Winter Sqwalk (10 miles)              Alsagers Bank/Apedale/Silverdale               28/12/2011

 

 

26 were up for it

Yupmeister, Mid Week Tone, Pedro, Keithee's up for it, Dasher, Malc Jay, Lynn Jay, Matt Jay, Euan Jay, DCeen, McCeen, Mr Tahoohigh, Ali Gee, R G Bargee, Thingy, Paul Hecky Thump, Mrs Hecky Wendy Thump, Tim Mothy, Corky - Graham Cork, Debri (Debbie Holihead), GPS-cott, Baz, Andy, Mike Scott – (great to see you with us again Mike), Mark Pickford and Heavy Steve Machine.

 

3 dropped out, namely Spikelette who couldn’t get out of bed, Granpop Bill who ended up babysitting at the final hour, and Jacko who pulled his hamstring, putting his impending trip to Oz in jeopardy.

 

Route details

Turn immediately left below the Gresley Arms, down and across the fields through Bates Wood passing the pools to Minnie farm, cutting back to Chapel farm at Halmerend. Cross the fields to Ryehill Farm and Boon Hill, Butters Green and Bignal Hill, with an option to visit the ‘Red Street’ Monument.

Dropping south to Robin Hood farm descend through Partridge and Burley Farms and directly south to the visitors centre at Apedale. Over the country park and High lane, across Black Bank to Silverdale and the Bush public House.

West to a muddy Hollywood lane in Haying Wood. The name doesn’t do it justice. Past Banktop Farm, crossing Scot Hay Road and into Crackley Lane in Scot Hay and north back to Alsagers bank.

 

In the absence of volunteers to put together a short walk for the Christmas hike, the task of assembling the walk fell on Yuppy. Incredibly, with only a couple of weeks to Christmas but armed with an Engineering background with a local authority, a superb walk was efficiently put together, starting with the following essential ingredients;

 

  • A short walk for a short winter’s day, say 9-10 miles, and with a not too early start time.

  • A stop for breakfast,

  • An early pub stop,

  • A good lunchtime pub with decent food and ale,

  • A beer festival perhaps as a bonus,

  • Excellent views

  • And good weather, well that's easy aint it?

Sorted.

 

 

 

With a start time of 8.30am, the walk began, and finished, at the Gresley Arms on Alsagers Bank, (approx 2 miles west of Newcastle). The Gresley Arms had allowed us to park our cars on their car park for this, the 75th Office walk, as we would be returning for lunch later. www.gresleyarms.co.uk/

 

It was a bit nippy in the early morning breeze as we stood admiring the superb views over the Cheshire plains from the rear beer garden of the Gresley, and waited for the Heckys to attach their leggings.

 

Gradually we huddled together for the usual group shots and to keep warm, and set off just a few minutes behind schedule, heading down bank past the Gresley.  Luckily, Thingy was on hand to point out we’d missed the first way marked footpath to our left, immediately next to the pub. The test had worked. Yup was not the only one reading a map!!

With the views across the plains diminishing as we descended into the lowlands, we entered Bates Wood before turning back on ourselves and across the fields to Halmerend and on to Bignal Hill.

 

 

     
 
     

There were no barriers which could stop us ploughing on.
     

 

 

A long haired mountain goat looked on inquisitively as we passed  Wyre Hill Farm.

     

Puffing on up Bignal Hill, several opted to continue to the Apedale Centre whilst the rest carefully crossed the road on a dangerous bend, near its summit, and checked out the views from the Wedgwood Monument; dedicated to John Wedgwood of course but known locally as the Red Street Monument.  Built in 1850 it is now a quarter of its size following storm damage.

   

 

From the monument you could see a 360 deg panorama with landmarks Jodrell Bank to the north, and Mow Cop to the east. Well worth the small detour. http://www.thepotteries.org/art/6a.htm
     

Venturing on and into the park, which covers nearly 200 hectares, Joe unravelled the myriad of footpaths and led us to the centre for breakfast. There were actually hundreds of posts with direction arrows everywhere but don't tell Joseph.  They were just being hidden by Pedro and Matt.

  

     

We were half an hour behind the proposed arrival time but the volunteering folk behind the counter and in the kitchen swiftly sorted us out.

