Bridgend Heritage Trail 3 – Written in Stone

Start : From the Brigend Center 104 Palmerston St, Bollington, Macclesfield (SK10 5PW). Grid ref. SJ 935 779

(S/E) With your back to the Bridgend Centre, turn right and proceed along Palmerston Street (B5090). After approximately 500 yards you will come to a mini-roundabout at the Turner’s club. Turn right (South) into Church Street.

Continue up Church Street, passing St John’s Church building. (A) Walk down the hill to the Crown Inn, just before the road bends to the right. Directly in front, the new houses stand on the site of Shrigley Dyers. Their motto was ‘We live to dye!’

(1) Turn left just past the Crown Inn, passing Higher Mill pool on the right. You are now walking along Ingersley Vale, where the numerous mills created a hive of industry in bygone days. Continue past Rainow Mill Cottages on your left. You have now entered Rainow.

After about 75 yards, take a very sharp right turn up a hilly track and through a gate. Continue up the grassy slope and some steps. The path takes you through a gate in some bushes and then carries on climbing to meet, after a few yards, another path on the left.

Follow the left path which curves to the right and then turns left at a finger post up towards a gate and cattle grid on a track.

(2) Upon reaching a crossing path, turn left and you will start a steep climb up some steps to White Nancy. (B) Keeping the wall on your left, go through a gate. Look out for the first Quarryman mosaic! Go through a second gate and continue along the ridge with the wall now on your right. Looking to your left is the village of Rainow, nestling in the valley, with the Cat and Fiddle pub visible on the skyline.

Noting the second Quarryman mosaic, pass through a gate and start the gradual descent along the Saddle of Kerridge. Glancing to your right, you can clearly see extensive quarry workings. (C)

Ignoring the gate, take a sharp right down the hillside. Take care in wet weather as the path can be very slippery. Eventually you come off the path onto a quarry driveway.

(3) Keep left to reach Windmill Lane, and watch out for the third Quarryman mosaic. The site of the old windmill is on your left.

Cross the road diagonally to your right, and go through a gate and take the track running downhill, parallel to Windmill Lane. At the bottom of the track, just before Endon Cottage, you can glimpse some narrow steps on
the right leading up to Victoria Bridge above. (D)

(4) Look out for the fourth and final Quarryman mosaic by the stone trough and then walk straight on to the right of Endon House. The track looks like a private drive, but it is a public right of way. Head past Endon House and through a gap next to a white gate into Higher Lane. You can see the old black-and-white schoolhouse down below, with Macclesfield Canal and Bollington’s Adelphi Mill further afield. Walk along the road until you reach Garrett End Cottage.

(5) Bear right onto the cobbles between the houses. Almost immediately, go left through a facing slab stile, with wrought-iron gates to the right, and follow the ginnel leading you round the back of a house.

Keep forward along this path, passing through three squeezer gates on the way and noticing other stone-flagged paths leading from this one to various cottages and other tracks. Continue across a field along the flags, climb over the old stone stile in the wall and cross right onto the pavement of Redway Lane.

As the road curves to the right in front of Redway House (formerly the Redway Tavern), take a gravel then slabbed path running between the houses, which will lead you to a kissing gate, just below White Nancy.

(2) At the kissing gate follow the steps down and go along the stone slabs. Going through the gate, descend to Chancery Lane where it meets Lord Street and turn left. At the former Red Lion Pub (now a house), turn right onto High Street. You now descend steeply.

(6) A few yards before the village green, take a left turn into Water Street, noting the old shopfronts on many of the cottages. Walk to the end of the street and Bollington aqueduct is now facing you. On the right-hand bend enter the wrought-iron gates into the Memorial Gardens. Walk through the gardens and then exit through the other gate onto Palmerston Street. Turn right to bring you back to the Bridgend Centre. (S/E)

Start : From the Brigend Center 104 Palmerston St, Bollington, Macclesfield (SK10 5PW). Grid ref. SJ 935 779

Parking : The Pool Bank car park near the Bridgend Centre is a little further in Palmerston Street.

Public transport : Bus line stop at Aquaduct (Palmerston Street)

Terrain : Can be slippery when wet! Road, Track

Facilities : Toilets, Cafés, Shops and Bar around the Bridgend Centre.

Please report a problem on a Public Right of Way here if it about the description itself please leave a comment here or find more information and walk ideas at Bridgend Centre here.

Younger walkers! Follow the trail of kingfisher markers and see what else you can spot along the way. Plus there’s a ‘Kingfisher’ quiz that will make the walk fly by … download it yourself or pick one up at the Bridgend Centre.

Download the quiz here.

(A) St John’s Church : This was Bollington parish church until 2003, when this status was transferred to St Oswald’s. St John’s was built and consecrated in 1834.

(B) White Nancy : The story goes that this curious folly was built by the Gaskell family to commemorate the Battle of Waterloo. White Nancy was built of Kerridge stone and used to have a doorway so you could go inside. It is used as the centre of community activities on many occasions. Enjoy the panoramic views, and look out for the white bowl of the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory out on the Cheshire Plain.

(C) Quarries : Quarries have been worked on the western side of Kerridge Hill since the fifteenth century. It was gruelling work. The British Sculptor Alfred Gatley began his training in stone carving as a child in Kerridge, where his family owned two quarries. Sadly he died in Italy in 1863, without the recognition his work later
received. Because of the danger, the quarry face has been fenced off. With Kerridge Hill rising in front, you will reach a stone wall. Look out for the Hare mosaic!

(D) Steps at Victoria Bridge : These steps connect to the lane that you are on and is known as the ‘Rally Road’. ‘Rally’ is probably short for ‘railway’, as this is the site of a railway that linked Bridge Quarry with the canal.