Friday 18 September - Staffordshire Way (Pt 3)

I had a vague thought of going out to look at another section of the Staffordshire Way today, but it wasn't until Mick asked me what my plan was, at 0840 this morning, that I finally looked at a map and did some measuring. Mick offered to drive for me, to facilitate a linear route, but I didn't think the benefit I'd get would warrant the number of miles and amount of sitting around that Mick would need to do (mainly because beyond Rugeley the route goes along a canal (and I know what that towpath is like), through the Shugborough Estate (I was there last week) and across Cannock Chase (with which I'm familiar)). So, I drove myself to Abbot's Bromley and set out for an out-and-back. 

Because there are so many long distance routes that criss-cross each other, it can be difficult to follow the exact route of the Staffs Way just from looking at the map, so last week I downloaded someone's recorded gpx file. Whoever recorded it managed to stay true to the Way for almost its entire length, one of the minor exceptions being in crossing the first field S of Abbots Bromley. I decided to see if I could follow the line of the RoW as shown on the map. 

Red = gpx file I'd downloaded. Blue dashes = route as marked on the map. There doesn't seem to be a lack of clarity of the true route of the Way here. Note that it most definitely crosses the stream.

Purple dotted line = outward route; Pink dotted line = return route; solid red = the downloaded gpx file

As you can see, on the outward leg, I crossed the stream. There was no bridge, so having already got a wet foot on a boggy bit, it was no hardship to get them wet again just a few paces later. Finding a stile at the bottom of the field, I thought I was on the right track, until I then saw that I could have just continued along the other side of the stream and crossed a different stile. Both had official Staffs County Council waymarks, and neither is on a RoW as shown on the map. 

Unremarkable fields took me to Blithfield Reservoir, which is a place I recall from numerous previous outings on the Staffordshire Way, albeit many years ago now. However, I almost always used to just walk across the dam (only once being challenged for trespass). There's also a perfectly good track that runs below the dam, but there's not a RoW the whole length of it, so the Way takes an indirect route through yet more unremarkable fields. This is the most frustrating routing that I've yet come across on the Way - the track along the dam is tarmac, and would not be negatively impacted by passing footfall, yet either no-one has tried to obtain a permissive way across it, or it has been refused, denying walkers the view across the huge reservoir. There is no view from the line of the Staffs Way. 

Frustrating routing of the Way at Blithfield
 

The worst field I had to cross today was this one:

The RoW had not been reinstated and the maize is now at full height. Fortunately, enough other people had gone through to give a trod to follow, whilst continuously brushing through the plants. 

I was only about 400m from my turn-around point when I got to this field:

My route went straight across, and as it was relatively freshly ploughed, I decided I didn't need to go across it only to come straight back. 

I opted to take roads from Colton to Stockwell Heath on the way back, thus avoiding the maize field and the next ones with long grass and no trodden line. Rejoining the Way I had some excitement as a whole herd of sizeable bullocks had appeared in a field that had been empty less than an hour earlier, and they were most interested in what I was doing. Some arm waving and stern words (when the gentle explanation of what I was doing didn't placate them) saw me safely through. 

At Blithfield Reservoir, I had every intention of trespassing down the track below the dam (the dam itself being blocked at the NE end by a spikey-topped set of gates), but the farmer was present and using a section of it to corral a herd of cows, so back around the fields I went. 

Back in the final field before I got back to the car - the one where I'd tried so hard to follow the line of the RoW on my outward leg - I stayed on the east side of the stream, but rather than walking straight through the boggy section, I tried to jump from tussock to tussock. Unfortunately, the second tussock wasn't as firm as I'd expected and I lost my left foot deep enough such that the only way I could extract myself involved putting my hands in too. I was most relieved when my shoes came out still attached to my feet, and it was a bonus that there was a stream a few feet away where I could wash the worst of the mud off before I got back to the car (where I had no spare shoes to don). 

I then discovered that there was no exit out of the field on the line of the Staffs Way as marked on the map. 

