Thursday 7^th November found us in the car park at the Nelson Pit Visitor centre at Higher Poynton.  This visitor centre was built on the site of the old Nelson Pit where the miners worked 400 feet underground shipping their coal from the Mount Vernon Wharf on horse drawn barges along the Macclesfield Canal.  Built in 1831 the canal carried coal, stone bales of cotton and silk.  Today the canal provides little evidence of its industrial past the only traffic being the picturesque narrowboats.  As the weather forecast was poor today’s walk was only 6 miles and had been planned to avoid muddy fields as much as possible.  At 10am we were booted up and ready to go.  Leaving the car park we joined the Macclesfield Canal and turned to our right towards Mount Vernon Wharf.  After passing the wharf we left the canal behind as we used the road bridge to cross it as we made our way towards Lyme Park.  A ten minute shower of rain was followed by a burst of early morning sun and all the trees glistened.  We were on a good walking track and making quick progress and it was not long before we entered Lyme Park and had reached the house.  Originally a Tudor House it was transformed into an Italianate palace in the 18^th century.  Made famous by the BBC filming of the Jane Austen novel ‘Pride and Prejudice’ today it looked a bit grim in the dark overhead clouds.  After a quick picture of the house we moved uphill to an equally impressive building.  Probably just the stables but very attractive.  A quick look back at the house, which had been transformed by a break in the clouds, and we turned uphill as we made our way to the Cage. Built in the 1520s the Cage was originally an observation tower during the deer hunting, then used to imprison poachers, and finally as an observation point for the home guard in the 2^nd world war.  The sun was now out and we had good views over the Cheshire plain with Woodford aerodrome being prominent only a couple of miles away.  Looking the other way towards Disley we could see the reservoirs at Cockerhead.  Leaving the cage behind we walked downhill in the direction of the main park entrance. On reaching the park admissions box we made a sharp turn to our left and after a short stretch of good road we left the park behind and were now on field footpaths as we made our way back towards the Macclesfield Canal.  Most stiles were easy but one in particular was very awkward.  It consisted of short planks inserted into the high stone wall and did not look entirely safe.   We reached and crossed the Macclesfield Canal and after a few more yards we joined the Middlewood Way.  This was originally the Macclesfield-Bollington railway which opened in 1869 and closed in 1970.  Then in 1985 it was transformed into a walking and cycling route of nearly 11 miles length.  We continued along the Middlewood way and shortly were back in the car park at the Nelson Pit visitor centre.  Our walk of 6 miles had taken us 3 hours.  Very little wildlife had been seen but there had been a number of stops in Lyme Park.  100 yards from the car park brought us to the Boars Head pub where we finished our day with an excellent meal.

INDEX PAGE for the THURSDAY GROUP WALKS