Wednesday 23 September - Staffordshire Way (Pt 6)

Where's Bertie? He's at Wolverley Camping & Caravanning Club Site at a total cost, for 2 nights, of £40.55 for a grass pitch without electricity.

Weather: A few light showers, but otherwise sunny intervals and warm. 

I needed Mick to drive me back to the Way this morning, but I wasn't in any urgent rush to get going, so we had a moderately leisurely start. At the other end of the day I could have walked all the way to tonight's campsite, which would have added 3km onto the end of the Staffordshire Way, but with the earliest permitted arrival time at today's campsite being, 1pm and with feasible intermediate meeting points, I opted to first meet him in a cafe in Enville, then in the parking area on the fringe of Kinver Edge, with Kinver being the decision point as to whether I would stop or go on.

Mick had already had coffee and cake by the time I arrived in Enville, so I just had a pot of tea - perfectly timed to arrive at the table just as I walked through the door. With more perfect timing, it rained sharply whilst we were in there. I'd set out a couple of hours earlier in a very light mizzle that only lasted for a few minutes, and another bit of mizzle hit not long after I left Enville, but it soon passed through. 

The last four kilometres of the Way are decidedly undulating, but each little ascent was countered by a nice runnable descent. 

I didn't do the final ascent, up to the Way's end point in the middle of Kinver Edge, as Mick said he'd join me to do it as part of a circuit on Friday, when we intend to return to see the cave houses (not open today). By the time we'd had lunch in Bertie (during which time the heaviest rain of the day fell, but aside from the perfect timing of me not being out in it, it wasn't anything remarkable), it was gone 1pm so to the campsite we came.  

Over the last couple of weeks, I've covered 110km of the 158km-long Staffordshire Way. Of the bits that I've missed, I know that the 12km on the canal near/through Rugeley then across Cannock Chase are mainly good and I've no doubt that the final 1.5km onto Kinver Edge will be lovely too. That leaves 34km currently unknown, but even so my early assessment of 50/50 good and bad needs to be revised significantly upwards in favour of good. I really did wonder at one point whether this route only had merit for its first 20km, it's final few km, and across Cannock Chase in the middle, with the rest being at best mediocre stitching together of those features, but I'm pleased to say that fear seems to be unfounded. 

That said, a bit of maintenance and a scattering of new Way Markers would definitely not go amiss!

This snap isn't overly representative, but the wooded ridge of Abbot's Castle Hill was pleasant

Forest Covert was also a pleasant woodland with a myriad of paths. There were waymarks, but often not in the most helpful of places. 

After good paths all the way through, the correct exit from Forest Covert wasn't obvious. The chap who recorded the gpx file I was using detoured through the field to the left of the boundary as shown in this photo (this is looking back into the woods); I tried a different path but ended up on a road adjacent to the woods. Having walked the perimeter to see where I should have come out, I saw that the route runs along the right hand side of this field boundary. I was glad not to have taken it!

Spot the stile. It'd be easy to continue straight on along the field, but if you look carefully the path goes over a stile, through all those brambles on the left. 

Path

View

Path

With there being a lot of sandstone hereabouts, I probably shouldn't have been surprised at finding sandy tracks, akin to walking along a beach. 
  

 

Tuesday 22 September - Staffordshire Way (Pt 5)

Where's Bertie? He's at Druidswood CL at Claverley, at a cost of £20 including electricity. 

Weather: After a misty start, sunny and warm, then clouding somewhat for sunny intervals this afternoon. 

With last night's campsite being conveniently close to the Staffs Way, I was able to walk from Bertie's door this morning, leaving Mick to do necessary chores and just generally hang around for an hour or so before he set out towards our meeting point, in Upper Aston. 

As is often the case with Waymarked routes (and understandably so), they take indirect routes in towns and villages so as to go past shops/cafes/accommodation. So, rather than getting back onto the canal for the direct route, or indeed, taking one of the minor roads that would have cut off a corner, I stayed true to the route and went via the village centre. That took me past the high school that I narrowly avoided attending (their uniform involved a straw boater, which I consider as good a reason not to go there now as I did when I was 13) and also gave me the opportunity to nip into the Co-op, although it wasn't a productive detour as they didn't have a pouch of Capri Sun squash, which is what I was after (having run out of water on yesterday's outing, and not having packed an extra soft flask). 

Indirect route out of Brewood 

The first notable feature of the day was when I crossed 'Upper Avenue' a lengthy avenue of mature trees, at the end of which, albeit some distance away, I could see there was a grand hall. I'm not sure how I failed to realise at the time (and I clearly didn't look at the map) that this was Chillington Hall. Having gone to school nearby, it's a name I know well, but I don't recall having ever seen it before. 

A detour to the Co-op in Codsall netted me the extra drink that I was after, then once clear of the village I was onto a nice shady green lane over to Oaken, where I walked past the childhood home of a school friend (with whom I am still vaguely in touch). 

Once in the grounds of Wrottesley Hall (if I saw anything of the hall, I've already forgotten it), an enormous field cropped with potatoes had to be negotiated; that was unpleasant given the lack of path. Walking adjacent to the golf course a while later, I found a convenient fallen branch upon which to perch to change my socks (with a heavy dew, I'd set out in waterproof socks, but my feet were now too hot), and in doing so I semi-blocked the path. It's thus predictable, in a day in which I passed only 3 people outside of villages, that two of them came along, on bikes, just as I had a shoe off. 

I put some more thought today into why this section of the Way was so agreeable whereas the Uttoxeter and Abbots Bromley sections aren't, even thought they're all just across farmland. I think the fact that there's so much arable land hereabouts (no fields of bullocks to negotiate), giving huge fields and thus fewer field boundaries (fewer stiles, better views) helps. There were also a few bits today that went through equestrian land, where the footpath is fenced off from the fields (can't possibly go wrong and don't get chased by the horses) as well as a few old or ancient green lanes. All of that seems to be more agreeable than endless grazing fields (or worse, abandoned fields now taken over by thistles, nettles and brambles).