I've covered 40km on the Way in the last week, of which 20km has had merit. I intend to cover another chunk next week to find out if the merit/no merit split will edge up over 50%. 

 

Other photos: 

The first of three consecutive broken stiles, only just outside of Abbots Bromley (the two women you can see ahead of me in this snap really struggled with the next two). 

The two women in the snap above told me that money has been allocated to upgrade the Staffs Way. I hope this is true, and work may already be underway as I came across quite a few new stiles. 

Not many people use this 'path'. 

They'd not been present on my outward leg and I had to have stern words when they got too close for comfort (that being within 2 metres of me)

A view! Such a shame the route doesn't go over the dam, which would be the saving grace of this 8km section. 
 

 
 
 

 

Saturday & Sunday 12-13 September - Staffordshire Way (& The Gritstone Grind)

Where was Erica? She spent a night in the car park of the 'Double Tree by Hilton' hotel in Stoke-on-Trent at a cost of £5.23

Weather: Saturday - glorious morning, but rainy by the time I set out on the Staffs Way; Sunday - rainy early on, then fine and really quite warm (22 degrees) later on.

With fortuitous timing I looked at Facebook on Thursday night to find a 6-minute-old post from a race organiser asking for a volunteer, someone local to Kidsgrove, to help on registration for the Gritstone Grind race taking place today (Sunday 13th). 

If we look at it from a national or global point of view, I am local to Kidsgrove, but by most people's definitions of the term, I am not. I thus ignored that bit of the post and immediately volunteered. Aside from the fact that the reward was a free entry into any race (and this company's events usually sell out immediately on going on sale - last year they sold 500 Escape from Meriden places in 10 seconds!), I saw the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone and to recce the northern end of the Staffordshire Way (SW). 

A minor spanner in the works was that on Friday we found that all campsites within a short drive of our destination were fully booked (who knew that the area around Stoke on Trent was such a destination?!) and the local Travelodge was £100. I was investigating car parks, when I came across Your Parking Space, which seems to be the Airbnb for parking, ranging from driveways of private houses, to the car parks of various types of business. Tesco in Kidsgrove was one option, but then I found that some hotels also sell spaces, and that appealed more for a quiet night. Nothing in the T/Cs says you can't sleep in your vehicle, so I booked it ... only then to notice that whereas some of the locations give a guaranteed space, others (like the one I'd chosen) don't, and if you arrive to find no space available then all you're entitled to is to be allocated a different location nearby. It then occurred to me that the hotel was quite possibly going to be a popular wedding venue on a Saturday. Still, it was cheap enough to be worth the punt. 

Saturday

We got Erica packed on Saturday morning (in glorious sunshine!) before I had time to look at a map and decide which section of the SW it made sense to check out that afternoon. Three minutes later, I had a plan (Uttoxeter to Denstone) and off we set (still in the sunshine). 

It was raining by the time I set out from Uttoxeter, exactly as forecast, and it turned out to be that inconvenient sort of weather where it's too warm to keep the waterproofs on when it's not raining, but too wet to not put them on during the showers. Add in that much of this route was through fields of long-ish grass (incredible how fast it's revived after being dead for so much of the summer), with not much by way of trodden lines, and it was a wet-footed outing too.

As for the route, it really had nothing to recommend it (or, more precisely, the two points of interest were both on roads, so could be visited by car) - it was mainly just a whole lot of fields. The one truly unpleasant section was as I walked the perimeter of Eaton Hall Shooting Ground, where a huge amount of gun activity was going on - at one point on both sides of me (ranges on the left, clay pigeons on the right). By the time I approached Denstone I was wondering whether there's any merit to this long distance trail, and whether it would remain a contender for me walking the whole thing.

I'd anticipated having tea and cake at the Farm Shop & Cafe in Denstone where I was meeting Mick, but he'd arrived to find that it was ridiculously popular. He managed to park, but gave up on queuing for the cafe, so he made do with a take-away coffee (to justify the parking) whilst waiting for me.  

