Walk Post 021 - Mosey Through the Mosses
Apr. 9th, 2010 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thousandmilesblogDate of Walk: 05/04/10
Walk organized by: Tameside Countryside Service
Start time: 10:30
Start location: Park Bridge Heritage Centre
Walk length: 8.46 miles including journey to start
Weather conditions: Cloudy, light showers
Hollinwood Branch Canal close to Stannybrook Road
Details:
Around 30 people completed the Mosey through the Mosses walk starting from Park Bridge. The route was up Alt Hill Road and onto Route 66 of the National Cycle Network towards Ashton-Under-Lyne. At Ashton we headed across Oldham Road past the church and through Crowhill to Littlemoss and Medlock Vale, then turned back through Hollinwood Branch Canal Nature Reserve via Brookdale Golf Course, joining the canal and continuing along this to Bardsley Bridge, where we joined the footpath back towards Park Bridge alongside the River Medlock.
The walk was quite similar in route to one I did back in January that started from Bardsley Bridge and went almost the opposite way around. This was warmer and thankfully without the ice, but with more rain. It was a little bit muddy in places, but not too bad. I was really tired for most of the walk, though there were no hills and the pace wasn't too fast. Maybe the walking of the previous few days was catching up with me. One woman started the walk with her little dog, but it cut its paw on some broken glass and had to be taken home. Fortunately the rangers were able to get a car to meet us soon after the injury happened and the woman didn't live very far away so she was able to see her dog safely home into the care of family and rejoin the walk soon after.
We saw the swans at Crime Lake, which was formed when the Fairbottom Branch of the Hollinwood Branch Canal was built at the end of the eighteenth century. The canal is now disused, and filled in in several places, but ran from Fairfield in Droylsden to Hollinwood in Oldham. The Fairbottom branch ran from Failsworth to Bardsley. A brook had to be diverted during its construction, and there was a landslip and a flood that submerged a couple of cottages. The damage was never fixed, the flood water became the lake and the cottages are still under the water, with their roofs visible in dry summers. It's quite popular for fishing, and attracts geese, ducks and Daubenton bats in addition to the swans (side note, I did a bat walk from Daisy Nook last October and still remember the Daubenton we saw swooping over Sammy's Basin to feed, and the little pipistrelles near the car park. Great if you like bats and don't fancy buying a detector and wandering around in the dark on your own to look for them.). It was good to see the swans still looking ok.
On the way back to Park Bridge we stopped at Fairbottom Bobs, the site of an early steam engine used to pump water out of the coal pits. Despite being in a very poor state of repair by the 1920s, it impressed Henry Ford so much that he bought it and took it back to Dearborn Museum. He compensated the locals for the loss of the famous curiosity by having a footbridge built across the river, but considering how much the engine is now worth he very much got the better end of the deal there.
I seem to be spending a lot of time around this area lately.
Christ Church, Ashton-Under-Lyne
Fantastic old tree roots at the morning coffee stop site
Crossing Brookdale Golf Course
River Medlock by the end of the footpath at Park Bridge Road
Evil Giraffe
Walk organized by: Tameside Countryside Service
Start time: 10:30
Start location: Park Bridge Heritage Centre
Walk length: 8.46 miles including journey to start
Weather conditions: Cloudy, light showers
Hollinwood Branch Canal close to Stannybrook Road
Details:
Around 30 people completed the Mosey through the Mosses walk starting from Park Bridge. The route was up Alt Hill Road and onto Route 66 of the National Cycle Network towards Ashton-Under-Lyne. At Ashton we headed across Oldham Road past the church and through Crowhill to Littlemoss and Medlock Vale, then turned back through Hollinwood Branch Canal Nature Reserve via Brookdale Golf Course, joining the canal and continuing along this to Bardsley Bridge, where we joined the footpath back towards Park Bridge alongside the River Medlock.
The walk was quite similar in route to one I did back in January that started from Bardsley Bridge and went almost the opposite way around. This was warmer and thankfully without the ice, but with more rain. It was a little bit muddy in places, but not too bad. I was really tired for most of the walk, though there were no hills and the pace wasn't too fast. Maybe the walking of the previous few days was catching up with me. One woman started the walk with her little dog, but it cut its paw on some broken glass and had to be taken home. Fortunately the rangers were able to get a car to meet us soon after the injury happened and the woman didn't live very far away so she was able to see her dog safely home into the care of family and rejoin the walk soon after.
We saw the swans at Crime Lake, which was formed when the Fairbottom Branch of the Hollinwood Branch Canal was built at the end of the eighteenth century. The canal is now disused, and filled in in several places, but ran from Fairfield in Droylsden to Hollinwood in Oldham. The Fairbottom branch ran from Failsworth to Bardsley. A brook had to be diverted during its construction, and there was a landslip and a flood that submerged a couple of cottages. The damage was never fixed, the flood water became the lake and the cottages are still under the water, with their roofs visible in dry summers. It's quite popular for fishing, and attracts geese, ducks and Daubenton bats in addition to the swans (side note, I did a bat walk from Daisy Nook last October and still remember the Daubenton we saw swooping over Sammy's Basin to feed, and the little pipistrelles near the car park. Great if you like bats and don't fancy buying a detector and wandering around in the dark on your own to look for them.). It was good to see the swans still looking ok.
On the way back to Park Bridge we stopped at Fairbottom Bobs, the site of an early steam engine used to pump water out of the coal pits. Despite being in a very poor state of repair by the 1920s, it impressed Henry Ford so much that he bought it and took it back to Dearborn Museum. He compensated the locals for the loss of the famous curiosity by having a footbridge built across the river, but considering how much the engine is now worth he very much got the better end of the deal there.
I seem to be spending a lot of time around this area lately.
Christ Church, Ashton-Under-Lyne
Fantastic old tree roots at the morning coffee stop site
Crossing Brookdale Golf Course
River Medlock by the end of the footpath at Park Bridge Road
Evil Giraffe
