Sunday, 8 March 1925 The Wilds of Cheshire

Post:     This seems to have been a day of many contrasts, starting with a blizzard of snow, which came to very little in the end.  They visit Salterford Chapel today, a place to which I have never been, but one thing is for sure, it is a very hilly and difficult place to reach, buried deep into the Derbyshire Hills.  And an amateur inventor from Wigan is also on the agenda today, not your normal Charlie thing !
Sunday, March 8                                   The Wilds of Cheshire

One may wonder at the title of this run.  ‘The Wilds of Cheshire!’, a county of pastoral scenery, rural hamlets, woods, and gentle slopes, of sleepy villages, of sunken lanes and wandering byways.  That is usually identified with Cheshire, but the eastern portion, wild and rugged, is often thought to be Derbyshire, and of this district, the following jargon deals.

I was up at 6am this morning, and a wilder, more wintry day could not be imagined.  A blizzard was blowing from the northwest, and the roofs and streets were rapidly being hidden beneath a white mantle.  Snow!   I was glad, because now we had a chance of seeing the county under a new aspect, and Tom and I had been waiting for it.  The blizzard however, was of short duration, and at 8.15 when I made a start, there were very few signs of snow.  I called on a friend, one who knows little of this part of Cheshire, and had to knock him up!  When he saw the snow, he got back into bed!  However, at 8.45 he was ready, and we started with the wind behind for Kingsway End, where we were to meet Tom.  Our progress was rapid, being held up by one or two minor things at first, but we made up for lost time traversing the Barton-Stretford-Didsbury route just on time.  After waiting for a few minutes at Kingsway End, Tom came, and we all restarted together.

From Cheadle we joined the Wilmslow road, and soon got fed up with it, though we traversed but a short distance to Handforth, where we turned for Prestbury via the bylanes.  The hills drew near, and we could see snow on them, so I asked “Why not the hills today?”  We became enthusiastic, and headed for Bollington.  Our ‘recruit’ had never been in really hilly country before, and the brown roads scaling the hillsides at a precipitous gradient came as a surprise to him, but the bigger surprise was yet to come.  Immediately beyond Bollington we started the climb, and very soon Bollington was a collection of roofs, whilst at the roadside the snow lay thick.

Mounting higher, we got some fine views of the Cheshire plains and low Alderley Edge, whilst before us, the snowy ridges looked grand.  Farther along, at an altitude of 1,080 ft, we were able to ride a little.  The road ran along a ridge which was piled up with snow.  Below, now, were the sweeping white valleys, the rolling white moors, brown roads and black walls forming a picturesque contrast.  Higher up, beyond the blunt hill tops, and overcast by a storm-tossed sky, the rocky, jagged edges of Kinder Scout and its neighbours of the Peak made a wild prospect.

Coming to the cross-roads at Patch House, we enquired about lunch, and were welcomed into the cosy kitchen.  Whilst the housewife was busying about, the husband awakened a lethargic fire by means of an ingenious, self-invented contraption, fixed to a pair of bellows, which he worked by simply turning a wheel.  He was a genial sort, and chatted to us the while about his big wireless outfit, which he showed to us.  He seemed to be something of an inventor by the number of mechanical appliances, some of them quite original and useful, which were hanging about.  After dinner, they told us that they were Lancashire folks themselves, having come here only a few months ago from Wigan – and by their talk we guessed that not long would elapse before they were back again!

We asked how they found the Cheshire people, and received in answer a surprising opinion.  ‘Not bad, but very narrow and close’.  They are not at all free, homely and generous as are Lancashire people.  “They keep very much to themselves, and when they do earn a bit of money, they know how to keep it”, was the comment.  Quite opposite to what Tom and I have found them, as I must say in fairness.  Neither like the old Cheshire legend is it –

“Cheshire born and Cheshire bred,

Strong i’th arm and weak i’th yed!”