Glamorous life that I lead, I had my cup of tea in a supermarket car park in Stoke, before heading over to the hotel at 3pm, finding not just a space, but a perfectly located one, tucked away in a corner.

Not wanting to spend the rest of the afternoon, plus the evening, just sitting in Erica, we headed out for ice cream, with the addition of a cup of tea and a crossword.  

There did transpire to be a wedding going on at the hotel, so it wasn't an entirely quiet night, but we weren't unduly disturbed and there were no boy-racers or noisy yoofs (which are the biggest Saturday night concerns). 

Sunday 

Up at 6 and away as promptly as we could manage, our first stop was McDonalds. I had a free coffee to redeem, and their toilet facilities were more convenient than Erica's. We arrived at Kidsgrove Sports Centre bang exactly when we needed to be there, but had run out of time to have breakfast.  

The next hour was busy - particularly once the coaches, transporting most competitors from the finish to the start, arrived. With our work done (about an hour, with a bit of loitering afterwards to see the racers off), and after breakfast in Erica, it was a ten minute drive to Mow Cop (every time, my fingers type it as Cow Mop then have to correct it!), where Mick dropped me and I made a veritable meal of finding the start of the Way. 

What a contrast to yesterday! Today's route had so much merit - starting with Mow Cop castle:

On the 1:50k map, it doesn't look like there's anything remarkable about the village...

...but zoom into 1:25k and you find that there's a chunk of access land, atop a hill, in the middle of the village. 

Ruins of a castle, shapely rocks, extensive views (slightly curtailed by the weather), nice rooty and rocky paths through woodland - and it seemed like 95% of the first 5km were downhill, with the next section being a gently-descending disused railway. Then came a Marilyn, The Cloud, which I first visited in November 2014, then again in February 2015. I had far more favourable conditions today than on either of those occasions. 

It was on my way up there that I passed a couple of Gritstone Grind racers (I'd assumed I would be behind the field by the time I'd set out). I met another on the summit and a few more before the two trails diverged near Rushton Spencer, spending about a kilometre with one woman whose name/number I failed to note, so I can't look to see how she got on. 

By the time I approached Rudyard Reservoir, Mick had visited Biddulph Grange Gardens and then relocated himself to the Rudyard Hotel. There he found the parking fee was £3, or free if you spent £5 at the hotel - so he effectively got coffee and cake for £2, which was good fuel to then walk out to meet me, fortunately calling me only just after we'd walked past each other on different paths.

So, the Staffordshire Way may have redeemed itself today, although being just one 20k section of a 150k trail, I perhaps need to choose some more bits at random to check out before I decide whether it's a worthwhile route. 

I've inserted/deleted the photos 3 times and Google is absolutely insistent that they are going in reverse order today, and I'm not feeling moved to insert them one-by-one. 

  

 Low water at Rudyard Reservoir

Atop The Cloud

After 5k of downhill, I was faced with steps that were made for giants (this photo does not do justice to the height of those risers)

Slightly marred by the weather, but still an excellent viewpoint

Shapely rock, of which I was sure I took a better photo, but this is the one I seem to have uploaded.

Mow Cop Castle

Gritstone Grind start (I'd say that start/finish arch should have been the other way around). I'd given every single one of these people their bib. Mick had given them their timing chips. 

Right at the end of Saturday's walk there were these structures across the road - presumably once the entrance and (very small) gatehouse for some estate.

Old mill at Rocester, now a training centre/college

The prettiest bit of scenery on the route (but just behind me I'd had to walk through a patch of nettles, and just ahead of me was overgrown too). 

What most of Uttoxeter to Denstone was like (those cows were just thinking about following me when I reached the stile to exit the field)

I chose an attractive point to join the trail on Saturday morning!
 

