Strolling to Bollington and White Nancy

Strolling to Bollington START and White Nancy Keith Carter heads for the monument to the battle of Watrerloo and on to the Saddle of Kerridge Route of the walk Ordnance Survey mapping c Crown copyright 2005 the north face of Kerridge Hill begins in earnest. Steps have been worn in the grass which makes the going slightly INFORMATION easier but it's a relief to reach the land-rover track that crosses our line of march. Cross the track and go up the Distance: 5 miles steps opposite where a fingerpost tells us that we are on the Time to allow: 3-31/ hours 2 Gritstone Trail, a long-distance walk of 18 miles that starts at Parking: Pool Bank Car Park, Bollington Lyme Park and winds its way to Rushton Spencer in Map: OS Explorer 268 Wilmslow, Macclesfield and Congleton Staffordshire. The path to the top has been restored and Refreshments and toilets: Pubs and cafes in Bollington. goes all the way on steps so we soon reach our first Useful book: Cotton Town – Bollington and the Swindells Family in the 19th Century. objective, the strange obelisk known as White Nancy. Useful web site: www.happy-valley.org.uk Looking rather like the dome atop a mosque, it is painted Public transport: Bus service from Stockport and Macclesfield. Information ring 0870 white occasionally not only to refresh its appearance but 608 2608. also to obscure the tiresome graffiti that has a tendency to Disabled access: Not suitable. Gritstone trail appear on it. On my visit it looked as if it had been sponsored by Jack Daniels! Local knowledge has it that OLLINGTON'S industrial past is all around you as spinning of the finest Liberty cottons. The mills are now White Nancy was built around 1815 as a summer house by you drive into the town from the direction of mostly derelict yet the town shows no sign of neglect, the the Gaskell family who lived at Ingersley Hall nearby, possibly BStockport and the first impression is that this is a bustle indicating a thriving community without the usual retail to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo. There are different typical Pennine settlement with its narrow streets and expansion that seems to be the norm everywhere you go explanations for the name; one theory says that one of the greystone architecture. Prosperity for the villages in the these days. Top: Old Cottages, climb ahead. Turn left and in fifty yards look for a stile on the daughters was called Nancy whilst another maintains that it Bollington Happy Valley, as it is known locally, came with the canal and To do our walk, park in the centre of town at Pool Bank Above: Hawthorn, right just after a row of cottages. Climb the stile and follow was named after a favourite horse. The family left an the railways in the middle of the 19th century, a period of car park notable for the fake Victorian public convenience Kerridge Road the slabbed path through the field with the hedge boundary endowment of half a crown a year for the maintenance of 1 great expansion for the quarrying and cotton mills that had that has landed Tardis-like and looks totally out of place in a on your right, leading up to the top right corner where a the monument, that's 12 /2 pence in new money. The become established during what we now call the Industrial mill town. Cross the road and take the side road nearly bench suggests that a pause for breath might be in order. phrase 'every little helps' sounds a bit on an Revolution. opposite grandly called High Street but hardly justifying the The view back over the town surrounded by hills is a understatement! The cluster of villages coalesced into one and became name. Walk up to the T-junction where a pub, The Red Lion, prospect that is genuinely Pennine in character. From White Nancy walk south along the line of a wall to known as Bollington, soon acquiring a reputation for the holds out the temptation of a swift pint to fortify us for the Once over a stile and through a gate, the steep ascent of go through a kissing-gate by some trees and keep to the 266 CHESHIRE LIFE April 2007 www.cheshirelife.co.uk www.cheshirelife.co.uk CHESHIRE LIFE April 2007 267 same line along the so-called Saddle of Kerridge with the of Brookhouse where we pass the pub, The Rising Sun, at Above: View over Bollington Cheshire Plain to the right. Below us are the extensive the roadside. Those of us who can resist going in continue Top right: White Nancy quarries of Kerridge Hill, out of sight but it is best not to on the pavement and come to an opening on the left Right: Waulkmill Farm stray too far over to the right but keep to the fine path of where a footpath goes off at right angles, signposted as a the Gritstone Trail. After three kissing-gates we cross the Permissive Bridleway. wall at a well-made stile and signpost and climb up over a Drop to a stream crossing then rise again through a ruin prominent knoll with a trig point on top from where we can and take the next left that climbs an avenue of young trees, look down to our left to see the village of Rainow laid out oak and hazel, between walls to a gate. The path climbs like toy town. diagonally left to meet a crossing path with a signpost and Beyond the trig point the path begins to descend we cut back right on a path that will lead all the way back to through gorse and hawthorn, gradually at first and then Bollington but lower down the hillside than our outward path down an old trackway that must have been used for along the ridge. Keep ahead without gaining height, the centuries. Traffic noise from the Macclesfield road down to path becoming clearer as we pass a plantation and then our left begins to intrude and we arrive at where our path cross open hillside on the same contour. Looking to our ends, meeting Lidgetts Lane via a stone stile with a right we can see a small reservoir and scattered farms and bridleway sign. Turn left and we find ourselves at the road. the still air may be broken by the barking of dogs or the Turn left and walk along the pavement through the hamlet sound of a chain saw. 268 CHESHIRE LIFE April 2007 www.cheshirelife.co.uk.

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