A few whirling snowflakes made their appearance as we left Patch House behind, and climbed the hill to 1,307 ft, from which altitude was a wide vista of the Saltersford valley, beneath a white blanket and the Derbyshire heights above it – Hoo Moor, Cat’s Tor and Shining Tor.  Down we swooped for 300 ft to Blueboar Farm, where we turned along a track.  The snow lay thick here, often throwing us, until we reached the edge of the corkscrew, where of course, we dismounted.  All this was a revelation to Ben, and we could see that he was enjoying it all immensely.

“Yer life’s yer life yer know, an there’s no stop – “.  Those words on February 1 came to my mind as we walked down that ‘impossible’ road and round those ‘S’ bends, to the stream at the bottom, and up a stony track almost as recklessly graded.  A very short tramp after that took us to Saltersford Chapel, described in the Goyt Valley run on February 1.  Tom had his camera with him, and whilst he went to find a position to ‘take’ it, I copied the inscriptions over the doorway.  They run something like this:

Bk 7 -14015 The lettering was in places only just legible, and was chiselled in the same lettering and order as I have shown above.  Then came a phenomenal snowstorm.  We saw an almost solid sheet of flakes, driving up the valley en masse.  They sent no forerunners, but just came in a body, so to speak.  The hills on each side and the valley behind were obscured, whilst we stood there watching it slowly advance…..   then we found ourselves in a whirling mass of impenetrable flakes.  For a moment we sheltered, then joined the byway by the chapel, which leads back to the Wildboarclough road.  By the time we had traversed the short distance via Saltersford Hall to the road at Bent End, we looked like snowmen, and on the following climb, we endeavoured to sing songs about snow.

The going was not bad, however, until we reached the Macclesfield-Buxton road.  The road was covered, and away on the horizon, we could see the famous Cat and Fiddle Inn.  After a short pow-wow by the roadside, we decided to make for the Inn, for the sake of seeing what the country looked like from 1,690 ft.  The four mile climb that followed in the deep snow was just rideable, but was solid ‘graft’ , which, however, was alleviated by the grand views around and the peak of Shutlingslow, which was enhanced by the fleeting rays of a sun struggling to appear.  The Cat and Fiddle and its surroundings looked cold and bleak, when we stopped for a moment whilst Tom took our photographs, then we swept on to the Congleton turning.  We discovered that this, England’s second highest Inn, was in Cheshire, and not Derbyshire as we had supposed.  What a boast for ‘flat’ pastoral Cheshire!  Down the Congleton road we swooped, until Tom punctured, asking me to thank him for stopping at so beautiful a spot.  I did so, then left the two of them to mend it whilst I climbed a part of Birchenough Hill to gain a better vantage point for viewing the scenery.

The puncture took some mending, and when I returned I urged them to it, chaffing them to “slap the patch on when the hole wasn’t looking”, and to mind how they bit the pimple off the solution muzzle etc.  At last we got going again, soon reaching Allgreave, and crossing Wildboarclough climbed up to New Inn, from where more fine views were enjoyed.  From here to Macclesfield via Cletlowcross, Sutton and Fodenbank, the gradient was all with us, but in the ‘Hovis’ town, it was plain to see that Ben, our ‘recruit’, was ‘all out’.  We joined the Alderley road here, and a little further on, I asked Tom to go on in front and order teas, whilst I stayed with Ben.  I had a hard job with him, for he kept insisting on sitting down, but by walking in front with both machines I got him to keep going.  It was all ‘tramp’ through those beautiful pine woods to the ‘Wizard’, where he mounted, and rushing downhill we soon reached Mrs Powell’s.

Tea and a walk in the glorious twilight put him right put him right for the road.  We kept to the main road via Wilmslow and Handforth, leaving Tom at Kingsway End again, and reaching home in easy stages.  Today has been a revelation to Ben and the sight of familiar scenery in a new garb has been something fresh to us too!

90 miles