 

 

 

 

 

Wednesday 9 September - National Forest Way

There's an argument that this post should reside on my walking blog rather than here, but the walking blog has pretty much become just a record of things done in the past plus ongoing Marilyn-bagging, hence I'm putting it here.

I'm contemplating doing a continuous walk of either the National Forest Way (NFW) or the Staffs Way next year, and to decide between them (or to see whether I want to do either), I thought I'd go and do some recces. I have covered significant parts of them before, but some sections were quite some years ago.

There being no time like the present, on Wednesday Mick gave me a lift to Branston Water Park, from where I intended to cover 26km of the National Forest Way, to end in Alrewas - a location I could have reached in 7.5km if I'd just ambled S along the canal towpath, rather than turning off it to wind my way through lots of fields and past various National Forest plantations. As it went, I did cover 26km, but I veered off the Way (intentionally!) at Wychnor to meet Mick in a location more convenient to him.

The most notable thing about the outing was that I got stung by a wasp. I've never been stung by any insect before in my life, which is probably quite a good record for someone in their 6th decade. I immediately phoned Mick, because I had no idea whether I was allergic and, being in the middle of a field at the time, it would have been an unfortunate place to discover that I was. Happily, no adverse reaction happened, except for the expected: smarting and swelling, followed by days of intense itching.

Sun rising over Branston Water Park

I'm not sure whether I've ever seen one of these self-closing gate latches before. I liked the design, although arguably it is over-engineered compared to the usual two-way latches.

There was a perfectly good track going around two edges of this field, but I stayed true to the line of the RoW and took the more arduous route through the long grass. 

Good margin around this field of maize. 

Apparently, I should not have come down this track and climbed over the locked gate. I've checked the most recent OS maps in both 1:50k and 1:25k and the RoW/NFW is definitely shown as following this track. When I came out onto the road at the end of the track, the 'public footpath' finger post pointed along a path that runs adjacent (which I'd been on, until I realised that the map showed that I should be on the track).

The bit of the field that had been harvested was fine. Then I squeezed my way between rows of maize, as the field margin was unpleasantly overgrown with spiky and stingy things. 

The squirrels are loving life, pending the rest of the maize being harvested, with trails of eaten cobs heading off in every which direction. 

Lots of new gateways installed. I particularly approve of the liberal use of gravel around them all which should hopefully mean that none of them become mud and water obstacles in winter. 
 

  

 

  

Getting Value out of our National Trust Membership (Part 2)

Another catch-up post, just for my own records. 

Calke Abbey 

It was 1 September, at the tail end of the school holidays, that we took a day-trip to Calke Abbey. I'd not read anything about the property in advance, so it was a surprise to find that it's not an abbey at all - one of its owners, in the early 1800s, just decided it sounded better than Calke Hall and changed its name accordingly.

The National Trust has taken a different approach to this property compared to their others, in that they opted not to restore the vast majority of the hall or outbuildings, instead preserving them in the condition they were in when handed to the National Trust in lieu of inheritance tax in the 1980s. They thus refer to it as their 'unstately home'. 

The grounds are also vast and it was a good day out.  

I was standing next to the king as I took this photo

 Look, there he is

(One of the most notable things about the inside of the hall, of which I apparently didn't take a single photo, was the vastness of the collection of taxidermy, stones and shells. Nobody needs that many examples of such things!)  

I was most taken with their dahlia walk. Alas, my on-the-spot research about whether it's a flower suited to my level of gardening was a definite 'no'. 

The array of children's games in the walled garden was impressive, and if we had visited a week later, when schools were back, we would have played on more things, but being 'growed-ups', we restrained ourselves and (mainly) let the children get on with it.  

Completely unrelated to Calke Abbey, that evening I finished my second Nordic Mix sweater. I knitted my first one (in black and gold) twice, with the first attempt being far too small and the second (after ripping back the first) being wearable but still a bit on the snug side. I thus decided to make another one, a size bigger. I then had to modify the neckline to make it more comfortable (it seems a lot of people have had issues with the neck coming out too small), after all of which I laid it out on top of my original only to find it's the exact same width. Hopefully it will relax when I wash it!

