Historic Walks in Cheshire
Historic Walks in Cheshire
Price
£9.00
Walk 1 - Arley Hall
Arley – Arley Hall – Arley Green – Moss End – Pick Mere – Great Budworth – Budworth HeathDistance: 8¾ miles (14km)
Start and Finish: Great Budworth
Maps: OS Explorer 267 (Northwich and Delamere Forest)
This is a splendid walk through a peaceful agricultural landscape enriched with woods and copses, lovely villages and historic estates. Despite being fairly long, it is never strenuous as it has only one short ascent of any note, but if Arley Hall and its famous gardens are to be explored along with the two villages, a whole day is required.
Arley Hall is a lovely example of what has been termed ‘a Queen Elizabeth style’ building surrounded by beautiful parkland and 12 acres of some of the finest gardens in the country. Pick Mere is a fine stretch of open water with a good variety of wildfowl and is popular for watersports in the summer months, while Great Budworth is one of the most charming villages in the county.
A. Great Budworth
This is one of Cheshire’s most idyllic villages, incorporating all the elements that one would hope for – lovely individually designed cottages and houses, a tiny post office, a welcoming inn, splendid views over the surrounding fields and all overlooked by the impressive sandstone church of St Mary and All Saints, one of the finest examples of ecclesiastical architecture in the county. From 1469 the village was part of the Arley estate but much of it was sold off during the 1940s. However, the village has a long and powerful history that dates back to well before the Domesday Book, in which it is mentioned as ‘Budewrde’, a Saxon word meaning ‘dwelling by the water’. The book mentions that the village had a priest, so one assumes a small wooden church would have stood there at the time, and notes that one of the inhabitants was a slave.At the top of High Street against the church wall are the village stocks. These were well used up to the 1850s in order to discourage tramps and unwanted souls visiting from other parishes.
1. When facing the George and Dragon Inn, go right (north-west) along Church Street and past attractive roadside cottages. At the first right-hand bend continue into Smithy Lane, now a conservation area, and follow this as it deteriorates into a rough track. After a left-hand bend go right over a stile and along the right edge of two fields to climb a stile beside a field gate, then follow a newly made field track out to a road.
2. Cross to join the lane opposite, signposted to Antrobus and Warrington, and pass the attractive Old School House on the left. Then turn left at the T-junction and follow Knutsford Road towards Antrobus.
B. Antrobus
The village is recorded in the Domesday Book as ‘Entrebus in Tunendune Hundred’ (the name is probably derived from the Old French phrase meaning ‘between the thickets’). Despite this, the village is fairly modern with most of the houses and principal buildings dating from the 19th and 20th centuries. The Cheshire naturalist Major Arnold Boyd, famed for his many natural history books on the area, once lived in the village.
3. Just before the Antrobus village sign go right, over a stile by a footpath sign, and along a track skirting the left edge of a field. Follow the track through a second field, past a barn, ponds and copse of trees to climb a stile beside a gate and proceed alongside the field hedge to a farm track. Go right along this, over a stile at the end of the field and on along the right edge of the next two fields, continuing ahead where the field hedge turns a right angle, to reach a stile into another field. Veer slightly left across this to Hollins Lane and turn right along this to a sharp left-hand bend by Hollins Farm. Leave the lane here to follow an enclosed footpath round the farm, then a grassy fieldside track along the left edge of a field to reach a footbridge over a brook on the left. Once over, go through fields following the obvious path which eventually joins a broad, tree-lined track leading into Arley. Turn right through the attractive hamlet of Arley and into the Arley Hall Estate. To visit the hall continue over the cross-roads, following direction signs to the hall and church.
