Mobberley and Great Warford

Saturday 11 May 5.5 miles
Hilary, Tracey and Jane

The day started out quite sunny with some warmth to the sunshine.

We found our way to Faulkner’s Lane, Mobberley and parked on the road behind another car. Then it was time for boots on and decisions about how many layers to wear, as it was warm in the sunshine we put on jackets without fleeces. We found the lane leading to Coppock House (Coppock House is for sale for £2,500.000), we followed the lane over Mobberley Brook and past the farmhouse and the barns that have been converted into houses, went through the metal gate and followed the obvious path across the field. After crossing the stile we read the instructions again, but with no map we could not be sure we had gone the right way. Fortunately Jane had a map of the area in her rucksack, we were supposed to have gone around the farm buildings and back to Faulkner’s Lane and the Frozen Mop and walked up the road, we decided to continue across the fields instead, so we could arrive at Pedley House Lane without walking on the road.

From the map we could see that we didn't need to walk to the farmhouse we could go straight across the fields opposite, the path led us to Ancoats Lane. We went past a entrance which gave the names on a board like Highgrove and Sandringham - the whole place is 'Highgrove' and has been turned into flats. The lodge cottage looked very nice, with an archway leading to a gate. Further along Ancoats we admired another house called 'White Stables', a very pretty symmetrical house, and when we went around the corner we could see the swimming pool! 

We left Warford  Lane to join a path through fields with horses. we managed to get to the track to turn left, then found the gate that took us along a field edges, we came out near some houses. The first house looked very interesting, it looked like it could have been a barn - and Hilary said she wouldn't mind living there! It is called Noah's Ark Barn and sold for £840,000 in 2017. The house next door is Noahwood house and has a black and white exterior. There were a couple of small dogs that barked a hearty welcome as we passed by. On Noah's Ark Lane we crossed Mobberley Brook again, followed the road to the corner  and then crossed the fields.

There were some young cows in this field so they were curious about us, and followed us to the stile. The field had been newly fenced and as we crossed the field we could see the stile clearly. The instructions said the stile was hard to see, and after we crossed the new stile we found on old stile in the hedge which would have been hard to find. We crossed another field we decided it was probably time to find somewhere to eat. We had our lunch sitting on a concrete drain in the middle of the field! we crossed the Knutsford Road, and followed a drive to a farm. There was a strange set of shrubs in the middle of a field to the right which seemed a little odd. We continued through the farmyard and on across the fields to Paddockhill Lane, and followed the lane until we got to Moss lane Where we had to look out for a stile.

Over the stile we were into fields that had been split up, some parts with a metal fence. We followed the path signs across each of the fields but ended up in a field with no exit even though we were by the road. We looked at the map, read the instructions again and realised we should have gone along the edge of one of the fields. We were about to walk back on ourselves but the rain suddenly came down very heavily so tried to shelter under the hedge trees but we still got a bit wet.The path was well marked across the fields so lots of people must have come this way and on my old map it showed the map going to the road. We found our way across the fields and onto the path that brought us back to the Knutsford Road.

It seemed a bit strange that we had to look out for a brick archway but in walking along the verge a little there it was at the end of the barn. We followed the path then went across the field back to Faulkner's Lane and so back to the car.

We had tea and cake at Donna's house, homemade Bakewell tart with WI jam to be precise! Yum, yum, yum!