Autumn Walks - the Chatterley Whitfield Heritage Country Park.

 

We bears have been enjoying some walks with our human guardians to new places recently.  One of the most unusual is the Chatterley Whitfield Heritage Country Park.  It's just north of the Whitfield Valley Nature Reserve, which we went to see the week before.

Because North Staffordshire used to be busy with mining and heavy industry, there are plenty of open spaces in this area reclaimed from colliery workings and spoil heaps.  What sets the Chatterley Whitfield Park apart is that many of the mine buildings are still standing.

When we saw these steps, we thought they must have led to the door of a building that had been demolished, but Polar explained they were for something else entirely.

'It's a mounting block, for getting onto a horse,' she explained.  'It's right next to the bridle path and there are others near all the points where the bridleway runs through the park.  It's not always easy to get onto a horse from the ground.  Look - there are some horses coming down the hill now.'

Polar was right.  The horses on the hill came down to the track and, when they could see it was clear, cantered away up the valley.  

We saw people riding horses all over the park and there were a row of horseboxes parked along the road closest to the bridleway, so it's obviously a popular spot with riders.

Grizzly showed us the building that used to be the colliery offices, which is sometimes open as a visitor centre (although Polar and Grizzly have never been in there).  Back in the late 1970s, the mine was opened as a museum and it was possible to go down in the lift to see where the coal was dug out, but it closed in 1993 because it was very expensive to keep safe, especially after other nearby pits closed and the coal seams (which linked together underground) began to flood.

You can read more about it and see some amazing underground pictures on a site here 

Polar lifted us out of the Bear Bag so we could do some climbing on the railway trucks, which was lots of fun.  The railway which used to run down the valley, all the way to an arm from the Caldon Canal near Milton, was taken up many years ago and that is now the route of the main cycle path and bridleway.  

The canal arm seems to have disappeared too, but we will see if we can spot where it went next time we are along that section.

We jumped back into our bag after that, as Grizzly and Polar were going to climb right up to the top of the highest hill on the site for a better view of the colliery, and Polar said there were too many steps for small bears.

She was right!  There were hundreds of steps to climb to get to the top but Polar and Grizzly both agreed that it was well worth the effort.  As well as seeing the whole of the colliery site, they had a really good view of Mow Cop to the north.

As they were coming down the other side of the hill, we asked to come out of our bag for another run on the springy turf.  It was bright but very breezy, but sometimes it's nice to have your fur ruffled by the wind and the sunshine was warm when we found a sheltered spot.

We loved seeing the colours of the autumn leaves too, especially this little red shrub.  Polar hasn't worked out what it is yet, but there were several of them growing on the hills.

'Stoke-on-Trent is a very green city, isn't it?' I said to Hanley, and he smiled with pride.

'It's the best city in the whole world!' he replied.

Endon found some little asters flowering in a patch of open ground, which made him very happy, as it meant there was nectar for the bees.

'Can we get some for the garden?' he asked Polar, and she agreed we could look for some to buy, next year.

After we had all enjoyed exploring the hillside, Polar called us back to get in our bag, because the sky was looking stormy and it was time to go home for our dinner.

'I hope we can come here again, and see more of the mine,' said Hanley.  'It looks brilliant!'

'Well, we might be able to one day,' Grizzly replied.  'They've had some Lottery money to help preserve some of the buildings and, while I don't think we'll ever be able to go deep underground, hopefully we will be able to have a proper look around on the surface one day.'

Hanley Bear cheered.  'There are so many exciting things to see and do in Stoke,' he said.  'I'm glad I'm from here!'

'And we're all glad we live here.' said Polar.  'I wonder where we will go next?'

Even if we're not going very far because of the new lockdown, I'm sure we'll have some more #SmallBearAdventures very soon and I shall blog about them when we do.