C. Arley Hall
Arley has been owned and run by the same family for more than 500 years; the earliest traceable ancestor is Adam de Dutton who owned lands hereabouts in 1190. The original hall was built by Piers Warburton in 1468 when he moved from Warburton to Arley. The house was enlarged in the 16th century and the original timber-framed building encased in brick in 1758, but deterioration had set in to such an extent that by the early 1800s a new hall was needed. George Latham, a relatively unknown local architect, was engaged by Rowland Egerton-Warburton to build his new house and the hall, chapel, gardens and many of the buildings on the estate date from this time, between 1832 and 1845. Rowland Egerton-Warburton wished his new dwelling to reflect something of the piety of the Middle Ages but also the grandeur of Elizabethan England. The hall has a lovely family atmosphere and contains superb plasterwork and panelling, historic furniture, a superb art collection and fine porcelain.The hall’s gardens are an absolute delight and are amongst the finest in the country. Features include the double herbaceous border laid out in 1846 which now ranks as one of the oldest in England, the avenue of pleached limes with their intertwined branches, fine yew hedges and the avenue of oaks (Quercus ilex) clipped to look like giant cylinders. There are also good collections of shrub roses, rhododendrons and azaleas, a herb garden and a walled garden. All in all this is a wonderful place with something of interest throughout the season; the Arley Garden Festival in the summer is one of the top horticultural attractions in the country.
4. To continue the walk, return to the cross-roads and turn right along the tarmac drive (Back Lane) and follow it round the north side of the hall and into the pretty hamlet of Arley Green.
D. Arley Green
This attractive cluster of cottages set around a village green, water pump and pond is all part of the Arley estate. The half-timbered building attached to the neat row of cottages on the far side of the green was the old school house established by Rowland Egerton-Warburton to provide education for his tenants’ children.
5. Where the lane veers left just beyond the pond keep straight ahead past a cottage on the right, over a stile and on along the right-hand side of two fields. Climb a stile into a third field then bear slightly right across this, continuing in the same direction across three more fields to a stile leading through a narrow belt of trees known as The Slacks. After a few yards turn right along a grassy track. This leads to a stile beside a gate with the topiary hedges of Willow Cottage and the southern drive to Arley Hall on the opposite side. Turn left down the drive to Moss End, crossing the Budworth Road at the end and continue along George’s Lane to Gravestones Farm.
6. Pass alongside the farm, bearing right into a field just beyond the buildings on a rough field track. Go right, around the edge of the next field but after 30 yards turn left along a hedgeside footpath to a plank footbridge and stile in the bottom right-hand corner. Once over these bear diagonally right across another field to reach a stile leading onto Park Lane and go left along this towards the village of Pickmere, turning right into Mere Lane at the sharp left-hand bend on the outskirts of the village, but if refreshments are required continue into the village. At the end of the lane turn right through a gap in the hedge and walk down a field, with a new housing development on the right, to reach the shore of Pick Mere.
E. Pickmere
The village of Pickmere has become fairly commercialised over recent years, with a number of caravan parks providing holiday homes for people wishing to enjoy the surrounding countryside and the watersports available on the mere. This sheet of water is splashed with bright colours in the summer months as the sails of wind surfers and yachts tack back and forth, sending the swans and ducks scurrying for the quieter reaches of the Mere.
7. Turn left around the Mere, moving away from the water’s edge on the far side to avoid boggy sections through reeds, then continue alongside a stream draining into the Mere and follow field paths towards the village of Great Budworth, visible on the skyline. On reaching Hield Lane turn right, ascending steadily towards Hield House Farm on the brow of the hill, but before the farm go left at a footpath sign, up a flight of steps and over a stile into a field. Walk along the left edge of this narrowing field to climb a stile at the far end; turn right over a second stile almost immediately, then bear diagonally left across a field to a stile leading onto a narrow track on the outskirts of Great Budworth. Turn left along this to join a cobbled lane leading past the church into the village.
F. St Mary and All Saints Church
This magnificent sandstone building seems incongruously out of character in such a small village, but during medieval times Great Budworth was one of the larger parishes in the country and the second largest in Cheshire, extending northwards to the River Mersey and southwards to the outskirts of Northwich. By 1130 the tithes of the parish were owned by the Canons of Norton Priory near Runcorn, who built the Norman church, but at the time of the Dissolution of the Monasteries Henry VIII gave the tithes to Christ Church College which still retains them.
The oldest part of the present church dates from the 14th century, with the solid tower, which now houses eight bells, being added in the 15th century. It is regarded as one of the finest examples of Perpendicular architecture in Cheshire.
Parking: Discreet roadside parking in Great Budworth
Public Transport: Cheshire County Transport Service 45 Northwich to Great Budworth, not Sundays, Tel: 01270 505350
Refreshments: Café/restaurant at Arley Hall; inns at Pickmere and Great Budworth
Tourist Information: Church House, Church Walk, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 5RG, Tel: 01270 610983
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