Bridgend Heritage Trails, Revolving in time, Bollington

Start & End: Bridgend Centre, 104, Palmerston Street, Bollington, Cheshire SK10 5PW.

(S/E) With your back to the Bridgend Centre, turn right along Palmerston Street to a mini-roundabout. Turn right into Church Street and pass St Johns Parish Church. Walk to the bend in the road. (Higher Mill (A), then later Shrigley Dyers, were both sited where the new houses are now.)

Turn left by the ‘Crown Inn’ passing Higher Mill pool and walk along Ingersley Vale. Carry on past Rainow Mill cottages on your left to enter Rainow.

(1) Follow the track upwards, past the wheelhousing of Ingersley Vale Mill and then curve up to Waulkmill Farm (B) and waterfall.

''Detour – If you would like to see Waulkmill Wood, go up the steps by the Millennium Stone, and follow the path through the wood. This is especially beautiful in spring, when the bluebells are a mass of colour. On
reaching a stile on the outskirts of the wood, retrace your steps to resume the trail.''

At the waterfall, walk through the gap next to a gate and through the gate by a stone wall. You will now be crossing several fields on a path of stone flags (C).

Walking for approximately half a mile parallel to Kerridge Ridge, cross three squeezer stiles, with Rainow Church (D) visible in the distance depending on the season, before descending to a kissing gate, which leads on to a track. The garden on the right is laid out to depict ‘Pilgrims Progress’.

(2) Follow the track down, over a stream and up stone steps, through a squeezer stile to a ginnel along the back of several houses and emerge on Sugar Lane (E), turn left. Following to a T-junction turn left into Chapel Lane, climb to the top and turn left into Stocks Lane.

Directly ahead, a well-earned rest can be taken at the ’Robin Hood’, a hostelry that has quenched the thirst of Rainow inhabitants and travellers since the 18th Century.

Continue forward on Stocks Lane looking left to beautiful views across fields to Kerridge Ridge.

(3) At the grass triangle, the ancient track of Oakenbank leads off left, winding over the fields to Bollington. This short cut follows the track and re-joins the main route description at marker (6).

Otherwise, take the right fork here into a lane and climb up the hill to reach ‘Back-o-th-Crofts’. Continue past Back-o-th-Crofts Farm entrance, up steps to a gate at the back of the barn, and walk diagonally across the field to a kissing gate in the wall. Bearing left, the path curves round the side of Big Low.

Bollington can be seen gradually emerging, nestling between White Nancy and Nab Hill (F). Looking over the Cheshire Plain on a clear day, Fiddlers Ferry Power Station near Liverpool can be seen, with the Welsh Hills in the distance to the left.

(4) Go through a kissing gate and follow the path as it descends towards the tiny hamlet of Rainowlow. Go through a squeezer stile at the side of a gate, and turn immediately left down steep stone steps onto a footpath. Descending, the track is now walled on both sides and passes straight through two wooden gates of a farm enclosure adjacent to the farmyard.

Cross the stone stile at the bottom and continue forward, with a wall then a hedge and then a wall again on your right, following the right-hand path at the marker.

(5) Drop down to a stile by two gates with a stream on the left. Continue forward and cross a stream coming in from the right. This is a lovely picnic spot. Immediately bear left, passing a little waterfall, and carry on with the stream on your right. Ford the stream at the massive stone slabs, and walking forward, with the stream on your left, turn left onto a track.

(6) Crossing a stile at the left of a gate, bear right onto Oakenbank (G), the ancient track mentioned previously. The short cut joins from the left at this point. Continue along the road until it bears sharply to the right. Ignoring the first stile on the left, go over the stone stile to the right of the gate.

You now proceed forward and through a kissing gate to enter the grounds of Savio House, now a Salesian retreat. Originally this was called Ingersley Hall and home to the Gaskell family (H). The footpath leads across a field, and over the main drive to Savio House via two further gates.

(7) Continue diagonally right over another field, to a finger post under mature trees and down steps leading to a dirt path. Always keeping left eventually more steep steps down bring you to the back of Rainow Mill Cottages. (1) Follow right past the front of the cottages onto the dirt track of Mill Lane to emerge at ‘The Poachers’. Turn left into Ingerlsey Road and upon reaching the mini roundabout retrace your steps along Palmerston Street to the Bridgend Centre. (S/E)