Whaley Bridge to Etherow Country Park

After leaving one car at the Etherow Country Park (SJ966908), just getting busy with dog-walkers, we drove back to Whaley Bridge and parked back in the same place as yesterday,  the "Canal Wharf" car park on Tom Brad's Close in Whaley Bridge (SK013815). Today's walk left from the Whaley Bridge Basin of the Peak Forest Canal, and the place was buzzing this morning, with the monthly "Food and Arts at the Basin" in progress. For much of today we were walking by the Canal or by the River Goyt, or somewhere between the two, but don't be fooled,  there were definite climbs and descents!

As we walked around the canal basin and set off along the canal, we were walking at about the same speed as two mothers with young children in pushchairs, the older of whom had been given the task of identifying green boats; there were quite a lot! A footbridge (tricky with pushchairs, but they weren't beaten) took us over the branch of the canal leading to the Buxworth  Basin (which appears to sometimes be known as the Bugsworth Basin), but we continued next to the main canal as it left Whaley Bridge behind and headed north.  About a mile south of New Mills, just after Bridge 29, we took a footpath to the right which descended to what is probably the flood plain of the River Goyt, heading towards the New Mills Railway Viaduct.

We reached the river,  followed it under the viaduct and continued, having a bit of difficulty at one stage in deciding which path to take; staying close to the river is probably the best bet. We passed under another railway viaduct, near a lower bridge, and reached an absolutely fascinating section at the confluence of the rivers Goyt and Sett, with the remains of Torr Mill,  a weir and a modern micro hyrdoelectricity plant (technically, a  Reverse Archimedes Screw Turbine, but known as Archie!) - unfortunately the direction of the Sun meant that most of the photographs we took here were not up to scratch.

Continuing,  Torr Vale Mill was over the river to the left, the Millenium Walkway was straight ahead, and slightly to the right were steps leading up to the Heritage Centre. We obeyed the instructions in the guidebook and climbed up the steps, thus reaching the end of the penultimate section of the Midshires Way as described in the book. We reached the Heritage Centre, only to discover that the first instruction at the start of the final section of the Midshires Way as described in the guidebook was to descend the steps.!Ah well, I don't regret it really - there were superb views down to the River Goyt, Torr Vale Mill and also of the railway line leaving New Mills Station. When I was a teenager, I would fairly regularly use the train to get to the Edale/Hope Valley area, and these trains went by way of New Mills. I had absolutely no idea what a fascinating town I'd been missing.

After being somewhat misled by the guidebook, we were next transiently confused by the OS map which, put frankly, has long-distance footpath diamonds all over the place round here...but not in the right place. The correct route simply follows the Millennium Walkway, a fascinating elevated section of walkway completed in 1999, enabling access to the Torrs Gorge.  Come on Ordnance Survey, 1999 is 24 years ago! At the start of the walkway there is a touching tribute to Stan Brewster, the project manager for its construction, who was subsequently killed in the London bombings in 2005 when en route to a conference.  It was a salutary reminder of life's fragility and thus of the importance of valuing what you have.

As we left New Mills behind, we encountered something of a novelty, NEW Midshires Way signs (and also new Goyt Way signs). These directed us, never far from the river, to Mousley Bottom. Here we encountered an older but larger Midshires Way sign (shown on the right) - it was very nice if somewhate unexpected to see such attention paid to a path that has frequently not been signposted at all. We stopped for an early lunch then, a little further on, we left the Rover Goyt and climbed, up past Hague Bar and on to Brook Bottom Road. Don't be misled by the work "Bottom" in that name; we were quite high up and had good views, including to "The Cage", on the top of a hill in Lyme Park, three miles or so away to the south-west. 

We continued to the hamlet of Brookbottom, but having completed our climb out of the valley just a hundred metres or so previously, now we turned left at The Fox Inn and descended through a pretty wooded valley towards Strines Station.  We went through a tunnel under the railway then continued close to it for a mile or so, first to the south and then to the north of the railway line.  Near Windybottom Farm, a couple in a 4-by-4 were helping two children to extract a couple of horses from a field of cattle and, after we'd passed through another tunnel under the railway, the 4-by-4 came driving past. 

We were now back alongside the River Goyt and passing around Strawberry Hill. We reached a pretty little cottage with a railway viaduct beyond; this turns out to be Flood Gates Cottage, built for Samuel Oldknow in 1801. It originally comprised two cottages, one occupied by the tollkeeper (the road was at the time a major route through the valley). The other cottage was occupied by the sluice-man who operated the sluices which allowed water from the river to flow into Roman Lakes. In the early 1900s the cottages were used as tearooms.

After passing under the railway line, we reached Roman Lakes.  There are modern-day tearooms here, but these were closed for a private function.  The lakes were a popular tourist attraction in Victorian and Edwardian times but they originally provided water for Mellor Mill, which was the largest cotton spinning mill in England, prior to being destroyed by fire towards the end of the 19th Century. We reached he site of the mill,  near Bottom's Bridge, with a convenient bench on which to stop for a rest and for me to change my socks. We took a path which climbed slightly, then followed alongside the railway before crossing it on a footbridge. We had to wait for a large family group who were coming the other way, but then we climbed again up to a road.  I'd assumed we should turn right here, but we actually had to cross and take a minor road which led us back to the Peak Forest Canal.

We were now on the outskirts of Marple and reached the junction of the Peak Forest Canal with the Macclesfield Canal, which links  to the Trent and Mersey Canal. We crossed the Macclesfield Canal by way of an old bridge, presumably once used by the horses pulling the canal boats. Very soon we reached Lock 16, the  bottom lock of the Marple flight. The flight was not open to boats (at the time we were there, the flight was only open to boats three days a week) but it was an interesting walk nevertheless. We passed through a tunnel (again, probably once used by horses), walked past Samuel Oldfield's large warehouse, and crossed to the other side of the canal.

After Lock 2, we left the towpath and descended to a track, which we followed through woodland. Eventually we cut across more open ground to the River, and turned right to walk alongside the river bank. We were getting close to our destination, but the excitement wasn't over. Our route relied on crossing the river by way of "Iron Bridge", but this was officially closed, with barriers across both ends. We noticed that the walkers immediately in front of us went around the first barrier and under one of the obstacles at the far end and I'm afraid we did the same. It would have been a long way around, and we hadn't seen a warning that the bridge was closed (there was one for those going in the opposite direction).

We passed some sheep and lambs, including a lamb that appeared to have just been born.  The other walkers were also watching the lambs and we had a brief chat with them before continuing up the track to the road leading from Marple Bridge to Compstall. We turned left here, and we were soon back at Etherow Country Park, the end point of the Goyt Way, whose route we had been sharing. The car park was now extremely busy and there was a long queue at the café, but most people were queuing for ice-creams, so we opted for a cup of tea instead. The was also a queue on the road back to Marple caused by roadworks near Marple Station. However, once we had - eventually - negotiated these roadworks, the rest of the journey back to Whaley Bridge was straightforward, as was the return trip to Stockport, without the delays we'd had yesterday around the entrance to Lyme Park.