We
met in the car park by Lindow Common (Wilmslow), just opposite the Boddington
Arms pub, and by 9.50am we were booted up and off. The weather forecast was
reasonable with just the chance of showers and with virtually no wind it felt
quite warm. Today’s walk had again been planned to avoid muddy fields 
and
so we began by entering Lindow Common. This area, now much beloved by dog walkers,
used to be used for grazing cattle but bought and donated to Wilmslow in 1897
it is now a public recreational area. Today we were in the presence of the
famous with one of the first dog walkers passing us being Bill Roach the Coronation
Street actor. After ten minutes walking we left the common behind and walked
up Racetrack Road and the into Lindow Lane on our way to Lindow Moss. Excellent
footpaths cut across areas speckled with interesting
houses and we passed the normal horsy fields typical of suburban areas. Though
Lindow Moss is a site of biological importance peat is still being extracted
and we passed a large active extraction site where “Lindow Pete’s” body was
found in 1984. Bludgeoned to death about 2000 years ago the body of this iron
age man is now in the British museum in London. 
Carrying
on walking we passed a centre owned by the humane education society with horses
grazing in their fields (numerous signs saying do not
feed the horses) and then an estate called Mossway Park and finally we reached
the Mobberley Road at Morley Green. We debated whether to have a coffee at
the Cheshire Smokehouse but decided that it was probably a bit upmarket for
muddy boots so crossing 
Mobberley
Road we walked up Morley Green Road emerging on the 
Altrincham-Wilmslow
Road opposite an inn called the “Honey Bee”. This again did not look like a
place to welcome scruffy hikers so we carried on walking down the Altrincham
Road towards Manchester Airport. A few hundred yards 
before
it passed under the airport’s second runway we left the road behind, and cutting
across the car park at the Moat House, we entered a 
relatively
new path leading across the fields to the airport perimeter. On walking along
the perimeter fence we came to a spot where the footpath rose up giving us a
good view across to the runway and just at the point where the planes waited
before take off. We had not seen many birds today so we compensated with ten
minutes plane spotting. After a lively discussion on how heavy 
bits
of metal defied gravity and actually flew we carried on walking emerging into
the old Altrincham Road which was closed with the building of the airport’s
second runway. The odd house is still occupied along the road but living here
must be a little noisy at times and possibly a bit smelly with fumes from the
planes. At the junction of this stretch of road with Moss Lane we passed through
a gate and walked towards Styal Village. There were some beautiful houses along
this stretch of road but the noise from the airport was still very noticeable.
Reaching the 
village
we walked past the attractive old cottages to the village shop which 
has
been long closed and now usually displays a collection of the type of commodities
probably sold by the shop in bygone days. We passed the one of the two churches
and then shortly after entering the wood we turned left on to the path leading
to Styal Mill. As we approached the Mill a group of children came towards us
dressed in the
type of clothes worn by the mill apprentices in the 19th century
when they were attending school. They were on the way to the apprentice’s house
and after their visit may think themselves lucky that they were not working
in the mill in 1847 when 1000 children were employed there. The mill was built
in 1784 and even though the Greg family was one of the most 
enlightened
mill owners of their day conditions were hard and sometimes the apprentices
ran away. The mill was donated to the National Trust in 1939 and has become
a superb working example of a water powered spinning mill. Passing the children
we reached the mill entrance where across the yard the tuck shop is located.
A brief stop to purchase ice cream and then it was on again as we took the path
running alongside the River Bollin leading towards
Twinnies Bridge. After a pleasant walk through the woods we reached the car
park at Twinnies Bridge where we crossed over the River Bollin, 
passed
Wilmslow Rugby Union Club, and then up Kings Road to emerge on the Altrincham-Wilmslow
road virtually opposite the Boddington Arms. We reached our cars at 1.10pm.
It had taken us 3 hours and 20 minutes to cover 6˝ miles. At 1.15pm we were
in the Boddington Arms where a good lunch completed an excellent day.
INDEX
PAGE for the THURSDAY GROUP WALKS