Post: A new experience for Charlie, to crew on a tandem. We know that generally he doesn’t like tandems on a Club run, but now he is in the driving seat, so to speak, it is a different story ! Those of you with copies of Charlie’s books will know that he, later in time, actually rode a tandem all around Devon and Cornwall and thoroughly enjoyed the experience.
Sunday, August 30 With a Tandem around Lud’s Church
As arranged last night, I was to travel today as the ‘crew’ of a tandem, which, though it is not an actual lightweight, being ‘converted’, is the acme of ease and comfort and speed. It has a gear of 70”, 10.2 inches greater than my single, but the difference is easily taken up by the added power, wind resistance, etc, being lessened, whilst the chain transmission is exceedingly smooth, except when on a very hard hill, when it can just be felt through the pedals. The tandem exceeds 60 lbs in weight, but the extra poundage over a modern lightweight tandem is considerably alleviated by the very notable rigidity of the machine. ‘Whip’, that bugbear in many tandems – and even in single bicycles for that matter, is conspicuous by its absence, so that the machine responds to a light touch of the pedals.
Altogether, I was much taken up by the machine, which, except for rough-riding, is ideal for hard riding – easier than a solo bicycle. There were two brakes, one of which was not very effective, and it is fixed geared. The hardest part of it is holding it back on the rough, steep hills that surround one in Derbyshire. With 26” by one and three eighths wheels, instead of 28 by one and a half, that machine would be as good as any on the road – it is a tandem which will stand up to something.
We were to meet at our house at 6.30am, adjust the rear position to my liking, strap my saddlebag on and depart, Joe, and Thomas P. on singles, and John and I as tandem partners. We met, rather late, for we must meet up with Tom Idle at Kingsway End at 8am, and it got to 6.55am before we could start. At first I kept trying to steer from the rear seat, but I got over that, and soon got settled. In the lanes to Walkden, we lost one of the gang and had to make a long detour, and then waited for him, pushing on a little later to find him kicking his heels at Barton Bridge.
After that we hummed along quite merrily, sprinting from Barlow Moor Road to Kingsway, where Tom was waiting. Here we had a conference as to the route, and after some deliberation, decided to make for Lud’s Church, which I had not seen for over 12 months. It was fine on the tandem, pottering along the Wilmslow road and sweeping through the lanes from Handforth. Once we stopped at a wayside cottage for a drink of cider and a snack, whilst the old chap belonging the place showed us, with some pride, a few long kidney beans which had just taken a prize at the local show, some enormous apples, mushrooms, and took us round his garden which was well stocked and possessed some beautiful flowers. We dodged the main road to Macclesfield by taking a lane route through Prestbury. The entrance to the silk town was celebrated by a little crash between Tom and Joe, scratching Joe’s knee (that is the worst of shorts), but otherwise causing no damage.
Now came the Wincle road, uphill from Sutton for about three miles, along which the tandem easily asserted its supremacy as a hill climber. The summit was reached at the New Inn, near where the road goes to the right for Wincle, and straight down for Allgreave at the end of Wildboarclough. After a round table conference, we decided to approach Lud’s Church from the Gradbach side, so downhill we fled for Allgreave. Jove, but it was a job holding that ‘twicer’ back on the precipitous downgrade; with the brake jammed hard on and our feet literally stamping on the pedals to keep them from coming up so often, we crept downhill, round the bend, across the Wildboarclough road, and with a sigh of relief safely negotiated the bridge at the bottom.
The climb, drop and climb again to Burntcliffe Top, we rode in great style, though for the singles it meant a walk on many occasions, but when we got on the narrow track, the bicycles scored. For us it was bump and swerve, speed and stop – and trust the steersman. Most of the way was walked – all of it from the tiny hamlet of Gradbach, where we crossed the Black Brook – memories of a hazardous hour! – and climbing through beautiful woods, we came to the Lud’s Church track where we dumped the bikes and proceeded to the romantic gorge on foot. This canyon is gated at the entrance, and 3d is charged to enter, but as no one was there, we climbed over the obstacle and entered. We have no conscience qualms over paying impositions of this type – or rather over dodging them; I will go so far to say that whenever possible we will avoid paying and get to see what we want another way. Time after time one comes in contact with this kind of thing at points of interest. It is not a new ‘stunt’ either, for last century, Savage wrote:
‘Where perquisited varlets frequent stand,
At each new walk a new tax to demand’.
The objects in question may be well worth the trifle asked, but the commercial spirit, the principle of it is wrong. If it was a newly opened road that required keeping in repair or something like that, no one would mind.
I tried to explain Lud’s Church in Last Year’s Diary, but another short outline to the best of my poor ability would not be amiss. It is a deep narrow, tortuous gash in the moors, with rough, steep – sheer – walls of slimy rock, and in a narrow path at the bottom. Various shallow chasms and dank caves break into the sides, whilst in one place the gorge splits into two, one of them ending ‘blind’, except for a very narrow opening through which one may squirm to the main passage. A little way inside, facing the entrance, perched on a rocky ledge about 20 feet above the path is the wood-carved figure of a woman, the dress denoting the 17-18th centuries. One can see it is old, as the hands are broken off at the wrist and the nose is rotted away, whilst the foot of the figure is rotten with the damp atmosphere. The chasm ends in a deep, narrow, boulder-strewn track and a low cave.
As one enters the place, the depressing damp atmosphere is immediately felt – it makes one instinctively feel that there is something sinister about it. I am hazy about the story connected with it, but there was a massacre in this hole, and the image is of a young lady who tried to warn them of the impending disaster, but suffered the same fate herself.
