The Sandstone Trail - part 2: A scratch Itched

It was back in June 2022 that we walked the first half of The Sandstone Trail, a walk that turned out to be five miles further than the readily available literature led us to believe, and one where my toe was so badly injured that we were unable to complete the second part the next day, as planned; in fact, within a couple of weeks, the end of my little toe was completely without skin or toe-nail and I wasn't able to wear a shoe comfortably, never mind hike, for weeks.

To read about part 1 of our Sandstone Trail walk, you can click on the link below.

https://www.mobileapp.app/to/sR0bb7Z?ref=2_cl

Having identified the problem - overlapping toes - I invested in some silicone toe-tectors and thankfully, it has never happened again.

We pledged to return as soon as possible, but since then, we moved house and we just never got round to it.

It has always been there though, in the back of my mind - like an itch that needs scratching - and so, in response to the fortuitous spring weather and having nothing else planned, here we are.

We arrived at The Bickerton Poacher on a Thursday afternoon, early in April, planning to walk to Whitchurch the next day.

When we consulted the map, we realised that there was a short stretch of about two miles, between The Pheasant Inn at Higher Burwardsley and the point at which we would pick up the trail tomorrow, that we hadn't covered. So, wanting to do things properly, we took a stroll over Bulkeley Hill enjoying views eastwards towards the Peak District. It was a pleasant walk of less than an hour to The Pheasant, and we spent a further hour sat in the beer garden in the late afternoon sunshine with a cold drink enjoying the far-reaching views over the Cheshire Plain before walking back over the hill to the Poacher - job done!

Now one of the most important things you can do to prepare for a long walk is to eat well the evening before and get a good night's sleep. We settled in at our table in the bar and enjoyed a typically hearty pub meal washed down with a bottle of the house wine and prepared for an earlyish night, but just as we had finished eating we were invited to join in with the weekly pub quiz and decided to extend our evening a little.

Incredibly, (trivia seems to exit my brain as quickly as it enters) we came second and won a bottle of wine. Obviously it was Tony's superior general knowledge that won it for us, especially his political know-how when correctly answering questions such as, 'What political faux-pax was recently made by Kier Starmer? Apparently he referred to hostages as 'sausages', who knew?

We should have gone off to bed at that point, but of course we didn't. We drank the bottle of wine, and as a result we were a little below par the next morning when we came down for breakfast. We were soon put to rights by a cup of tea and a sausage barm though, and by 10am we were on our way, re-joining the trail up on Bulkeley Hill.

The Peckforton Hills rise majestically from the Cheshire Plain, running south from Beeston to Duckington, so the morning was spent alternately climbing and descending a series of peaks on sandstone staircases and woodland paths.

We descended Bulkeley Hill to cross some farmland before beginning our ascent to Rawhead, walking beneath beech and sweet chestnut trees to reach the highest point on the trail at 227m.

From the trig point, and at various other points along the ridge, we were treated to spectacular views over to the west as far as the Welsh hills, and also of the magnificent sandstone cliffs, sculpted over time by the wind and rain and riddled with caves.

At the foot of the hill, we skirted the forest before joining a lane that crossed the A534 leading to Bickerton Church. Beyond the church, the trail continued up to Bickerton Hill through light birch forest with a scattering of bilberry. The space opened up at the top of the hill, where there is a touching memorial monument called Kitty's Stone. After pausing to read the poems and admire the view, we continued across heathland to Larkton Hill, where you can just about make out the remains of the earth banks that would have protected the Iron-Age fort known as Maiden Castle.

Here the signage for the trail was particularly poor, the arrows at the fort all pointing one way. Using our OS map, we found our way down to Hether Wood before taking another wrong fork in the path, having missed a sign that was poorly placed. Having retraced our steps, we skirted the wood and then headed out across the plain.

We thought that the going would get easier as the hills were now behind us, but the reality of walking across recently ploughed fields after weeks of dry weather was not quite what we expected.

This section of the trail, between the foot of Larkton Hill and the Shropshire Union Canal, is privately owned and, in our opinion, not particularly well-maintained. We found that many of the footpaths had been ploughed over and were difficult to both navigate and walk; our eyes were planted firmly on the ground to avoid turning an ankle, and on the map to make sure that we were still on the trail. We also found that, in many places, fences and signposts were missing or crudely repaired and that the gates and stiles were often hidden amongst overgrow hedgerows.

