MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
We will be in touch
I've got 4 hours to kick about around Manchester on Sunday morning. Is there anywhere good I could drive to within 30 minutes for a 2-3 hour walk? Don't know the area very well tbh. Pref fell walking, but a woodland walk etc would be ok.
Ta!
If the weather is ok, you could just buy a paper, wander round the city taking the Castlefield area & old roman fort & get a late breakfast in a nice cafe...
You could make it to the edge of the pennines or peaks in 30mins too.
Planning to take the mutt so getting out the city is my preferred option. Pennines or peaks sounds like an idea.....
Best bet is to get the train out. Half an hour from Manc Piccadilly and you're out Marple/New Mills way - canals, fields, woodland walks, all very scenic.
Or from Manc Victoria, 30 mins takes you out to some place called Todmorden. Apparently there's a mountain bike magazine based round there somewhere... 😉 Again, loads of walking possibilities.
Round the city centre has some "historic" type walks if you're into that sort of thing. Mostly canal towpaths and urban but actually quite interesting. Fairly well signposted and there are maps online or from tourist info.
Dunham Massey and Tatton Park are around there too. The Trans-Pennine Trail is there also.
Goyt Valley? The only nice bit of walking I remember from when I was there. Canal towpath for a bit of industrial archaeology tho
Rivington, 20 minutes from the town centre, you can lose yourself for 3 hours
Saddleworth? Park at Dovestones Res and head off up Chew valley, lovely up there, nice loop walks are easy enough to spot on OS maps
Get the train/drive to Disley, walk over Lyme Park to the Boars Head in Higher Poynton, pint, crisps, walk back to car/train. Lovely.
Don't park in Lyme Park though, park at Disley Station.
Thanks for all the suggestions guys, looks like rivington wins. It will also give me chance to scope out some future biking routes.
Any good pubs nearby for lunch and a cheeky half?
[url= http://www.sanrocco.co.uk/The-Millstone.php ]The Millstone[/url] is lovely, and very relaxed
I bet Tango Man would like me to get lost? 😉
My bet would be Rivington as well.
Plenty of (free) parking, places to buy tea and coffee and a bacon roll, nice walking, better biking, fine for dogs.
Interesting too walking through Lord Levers old gardens and over the site of his house (tiled floor still visible from the ballroom) before the suffragetts burnt it down years back.
head for the old barn area, park, and walk upwards.
Rivington
Rivington today
Wonder of the North West - Rivington's gardensOne of the hidden gems of the North West are the Chinese gardens of Rivington.
High up in the West Pennine Moors, they are also one of the most inaccessible places in the region.
Created by the industrialist Lord Leverhulme, these gardens are now derelict.
But, throughout this winter, teams of foresters have been waging a battle with nature.
Simon O'Brien investigates the history of the estate and looks at plans for the future.
History of the gardens
William Lever was one of the world's most extraordinary men - a tycoon, a multimillionaire, a social reformer and philanthropist, a relentless art collector and a man who believed in the benefits of fresh air.
He built a global business empire based on sales of soap - and laid the foundations for history's first multinational corporation - Unilever.
In the process he amassed a fortune, gained a peerage and acquired one of the greatest art collections the world has ever known.
He bought 200 acres of moorland between Chorley and Bolton and created his country estate.
Terraces were blasted into the hillside, and ornamental ponds and waterfalls replaced the moss.
One hundred and fifty thousand plants were set around his Italian and Japanese gardens, complete with Pagodas and tea houses.
As an army of 40 gardeners kept the vegetation under control, Lever described Rivington "as my idea of heaven".
He built a small palace out of wood modestly calling it 'The Bungalow'.
In the grounds, the great and the good came to be entertained.
Rivington under attack
In just 15 years of explosive expansion, Lever drove his company from a tiny operation in Warrington to be the world's largest soap manufacturer.
He now had four houses - his main home in Wirral, one in London, one in Scotland and the summer retreat in Rivington.
But his idyllic estate at Rivington was about to be rudely interrupted by a suffragette called Edith Rigby.
New Rivington gardens
Lost wonderland - today the gardens are overgrownEdith was the wife of a Preston doctor but beneath her elegant social life, there lay a crusading reformer who despised her wealthy trappings.
Above all, she was a Suffragette who wanted women to have the right to vote.
Mrs Rigby was a militant, who mounted guerilla raids against the establishment.
She threw a bomb into Liverpool Cotton Exchange, and in June 1913 she burned down Lord Leverhulme's wooden bungalow.
Leverhulme - who was dining elsewhere that night with the King and Queen - was devastated.
He never understood why he'd been singled out - he said that he was in favour of votes for women.
But, undeterred, he had a new bungalow built - this time made of stone.
That too was demolished in 1947, and all that remains are some neatly laid floor tiles.
In the 80 years since Lever's death, the gardens have been left to nature.
Rivington was left as a huge, desolate site, but now there are plans to restore it.
Later this year, a bid will be made for heritage lottery funding to pay for improvements, which could take years to complete.
Blight in the bushes
But there's a more pressing problem facing the estate - the 70 acres of rhododendron are virtually all infected with Ramorum Blight - a fungus also known as Sudden Oak Death.
Tunnel and trees
Restoration work will be complexThe Government agency DEFRA has told United Utilities, which presently owns the land, to kill the lot because it could destroy native oak forests.
The only way to kill off the blight is to burn it - and in every fire, a little bit of history is going up in smoke.
The restoration work is so complex, that consultations are taking place with a number of groups - from horticulturists, designers and historians.
One thing is for sure - this is a battle against time and nature that is not going to be an easy one.