without miss hap and escaped over a stile to further fields beyond. Again, today, we walked through a number of beautiful meadows, full of buttercups and other wild flowers. I tried a few photo's, but none really did the scenes justice.

We eventually found ourselves in the outskirts of the village of Rainow. Ed reckoned that Rainow claims to be the largest village in England, but I have been unable to confirm that via my google search. It can lay claim to having the first concrete reservoir dam in England, and also the highest constructed dam in England though, at the nearby Lamaload Reservoir! After a short stretch of road leading out of the village we then started to climb again, this time up:

Kerridge Hill with Peter



Kerridge Hill is a Sandstone Hill, which over time has been quarried for the stone, and also for coal. At it's northern end it looks down upon the town of Bollington, but we climbed up half way along, to reach the Saddle of Kerridge. At this point, Peter, Andrew and I made a detour left off the Grtistone trail to take in the trig point and summit of the hill. This gave us another chance to look back on our route, where all of our hills could once again be seen. The other landmark which was clearly visible for our entire route so far was Jodrell Bank. The radio telescope had been haunting us since we first climbed Mow Cop the day before. I have visited there in the past, but not for many years. I remember it as a good day out. Worth a visit if you're in the area. We made our way back down to join the others, and Andrew then realised that it is foolish to leave your ruck sac unsupervised with a group of your so-called-friends. Somehow it seemed a little heavier than when he'd left it there - the chunks of dry-stone wall in the bottom may have accounted for this!

For a while we had been able to see a white landmark on the northern end of Kerridge Hill. We had been debating what it might be, with guesses including a folly or a war memorial. As we reached it, we weren't really any the wiser! We knew that it was White Nancy, but there is nothing there to explain why it was built. This link will tell you all you need to know! For those of you who would rather stay with the blog, i can tell you that it is thought to have been built to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo. It is an impressive structure, and I think we look like a happy bunch sat in front of it in our photo at the top of this page. This was a perfect spot for us to sit and eat lunch.




From our vantage point over lunch we could look down to Bollington, which was built on quarrying, and then the cotton industry. We could also look North East to our next hill. After descending from White Nancy, we picked our way through various fields and over stiles, gradually climbing up towards:

Sponds Hill with Rob

I think it's fair to say that Rob also found the weekend a challenge (didn't we all!). His feet survived in a better state that Matt's did, but he was very glad to reach the summit of Sponds Hill as this was going to be the last hill of the weekend. Once again, the trig point was a short way off the path, so we didn't all go. peter and Ed stayed behind guarding ruck sacs. What I didn't realise at the time was that the trig point is sat upon an ancient Barrow. This Bronze Age structure went unnoticed by us all at the time! We did, however appreciate the great views in all directions taking in Kinder to the East with the Pennines running down from North to South, up to Manchester in the North and just being able to see across to the Cheshire Plains West. Once again, top views!

After rejoining everyone else, we started our final descent. It wasn't long before the landscape changed into clearly managed countryside, and then through a gate in a wall to definite 'country estate' land. The most bizarre experience of the entire weekend was right at the end. After spending the majority of the weekend without seeing anyone else (ok, a few people around and about on the summits, but otherwise very quiet), we walked through a gate to be confronted with a busy car park and hundreds of people playing, picnicking and buying ice-cream!

The ice-cream queue was what we then joined! Lyme Park is a great country house, now owned by the National Trust. It's probably best recognised from the BBC Pride and Prejudice series, notably for where Mr Darcy swims in the lake...

So, we made it! A total of 35 miles, and a few hills! It felt like a good achievement for us all, and i got to know a few folks I'd not really met before. All in all a great weekend. Thanks to Matt, Peter and Rob for my 28th, 29th and 30th hills!