One section - approaching No Man's Heath - was completely impassable as the field was flooded and the path was flanked by electric fencing. This led to us having to backtrack and then follow a different path, itself boggy, and enter the village from the other side, a diversion that probably cost us the best part of an hour. To add insult to injury, we were looking forward to a well-earned rest and a drink at the village pub having been on our feet for four hours, only to find that it was closed, and had been for the past three years.

Luckily, there was a village shop, so a shared sandwich and a bottle of pop later, we were on our way again, this time the trail meandering through fields of long-horned cattle and past Old St. Chad's Chapel before joining the canal at Willeymoor Lock. Here, to our disbelief, there was another 'closed' pub - their loss and ours - we could have murdered a cider!

The chapel, which was built in 1689 is set in a beautiful glade of Yew and Cedar of Lebanon trees, and is - amazingly - still a chapel holding several services throughout the year on traditional days such as Rush-Bearing Day. In my opinion, too many of these wonderful old buildings have been claimed by wealthy people and turned into grand status-symbol homes, and therefore lost to the local community, so it was heart-warming to see one still in use as its original purpose intended.

We saw many beautiful half-timbered houses along the trail. They are typical in the area, and range from the quaint cottages in the foothills of the Peckforton Hills, to the grand Manor House Farm with its stables, ponds and horse-gallops, and to the likes of Pearl Farm dating from 1607, on the final stretch.

We joined the canal towpath for the final three miles into Whitchurch. The canal is renowned for it's display of wildflowers throughout the summer, but as we were walking in spring, we had to make do with the flowering blackthorn and early hawthorn - not a bad substitute. We picked up the pace now that we were walking on the flat, pausing to admire the step-locks at Grindley Lock, looking at the colourful barges and passing under Danson's Bridge, before reaching the canal junction.

Here, we crossed the canal over the lift-bridge, following the Whitchurch arm until it's end and then continuing along the track that follows the valley bottom until we reached Jubilee car park, where there is a sandstone arch and trail information board marking the end of the Sandstone Trail. We stopped to take a celebratory photograph; we had completed the Sandstone Trail. Itch scratched, we did it!

This should have been the end of the adventure, our plan being a quick drink in Whitchurch before getting a taxi or bus back to the car and driving home. The walk had taken us seven and a half hours, mostly continuous walking, and we were ready to rest our legs.

But things rarely go to plan. We called for an Uber but had no joy, and had no luck trying to get a local taxi either. So we walked into Whitchurch and made our way to the bus station (which is just a stand outside Tesco).

The timetable told us that the bus we needed was not due for another hour so we headed across the road to a pub and had that well-earned drink.

An hour later, the bus arrived and we approached the driver, only to be told that he could only take us to Malpas - about half way. We considered our options and decided that half way was better than nothing, and got on the bus. The driver was very apologetic and didn't charge us, he even serenaded us to the tunes on his radio all the way, and half an hour later deposited us in Malpas.

It was Friday night and everyone seemed to be in The Lion, music turned up and hardly a seat in the house. We bought a drink and, once again, considered our options:

We could stay the night in Malpas (if we could get a room) and walk the 3hr off-road route back in the morning; we could walk the 2hr road route back to the Poacher now, but it was beginning to go dark; or we could try again for a taxi.

We decided to try the latter, with a night in Malpas as a back-up plan, and asked the barmaid for a taxi number. From the list she gave us, only one answered, offering us a ride in half an hour for £24 - expensive, but we were running out of options.

We booked the taxi.

We then realised we hadn't eaten since our cheese sandwich in No Man's (Land) Heath - sorry, Freudian slip, so we found the local chippy and sat on a wall eating our supper until the taxi arrived.

By the time we got back to the pub where we had left the car it was 9 o'clock and dark and we really didn't fancy the 2hr drive home.

We went inside and explained our situation, hoping that the room we stayed in last night was still available. No such luck, the rooms were all booked up. They could, however, offer us 'The Chalet' for the same price. Intrigued we accepted, retrieved our bag from the car and followed the lady into the darkness.

'The Chalet' turned out to be a caravan in the camping park. We settled in, turning the electric fire and the radiators on, but we were in for a chilly night as the outside temperatures plunged to near zero. No complaining though, we had a roof over our heads and a bottle of wine from the bar, which we enjoyed as we settled down to watch BGT on the telly.