Saturday 15 March 6 miles
Jane and Hilary
A bright sunny day! We were so lucky.
We parked by the side of the road between two cars near the River Dane. The cars belonged to two ladies who had met to do a walk but were going in the opposite direction to us. One of the ladies had left her sandwiches in the fridge at home but she managed to pick up a pork pie in the Wincle Brewery, it didn't seem she was best pleased with a pork pie though!.
I managed to do the walk the wrong way around from the directions! I set out looking at the picture of the walk rather than reading the instructions properly, but we managed to get all the way around. I only realised when we were part way through the walk and too far to turn back.
We walked up the road passed the Ship Inn, found the narrow path with steps at the side of the road, then crossed some fields towards the woods. There was a lovely bungalow that had been built next to the farm, we could imagine living there, but was that only because the stonework shone in the sunshine. We went through the woods across the bridge and up the steep side to cross the fields.
The path we were on was above Wincle and we could see the church we had passed on the road going down to Danebridge. At the beautiful stone Hammerton Farm we did a zigzag, leaving one path to walk down a bit of road to join a path that went along the side the farm.
I was not very happy when I saw cows on the path,fortuneately they looked fairly young so were not too big. It was not obvious where they had come from, as there was road across the entrances to fields all the way up the path.. As we walked up the path we managed to pass a couple of cows but the others just walked in front of us.
Finding our way to the Wild Boar Inn was easy as we headed straight for it, but walking away again was not so easy as there was no obvious path, The path sign at the stile did point downwards and we should have followed that but there was no obvious path. We walked over the small stream where the animals would cross and went down the slope and found the holly trees so we knew we were in the correct place.
We crossed the fields to the road and climbed the stile as a tractor came out of the road opposite, as we were going that way I was glad the large tractor and trailor had passed by the time we had climbed down the steep drop. We looked at the Wincle
2000AD stone at the junction. We continued down the road opposite where we saw a farmer leaving the field in a small truck. He had turnips that he had been leaving for the sheep in the field.
At the next junction we should have carried on along the road but I presumed we needed the footpath so we ended up in a field too close to the farm buildings. We made our way back to the road and followed that to Wincle Grange. New tall fencing had been put in along the field edge. As we turned at a bend in the road we could see short fenced off areas with new planting in strips across the fields. It seemed really odd.
Wincle Grange Farmhouse is a Grade II* Building (formerly a grange of Combermere Abbey) and is thought to date from C14 and is listed on the Historic England website. We could see the ecclesiastical-style windows in the main building.
We sat on the grass near Wincle Grange Farmhouse and had our lunch, and it was after 12 o'clock. The cloud started to build so the temperature dropped a bit.
Then we crossed over a stile across a wall and into a field, where once aain there was alot of planting. New hedges had been planted at the edge of the fields and there were also strips of planting in this field. Hilary managed to find a label that said Malus Domestica.
We followed an overgrown sunken track and we could see Bosley Cloud in the distance. At the bottom of the hill new tall fencing had been put in with a tall metal kissing gate for us to go through. As there were only sheep on the other side I am not sure which animals they are trying to keep out.
Again we were not sure which way to go but as we climbed up to the trees Hilary saw a post marking the path, so we followed the line of trees in the middle of the field walking in amongst the sheep. Then as we were nearing the stile we noticed the Roaches and Hen Cloud to the left quite clear in the distance. We came to the sunken track and followed it and at the stile we noticed the sign for the Gritstone Trail.
We turned left off this track through another tall fence, crossing the fields to a gate. There was a stile in the opposite fence so we went over that and crossed the field towards the building and the footpath sign. Then we went down a steep field, over a stile, then going down towards the river. For the first time we actually saw people walking as we hadn't seen any walkers on the rest of the walk. They were going alongside the river and they went towards the bridge across the river which we weren't doing.
The river was fairly quiet with just some noise where it went over the weirs. We crossed the meadow thinking about this water travelling to Middlewich and Northwich. Further along the path there was the old Danebridge Fisheries which are derelict and overgrown now. There was a person fishing in the pool as we walked passed.
Then we came to the Wincle Brewery where we had tea and flapjack and half a Wincle Waller. It was pretty busy with a fairly continuous stream of people. Hilary found a seat inside and there was a fire in the stove making it the small building very cosy. Hayley who runs the shop told us about their beer festival in July, and it is quite a big event now and this year they are going to provide hot showers for the campers!