Sudbury Hall

Just two days later, on 3 September, it was a trip to Sudbury Hall. To the best of my recollection, we've never had the need to visit Uttoxeter before, then in the space of two weeks we've been there twice, for entirely unrelated reasons. On the first visit (unaware that we'd be back again so soon), we figured that with Sudbury Hall being such a short drive away, we may as well pop by, even if only for a cursory look.

As it went, we gave it more than a cursory look, visiting the cafe (that goes without saying really), the house and the museum of childhood, before a brief turn around some of the grounds became curtailed because, after so much warm weather this year, the stiff breeze was just a bit too cool for how we were dressed.  

Excelled myself with the camera today. This is the only photo I took.

Longshaw Estate

There's no house or formal gardens here, but it's a good location with a huge car park and a cafe. A friend and I have (somewhat accidentally) fallen into a series of walks that we're calling 'Life on the Edge', in pursuit of which we've already visited Longshaw Estate twice this year (there are a lot of edges to walk in this area!). The first time I only paid for 4 hours of parking and we cut it rather fine. The second time I paid the full £8 day rate. This time, on 6 September, I got a bit more value out of our membership by getting free parking (I did give back, as we drank considerable amounts of tea, along with having snacks, in the cafe once we were done on the edges).     

Froggatt Edge (I think; it may have been Curbar Edge) 

We got a fly past from the Red Arrows, complete with red, white and blue trails. 
 

Shugborough Hall

I had a different property pencilled in for 10 September, but plans changed when a need cropped up to visit my sister, and as Shugborough Hall wasn't much of a detour, we made a short visit there in the afternoon. We've walked through the Shugborough Estate a number of times and visited the property when we last had National Trust membership 20-odd years ago. It turns out that we remember almost nothing about the place. Mick had recollections about the routes we walked; I had a recollection about Patrick Lichfield (photographer), although I began to think I'd made it up as we made our way through the house with no mention being given of him. Eventually we reached the apartment in which he lived from when the property was given to the National Trust, until his death in 2005, so at least not all areas of my memory are completely shot!

We didn't walk the grounds to any notable extent, so when we next find ourselves in that neck of the woods, we may pop by again for further re-acquaintance.  

Once again, I only took one photo, and again it was of the back of the property.
 

Biddulph Grange Gardens

I don't think this one really counts towards our efforts to get as much value as possible out of our membership, as only Mick visited, and he did so not because of any desire to walk around the gardens by himself, but just because it gave him free parking and a cafe in a very convenient location, having dropped me off in Mow Cop (which is still Cow Mop in my head) and before picking me up in Rudyard some 3.5 hours later. Had we not had NT membership, he would have found somewhere else to go. That said, not only did he enjoy a scone and a coffee in the cafe, but he did take a turn around the gardens too.

 

Cumulative entrance/parking fees saved in 3 weeks of membership (and excluding Biddulph, which would have been £14, for the reasons stated above): £208 

(If we were paying as we went to visit these properties, I would be finding that the pricing bears no resemblance to the level of entertainment available. Coventry Charter House, where there's not much to see, would have cost £10 each, yet Calke Abbey, with a huge house to tour plus a church and extensive gardens and grounds to walk, was only £15. Sudbury Hall was probably slightly lower than Calke in terms of potential hours of entertainment, yet it's £22. The gardens Mick visited today were £14, yet there is no mansion to maintain or heat - although admittedly, those hedges must take a huge amount of work.)

Thursday 27 August - Baddesley Clinton, Coventry Charterhouse and Coventry Cathedral

Weather: Wet!

When I'd started thinking about this trip, only a few days in advance, the weather forecast had been pretty good, with just a few showery periods over the course of several days. By the time we came to leave home, there were weather warning out for thunderstorms and flooding on Wednesday and Thursday. 