We over-ran the gorge, Joe and I entering the cave, but on remembering that three large boulders over the entrance are loose, we beat a hasty retreat lest they should give way and imprison us. Joe pushed them over from the outside, and with a crash they rolled into the cave. Anyone can get in now with much more safety, then after climbing up to the effigy, we came out into the sunshine and more pleasant surroundings of the woods. Near the divergence of the main pathway and that to Lud’s Church, are several huge bastions of rock, which I climbed, getting a very fine view of the surrounding country therefrom; these are marked on the map as Castle Cliff Rocks. Then we carried on over the beautifully coloured moors, on a sandy track which the tandem ploughed up and often brought us off. The downhill run into the grounds of Swythamley Hall was often rough and steep, but riding was easily possible, and the views were continually changing, the Roaches and Hen Cloud being very prominent.
At the Hall lodge the road improved and we swept down to Dane Bridge, stopping at the CTC place there for lunch. Dane Bridge is a very pretty place, the rendezvous of many cyclists and picnic parties, but it is in no way spoiled, and was very quiet today. We left Dane Valley on the Wincle road, climbing uphill for a long time, then swooping down to Wincle and climbing again on the other side until we found ourselves back on the Allgreave road. It then did not take long for us to speed down to Sutton, where we turned left across the bridge and found ourselves in a rural part of Cheshire, where old-fashioned buildings abound and the tranquillity of the woods and lanes are such as Cheshire only seems to show.
After a while we crossed the Macclesfield-Leek road and hummed along level lanes to Gawsworth. So far as I have heard there are three ‘prettiest Cheshire villages’, Great Budworth, Prestbury and Gawsworth, and though I still remain faithful to Great Budworth, I will say that Gawsworth is remarkably beautiful. It has ancient, half-timbered houses, a fine church and a beautiful tree-shaded lake which stands between the road and the church. We entered the old church which, though it has been much restored, still retains much antiquity. A list of rectors gives the first as in the 13th century.
There is one thing which struck us as being a little too bad; a notice over the offertory box which states ‘Visitors who can afford it are asked to put not less than 6d in the box’. We could not afford it ! How many people are there visiting Gawsworth Church, who, for common decency would willingly give a copper or two towards the upkeep of the old edifice, but who genuinely cannot afford 6d or more, and are forbidden to give less, so give nothing at all. Many thousands of people, including ourselves, work very hard to earn our meagre wages, and would really feel the loss of even 6d. I think that a mistake has been made at Gawsworth to snub the working man’s coppers. I myself, up to now have frequently embarked on long day runs of 100 to 150 miles with 2, 3, or 4 shillings in my pocket, and I know that a great many others are just as badly off. (Thank God there are better prospects now).
But that is by the way. Gawsworth rectory is an exceptionally large, picturesque, timber framed house with a valuable living. (Perhaps that is why 5d is snubbed, the Rector having such a good living and a comfortable income, can’t imagine anyone who can afford less). Close by the Hall, a residence of the same character, anciently the seat of the Fitton’s, among whom was that Mary Fitton who is supposed to have been the anonymous ‘Dark Lady’ of Shakespeare’s Sonnet’s’.
After scouting about here, we made for ‘Maggotty Johnson’s’ grave, which lies in a coppice hard by the main road. The owner of this unsavoury nickname was a local wit called Johnson, who lived in the 18th century, and who ‘carried his humour beyond the grave’. There are two gravestones, one on a kind of raised vault and the other just beside it. On the lower one is a big epitaph, his history in short, and a warning such as people are fond of inscribing graves with, whilst the other contains a tedious verse, explaining his humour and why he came to be buried in this ‘sylvan glade’ as it is called. Johnson, or Lord Flame, as he later was known as, must have had a stormy and harrassing life with the opposite sex, for he gave orders that on his death he should be buried here ‘away from the lashing tongues of women’, and that his last resting place should be kept secret lest the ‘gossiping old vixen should pull his bones up’. Alas for his wishes! The very secret, once it became known, led to the notoriety that he so wished to avoid, and now most people passing this way stop to see ‘Maggoty Johnson’s Grave’.
At the five cross-roads at Broken Cross we lost each other, so after a short search we with the tandem carried on alone. I was directing, as John knows few of these intricate lanes, and he became more and more bewildered as I first said right, and then left, then straight across and so on until we seemed submerged in a deeply shaded maze of lanes. The scenery was excellent and the roads lined with blackberry bushes heavy with ripe fruit. Eventually, as I expected, we came to the Macclesfield-Alderley road, and we ‘got down to it’, bounding along at easily 25 miles an hour, passing cyclists and motorists like a shot. Gee! but a tandem can move when the crew and skipper work together. At the ‘Wizard’ we turned left and tumbled speedily down to Mrs Powell’s where we found Joe. Twenty minutes later, Tom and Thomas came in, and after a wash we rolled in to a merry tea.
Then lanes again, Joe providing a diversion by falling off again, then Chelford Corner and Knutsford road. The others had to call us to steady off several times, as a tandem never knows its own speed and it is hard work for singles to keep up – I know that to my own sorrow! From Knutsford we joined the old road by Tatton Park and Mere, and then Chester road to Altrincham where it started to rain and capes had to be put on. At Stretford we put them away, and made arrangements to meet Tom next Sunday 34 miles away at an unearthly hour, then Tom went his way and we went ours, arriving home at 9.30pm.
This has been my first tandem ride of any length and I can say that I have thoroughly enjoyed it. Although we have covered a century of miles, the extraordinary ease has been a revelation to me.
Let’s hope it isn’t the last! 102 miles