 

 

 

There was just enough time for a quick peek into the museum before we left. A future mine trip looked on the cards.

 

There is of course much history linking the Gresley family and Apedale which you can find along with other information about the centre by following this link -  http://www.apedale.co.uk/
     

As were still slightly behind schedule we marched on but took a slight shortcut across the country park, missing out on a brief stop at a large blue pit head wheel on the summit which acts as a memorial to the mine workers of Staffordshire. ‘We’re missing out on some wheely good views over the Potteries,’ said a spokesperson.

 

  

 

Nipping over Black Bank, and following part of the Newcastle Way http://mediafiles.thedms.co.uk/Publication/SS-Stoke/cms/pdf/Newcastle%20Way.pdf  we descended towards Scot Hay Road and then south east to Silverdale to enter the Bush. Spooky.

 

Mr no-mates Tahoohigh found a seat in a corner of the pub, soon realising he was sitting on his own. Should have gone to Specsavers.

 

The Duchars IPA and Abbeydale’s Advent ales were quickly spotted, with the latter running dry after just the first round. A Flying Scotsman was also spotted.
   

 

Animals and allergies became topical subjects with Debris explaining how her gecko can give you a really good suck. Within 5 minutes the pet shops around the Potteries were inundated with phone calls from men in Silverdale eager to buy one.

 

Not realising she was later referring to her pet tortoise, the lads listened in even more intently as she demonstrated how she bathed it. ‘Yes you just stroke it in the bath and it grows. You then shake them up and down, or you can stick them in a microwave…..’ Oh eck, you could have heard a pin drop until that point.

     

The landlady presented Yuppy with a pub crawl poster. Whatever gave her the impression we enjoyed drinking real ale? Having ticked most of them off in a flash, a shortlist of 2 or 3 was drawn up for a future event.

 

 

 

 

With only 5 minutes left before we needed to continue, last orders were called. Pedro decided it wasn’t long enough to get his round in and sunk into oblivion, uttering ‘only 5 minutes left’, ‘only 5 minutes left’, repeatedly throughout the afternoon.

 
 

 

 

 

    

We left 5 minutes later and split into 2 smaller groups. Several Sqwalkers, whose identities shall be nameless, took a shortcut along Scot Hay Road. The rest traversed a muddy section in Haying Wood, named Hollywood Lane, undeniably a mistake when they produced the street map. Matt Jay recalled his first capture of criminals up the lane, whilst Euan was more interested in getting to the pub for his scampi and chips.

     

Passing Banktop Farm, and Scot Hay we soon arrived back at Alsagers bank and the Gresley. We virtually took over the whole dining room which had the same views across Cheshire that we’d been welcomed with first thing.

 

Amazingly, the Gresley was holding a mini beer festival over the festive season, much welcomed by the CAMRA members of the group. http://www.gresleyarms.co.uk/

 
     

The girls behind the bar swopped duties to help carry the meals downstairs from the kitchen to the dining room, leaving a vacant bar and a queue of eager folk waiting to place their drink orders. Amongst them was Heavy who had to ask for his meal to be sent back to the kitchen and be micro-waved to bring it back up to heat.

 

Both the drinks and the meals were worth waiting for though. The Harvest Gold and Dark Star's IPA were amongst the favourites consumed. The chips were huge, taters cut into quarters, and the gammon and eggs were excellent.

 

 

 

As we finished the meals, Mid week Tone received a call from his daughter Helen. She’d locked herself out.  Corky’s ears pricked up.  'No not a lock in Graham, a lock out !!!!!!'.

 

Joe had a problem with his bill, as had his budgie at home.  Still, his gecko would be arriving the following morning.

 

 

 

Lifts were arranged and gradually everyone left. DCeen and McCeen were amongst the first to leave, needing to get ready to go out for a curry. What appetites they’d got. Talking of which, Yuppy came to put his jumper on but it was too tight.  Ali G suggested he'd picked his up by mistake !!

Corky’s lift home had been arranged but not for a few hours.  Not knowing what to do with 3-4 hours, he joined GPS-cott, Baz, Andy and Tony at the Sneyd in Newcastle. It’s a tough life.

 

Another superb day out, and great company.

 

Yuppers

(Enjoy yer new pets)