Whilst it did rain on Wednesday evening, there was nothing extreme and we didn't get a storm. On Thursday it started raining early, and the forecast said it was only going to get heavier, with no let-up until early afternoon.

We thus opted against an early start and it was gone 10.30 before we made moves to head the 2 miles back the way we'd come, to the National Trust property of Baddesley Clinton. 

Greeted by the same chap who had greeted us at Packwood House the day before, we opted for a time-slot for visiting the house over an hour hence, to give us time to start our day in the cafe, giving the rain time to ease off. 

Alas, when we reached the till to order our brunches, after a lengthy wait, it was to be told that brunch service finished at 11am (surely, by definition, brunch should last at least until lunch time?), and it was now five past. We settled for scones, in which neither of us was disappointed. 

Rain jackets went back on for the walk over to the house - a striking place - and we managed a circuit of the moat before heading inside, but neither of us had any enthusiasm for wandering outside any longer. Neither Packwood House (yesterday) nor Baddesley Clinton were offering guided tours, but the volunteers present in each room at Baddesley were far more forthcoming than those at Packwood had been, so we gleaned more information about this property, and delivered in a far more entertaining way than by me reading out the first couple of pages of the written guide in each room. 

Emerging back out into the rain some while later, it was clear that the day was not going to pan our how I had imagined. There was not going to be a couple of hours of wandering the grounds in the sunshine. What to do: give up and go home, returning to finish the trip when the weather was better, or cram two properties into one day, conceding that we were going to miss out on the grounds of both. We retired to Erica for lunch to consider.

It was 2pm as we left Baddesley Clinton for the half-hour drive to Coventry Charterhouse, giving us a maximum of 2 hours at the property, which seemed like it would be plenty if we were going to be inside only. It turned out that 2 hours was enough to visit the property, have a cup of tea in the cafe, browse the bookshop, walk the mile into Coventry to see the cathedrals and walk back again. There's not a lot to the Charterhouse - the rooms are mainly bare, with downstairs housing a text-only exhibit about the history of the building and upstairs housing two rooms with 500+ year old wall paintings. The latter were the main event, and were worth seeing. In fact, the whole place was worth seeing in my opinion, but it wouldn't have been worth a special trip from any distance. 

The other activity I'd had planned for Coventry (pencilled in for day 4 of this intended 5-day trip) was the Herbert museum. There was no time to cram that in (it was closing as we walked past on our way to the cathedral) but it was definitely in the 'whilst we're there we may as well' category, rather than being a reason for the trip. 

So, after two days we'd visited the places I'd intended to spread over three, albeit at the cost of not wandering the outdoor spaces. With the rain forecast to continue, and having failed to find any indoor accommodation meeting my quality/price requirements, we thus headed home. 

Thursday evening saw some extreme weather. The rain was monsoonal, and I don't think I've ever seen so much lightning in the UK, with barely a few seconds between flashes and a constant rumble of thunder. Friday morning was slightly different with only a few massive flashes and some huge bangs, with the storm directly overhead. Our lawn has transformed from crisp and brown to green in the space of a few days. 

(As for getting value for money out of our membership, in one week we've achieved £90-worth of entry fees. I've got two more properties pencilled in for next week, weather permitting.)

The house entrance at Baddesley Clinton. The moat was a later addition and was never a defensive feature.

Looking across the moat into the courtyard.

Coventry Charterhouse. Didn't think to take a photo of one of the upstairs painted walls, although I'm sure there are images available on the internet.

The old cathedral at Coventry was extensively damaged during the war, yet the tower escaped almost unscathed.

The altar, at the opposite end. An information board told us that the cathedral continued to hold services, down in the crypt, for some years after the main building was so badly damaged, making it the smallest cathedral in the UK during that period. 

The last time I visited Coventry was in the 1990s, at which time I wasn't at all taken by the design of the new cathedral. I don't mind it so much now. Unfortunately, we couldn't nip inside this time as it closes to non-worshipping visitors at 4pm.