The person who recorded the gpx file that I'm following had clearly had a route finding issue here...

... so I was on the alert not to replicate it. Turns out I did an even worse job, but in my defence, I followed this sign...

and at the bottom of the field I got to this one...

...so there's a clear discrepancy between what's on the ground and what's on the map - and I did check the most recent versions and both 1:50k and 1:25k, just in case they were at variance.

In between Seisdon and Upper Aston, I left the Way for today and took to the roads to Chloe's Cafe Barn in Upper Aston. There, as arranged, I found Mick. He'd had coffee and cake in the cafe, but had then repaired to Bertie to read his book, having found neither phone signal nor wifi in the cafe to be able to do any work. The campsite had requested ten minutes notice that we were about to arrive, but we were unable to comply, with neither of us able to get a phone signal as we came to leave. 

It was then just a mile or so drive along a skinny lane to the campsite.  

After a late lunch, we walked into Claverley. This village is an 8-mile drive from where I grew up and I know the name, yet it completely surprised me. What an olde worlde place it is! The church was even more surprising, boasting 'the Bayeux tapestry of England' - a wholly inaccurate description of a wall painting, but said wall painting dates from the 13th century, and was uncovered during renovations in 1902. Recent signatures in the guest book included visitors from Arizona, North Carolina and New Zealand. Who knew Claverley was on the tourist trail?! 
 

Chillington Hall in the distance, at the end of the avenue of trees 

A pleasant, shaded green lane

Rather less pleasant - the 'path' on the edge of a massive field planted with potatoes

Said potato field. See that cloud of dust over there, coming off the back of a plough? "At least I'm not in that field" I thought. Turned out that's exactly where I was going, but fortunately nowhere in the vicinity of the tractor

Looking left in the next enormous field...

...and looking right...

...and where I'm headed. 

Many years ago, on one of our big walks, we walked along a lane, the verges of which were strewn with diet coke cans out of multipacks. We concluded that someone would have a can on their way to and/or from work each day and would finish it and throw it out of the window at approximately the same point in their journey. This was similar, but with red bull cans in various stages of decay, but rather than there being dozens as with the coke cans, here I would say there were hundreds.

 

Claverley. The church is just off to the right.

"The Bayeux tapestry of England". That's the church's inaccurate description, not mine!
  

Monday 21 September - Staffordshire Way (Pt 4)

Where's Bertie? He's at Anchorhold Campsite in Brewood, at a cost of £25 without electricity. 

Weather: sunny and warm (23 degrees)

Whilst we remain largely trapped at home whilst waiting for an appointment date to be set (for Mick to have an ultrasound on his eye - who even knew such things existed?), Bertie was getting itchy tyres and feeling like he was overdue a trip out - particularly as he's seen Erica galavanting off for overnight trips. We thus conceded to his wishes, and I planned to recce the Staffs Way between Cannock Chase and Kinver over the course of three days. 

I didn't need an early start, for the distances I would be doing, which gave us time to get Bertie packed and nip to a supermarket on our way to Cannock Chase. Lunch was then had in a large layby where decidedly dodgy activities were afoot, with various people hanging around shiftily in front of one particular set of bushes, before wandering off across the road into the undergrowth. They were all alone and none of them was dressed as you would expect for a turn around the Chase (particularly the one in a pencil skirt and stockings with lines up the back). Meanwhile, many users of the layby stared intently at us as they passed. 

With the clock about to strike 1pm, Mick dropped me just a little further along the road, and off I headed, almost immediately leaving Cannock Chase and heading to the village of Bednall. 

I'm not sure if it was the sunshine and warmth that caused me not to mind at all that I was, for much of the time, crossing and walking around field after field, but I think it helped that they were massive arable fields and I was often on higher ground, giving me relatively far-reaching views. That's not to say that there weren't trials: freshly ploughed fields with rough margins; overgrown sections (one ridiculously so) that have left me with tingly, nettled legs; a dog that leapt clean over a 6' fence and only came to a stop when it met with the end of my walking pole; and a horse that chased me across a field ... only for me to realise as I exited that I'd missed a turn half way across (I didn't go back). I also expect that some parts would have been far more arduous had ground conditions been wet. 

The final 3.5km were along a canal, about half way through which Mick phoned to alert me to a problem. He'd decided to head out to meet me, but found access to the tow-path to be closed. Whilst he was scouting around for a way to access it, I paused, as I just happened to be at a bridge where I had my last opportunity to escape the tow-path before the closure. Poring over the map and aerial images whilst Mick explored, I suggested that maybe he could try the pub car park, and sure enough, there were some steps onto the tow-path. That was a relief - I wouldn't have relished a detour around on roads.

Soon after Mick met me, he pointed across the canal and said that Bertie was but 100m away, on the other side of the water. Having not a packraft with us, and with no convenient passing boat to beg a lift across from, we walked the long way around.  

Leaving Bednall, this turned out to be the tamest patch of nettles on my route today, but being so early on, it didn't bode well. 

Deer. Not farmed, just loitering here en-masse.

Thankfully the walkway was sound, it was just the railings that were slouching

 

If you're going to have a park home around here, then I can't fault this for a location. 

I bet no one has walked via that 'public footpath' fingerpost for quite some time.

At least the line of the footpath was obvious in this field. 

My route goes straight on. This area was choked with Himalayan balsam, laced with brambles and nettles, giving slow progress for a couple of hundred metres. 

Path

Path

That's better

Where boat hulls go to die 

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!