Wednesday 1 October 6.9 miles
Hilary, Donna, Tracey and Jane
It was cool in the morning with a little drizzle in the air, so it was hard to know how many layers to put on. The weather warmed up later and we were lucky again as the rain stayed away.
We parked by the Stamford Bridge, then turned left onto Barrow Lane. We turned right onto a signposted footpath a little way along the road and followed the hedge to a footbridge. The walk suggested that after prolonged rain the low-lying
meadows might be impassably flooded, fortunately for us it wasn't too wet. We walked straight ahead but the ground did get very wet so we couldn't walk that way. Then we noticed a path made by the sheep to the side so we followed that pathway and made it past the boggy bit with the bullrushes.
Then we headed towards the Great
Barrow church tower and when we got to Barrow Lane we headed through the village. The road was closed to traffic and holes were being dug in the road.
As we came to the cross roads we turned into Ferma
Lane, going past Greyfields, a large mock-Tudor house and onto the track. We came to a junction and turned right to follow a hedged track towards Fema Wood. When we got to Ferma Wood we weren't sure if we should go through the wood but we decided the we shouldn't (it was not clear from the instructions). Hilary had provided written instructions but no map, so we had to make the decisions from the written word.
We continued on the track The instructions said about a kissing gate so when we came to a gate we took the one to the left and when we came to 'a farm bridge' we thought we were on the right path.
We walked across a field, aiming towards some farm
building, and when we got to the River Gowy we turned right and followed the
river to a stile. There were some cows right in our path but Hilary just told them to 'shoo' and they did! The bridge we were to cross was hidden behind trees so we nearly walked past it. We crossed left over the Gowy and past between the fields with a few horses in them.
At the farm we turned right along the drive, and crossed the railway at a level crossing. Then going left to reach Plemstall Church. We then retraced our steps to the footpath, but took the path on the left over a stile and continued on the fenced path to cross the Gowy again. Here we saw some men in yellow jackets wandering around the field, they were accessing the field for pipework. When we reached the grassy track we turned right and went through the farmyard. We came to Barrow Lane and turned right and walked up the hill.
Hilary remembered that a friend had moved around here so went and knocked on a door, fortunately it was the correct one. We had a look around the garden and sat at the table on the patio and had a cup of tea. The garden had an open aspect at the back and looked out onto the lovely cheshire countryside.
We walked up the hill and over the railway turning left onto Broomhill Lane, following the lane to the T-junction where we did a left and right. Then we crossed fields and a grassy track to join Hollowmore Heath. Turning right through a kissing gate we crossed fields to reach Heath Lane.
We were supposed to look out for a water treatment works but we didn't and by the time we realised we should have turned off he road we had gone too far, so we just carried on along Heath Lane and at the junction with Village Road turned left to reach Mill Lane. Here we found the 'permissive path' which took us behind the church across the fields and we rejoined the path we had started on. As it was too wet to head off through the middle of the field we found the paths that the sheep were using and made our way around, the sheep moving away as we came close to them. We followed the footpath to Barrow Lane and back the the pub.
