A Walk to Wrenbury Mill

Saturday 30 November 6.5 miles
Carol, Hilary, Donna, Tracey and Jane

The bright cold weather arrived after the rain. Middlewich was in sunshine when we left but it was cloudy as we travelled into the Cheshire countryside.

Carol had a printed a local map with a walk drawn on it. At various times it has been suggested that we make up our own walks by picking out walks from a map, so with no directions it was hard to pick out the way we needed to go.

From Carol's house we went down the road, it was a bit muddy in places, especially at the place where the road had been dug up and from the fallen leaves which were making a mulch all over the road.

Near the end of the lane there was a for sale sign and it was for Caldecott Barn which had been converted into a 4 bed house with 2 acres of land being sold for £550,000. At the junction with the main road we turned right and found the stile in the hedge, there was a lady with a dog and questionied if we had a dog. I think she was pleased when we said we hadn't. She then talked about the dead that were buried beneath the ground and how they would be floating in their coffins because there had been so much rain.

The overnight low temperatures had made the water on the leaves of the grass frosty. When we walked through the grass the frost gathered on our boots. It looked like snow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We came to a field of corn but we couldn't find a way through to start with. Donna and Tracey went over the stile to find the way but there was nothing obvious, Carol went along the field edge and found a gate into the corn field and also found that there was a path through the corn. It would have been a bit soon to be turning back as we had really on just started! We were able to walk through the corn field but in getting closer to the edge of the corn we could see water. Due to the heavy ran during the last week many low lying parts of fields had water sitting on them. Fortunately we were able to follow the edge of the corn towards a hedge.

Finding our way for the next bit was quite difficult, we followed the hedge to a gate but we were not sure whether to go through, Donna continued along the hedge where she found the stile we were supposed to be using but there was no way to get through the overgrown hedge. We went through the gate. We followed the rise in the field but with no obvious path we thought the needed to follow the hedge, we were discussing whether or not to follow the track but the map seemed to show the path closer to the hedge. When we went to the top of the rise where there was an electric fence we noticed the yellow arrow on the wooden post. We had to take out one of the electric fence metal spikes so we could get onto the path. it was wet and muddy even though we were at the top of the slope and the sheep were further down.

The weather was starting to brighten as we came out into a field with a more open view and a very large flock of geese flew over us. There was a field full of water in front of us, it looked like a natural lake, but I wonder if the field had just filled with water. Fortunately the path went around by the hedge.

As the ground was so wet I wasn't sure if we would find somewhere to sit down, we were pleased to see two benches at Wrenbury Mill so we could sit on them and have our lunch. The sun was bright by now so it was a shame that the benches weren't in the sunshine, but we were able to look at the canal boats moored across the canal. We walked along the canal to the canal lift bridge, and crossed it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

In places the path was not obvious, we needed to turn off to the left after Sprostonwood Farm but there was no obvious path marked, in fact where there should have been a stile  we had to go under the wire fence and then under a piece of string to get to the right side of the hedge.  A bit further on we found a stile in the water and were headed in the direction of the arrow on the stile. I felt that we were not going in the correct direction so I got out my compass to check which direction to go in. We then noticed the back of the stile post which had two arrows with one going straight on in the direction we had come from and the other one going in the direction we wanted.

At one point we needed to go between the woods marked as Wrenbury woods, it was not obvious which way we needed to go there was a stile in the fence line so we crossed that but when we got to the end of the field there was no obvious way to go. We followed the edge of the wood back towards the way we came and found a stile. The woods marked on the map were not as extensive in actual fact.

We joined Chorley Hall Lane for a short while, we were not sure if we needed to go down the farm entrance but we decided we needed to so that we could cross the fields to Springe Lane. then it was a short walk back to the house. We passed a small 2 bed converted barn with 1.14 acres was for sale, and Carol told us it was on the market for £385,000.

We returned to Carol's house where we had tea and lemon drizzle cake. Mmmmm!