Turn Right At Liverpool And Keep Walking- Day 35 – Whaley Bridge To Strines – 2 July 2017

A fine sunny Sunday sees me catch a train from Hazel Grove to Whaley Bridge.

There is even some well dressing in Whaley

and we should not trek on without appreciating the rear (ie station) entrance to the Jodrell Arms in Whaley, which despite being abandoned and left to rot is a Grade 2 listed building, Thankfully two years on, it is being restored.

I’m growing to really like Whaley Bridge. Now the A6 does not pass through it, it is an oasis of calm (apart from its 2019 dam related drama that is).

Down at the canal I pass the transhipment shed, which allowed goods from the High Peak Railway to be loaded onto the Peak Forest Canal, it was built in 1801

Then it’s a leisurely walk along the High Peak canal. I cannot believe that in all my youth I never walked or cycled this, in those days we more enjoyed the challenge to Buxton and beyond. The river flows alongside in part.

After that up a spur of the canal to Bugsworth basin. My previous knowledge of Buxworth was that Pat Phoenix owned a pub there. I never knew it had these magnificent works

It was once the busiest inland port on the entire canal network, and was a terminus of the Peak Forest Tramway, used to transport lime into Manchester and feed the appetite of Cottonopolis for building materials.

Back onto the main canal, and passing some very pleasant canalside properties as well as some other canal dwellers.

On towards New Mills, and I pass the viaduct.

Passing under the high road bridge in New Mills, it looks almost from a lost civilisation of giants.

This part of the river was once the site of Rock and Torr Vale mills, and remains can be seen all over. The mill was being restored and is now open as a multi function venue.

The Millenium Walkway was a total surprise, it was as the name suggests a millenium project and what a bold one, a path above the sweeping river and mill works below. Tragically the chief engineer, Stan Brewster was murdered in the London Terrorist Bomb of July 2005.

After that, this rickety wooden bridge over the river was a nice piece of bathos.

The river now became more sedate after the deep gully of New Mills.

In Strines I walked over this bridge, which has a resonance back to the Whaley Bridge floods of 2019.

Curiousity piqued, I looked up the flood of 1872. On 19 June 1872 4.72 inches of rain fell over Macclesfield (which feeds the Goyt) in 24 hours (the worst of the rain in 2019 was 2 inches in 24 hours). The flood chronologies database of Newcastle University records:

On 19th the Goyt was 12 to 14 feet above its normal level. At Whaley Bridge houses near the river were completely flooded and people were taken into the chapel and inns. At New Mills where the Goyt is joined by the Kinder, two blocks of a paper works were washed away. Two stone weirs were washed away and two bridges. At Waterside Disley a cotton mill was badly damaged. At Strines a stone bridge was partly washed away. A gasometer was lifted from its basin and tossed on the river bank. At Marple several houses were flooded. The Pineapple Inn was damaged by lightning. At Romiley a stone bridge was washed away. A bridge near Taxal church was destroyed.

12-14 feet above its normal level! People forget the weather is always with us. It isn’t a recent phenomenon. We just have short memories.

Strines was sleepy but interesting.

The final delight of this tale was Strines station, it served as the inspiration for Edith Nesbit’s Railway Children. You can just imagine Jenny Agutter waving her knickers here can’t you?

Only six miles today, but what history!

Copyright Allan Russell 2019

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Turn Right At Liverpool And Keep Walking- Day 34 – Cat & Fiddle To Whaley Bridge – 26 June 2017

A day to start walking the Goyt from source to Mersey.

That’s about where it starts, just near the Cat & Fiddle Inn, renowned as the highest in England, but unfortunately these days it appears to be closed. Doesn’t stop it from being a biker’s paradise though.

I don’t get out enough into the Peak District, and it’s a long time since I went past Derbyshire Bridge, that’ll be in the days of callow youth. Bidding adieu to the Inn, I start down the road – the advantage of following a river from its source is usually the gentle slope you have to help you.

Derbyshire Bridge marks the boundary between Derbyshire and Cheshire, and well, is a little underwhelming given that it is signposted from so far away.

The scenery is not though, and I walk down a steep valley with the Goyt running under me to the right, bubbling over stones and mini falls.

Although the country looks wild, it was once mining land, and from time to time there is evidence of pockmarks where people once dug out coal.

The bridge above (or as it was below me) is not Derbyshire Bridge, it was moved from Goyts Bridge village when the reservoir flooded the valley.

The reservoir is low today, it being midsummer.

I am now on relatively familiar ground, having cycled around here quite regularly. Once that is. How I ever managed to climb these hills with alacrity is beyond me. I would think nothing of an afternoon ride from Heaton Mersey to Buxton, and back. It’s quite a drop into Buxton.

Errwood was inaugurated in 1967, so is relatively young.

It is then a diversion to Errwood Hall, a place I have never visited. It was built around 1840 for the Grimshawe family, and demolished in 1934 when work started on Fernilee Reservoir, last last Grimshawe, Mary Gosselin died in 1930 and Stockport Council immediately slapped a CPO on the building. It was used as a Youth Hostel for a few years, but the whole area was demolished in 1934 under the pretence that the council feared that the drains would pollute the reservoir.

This is Errwood hall as it was, and this is how it is now.

Although disappointing that it is gone, there is still something to remember there , and it is a peaceful place to sit, being appointed in the middle of a wood, up above is a graveyard, which I have yet to visit, but now it was time to continue on my way.

The overflow from Errwood to Fernilee was empty

Again whilst I had cycled past the reservoirs many times , I had never walked by the banks.

Climbing out of the valley, I passed Fernilee Methodist Church, built around 1871, and peaceful

and the village cross

and then I met the tracks of the Cromford and High Peak Railway

The railway is remarkable in many ways. Firstly, the Act of Parliament was obtained to build it in 1825, “using Steam Locomotive Engines” this was at a time when few people considered them feasible. It was one of the first long distance lines built anywhere in the world, and remains one of the highest lines ever built in Britain – 1,000 feet at  Ladmanlow, it has the steepest adhesion worked incline, and the sharpest curve as well in Britain.

It was intended to link with the Peak Forest Canal and transport cotton, providing an alternative to the Trent and Mersey Canal. It closed fully in 1967

Arriving in Whaley Bridge, it seemed a good time to halt, and before catching a bus back home, I looked at an interesting shop window display.

12 miles today, mostly downhill.

Copyright Allan Russell 2019

Mon, 26 Jun 2017