Paws Around the Potteries - Another Railway Walk

 Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here again, with another of my post exploring the very best place in the whole world, my home city of Stoke-on-Trent!

One of the amazing things about Stoke-on-Trent is the amount of green space in the city.  This is mainly because, when old heavy industries like coal-mining and steel making closed down, the land left behind wasn't good for building houses on, and instead it was turned into country parks.  There are also miles and miles of cycle routes using disused railways, and it was one of those we explored on our latest walk.

We started at Ford Green Hall.  This is a marvellous place according to Polar, who did some gardening for them a long time ago before she had small bears to look after.  We haven't been to visit yet.  Our humans planned to take us a couple of times but got the opening times wrong, and then it was closed for major repairs, but now it is mended and we have a photo of when it is open, we can hopefully get to see inside in the spring.

Close by, there used to be a railway line that ran from a junction at Milton in Stoke-on-Trent through the town of Biddulph and up to Macclesfield.  We have seen some of the route on our canal journeys, as it went over the bridge at the bottom lock of the Bosley locks.  A lot of this route is now a cycleway and footpath.  We have followed it north, to the old coal mine at Chatterley-Whitfield, but never walked south from Ford Green Hall, so that is what Sonning and I, and our human guardians, did this time.

The path runs along a valley which soon opens out into scrubby grassland and birch woods on one side and a field with ponies in on the other, then a pond which is fenced off.  

 After you go under the A53 main road, there is a big fishing pond with all sorts of wild birds on it and more woods around it.  Just as we came out of the tunnel under the road, Polar saw a man with a smart camera and a huge telephoto lens talking to another man, and he told us there were parakeets living wild in the woods!

 

Being a good, friendly Stokie, he very kindly pointed out the old woodpecker's nest hole they had moved into and soon afterwards, we saw the bright green birds flying around and perching in the tree.  Sonning was amazed to see them so close up.  He had seen dozens of them when he was boating through London with Polar and Grizzly, but they had always been too far away for Polar to get photos.

   

The photographers said they also regularly see egrets and a kingfisher here, as well as cormorants and goosanders.  They have a Facebook group where they share their photos, which they invited Polar to join (so she has). 

We walked a little way further along the cycleway, to see how close we were to the canal, and suddenly saw this...

It was a section of track from the old railway!  We jumped down out of our Bear Bag to take a closer look. 

"It must have been brilliant when there were steam engines running along here," I said to Sonning.  "The coal from that big pit at Chatterley Whitfield came down this line and some of it got loaded onto canal boats at a wharf not far away."

We didn't have time to look for the canal wharf, as it was time for Polar and Grizzly to take us home for lunch, and we knew the other bears would be getting hungry.

But there was time for some tree climbing when we got back to the lake.  I wanted to see of I could climb the tree to look in the parakeet nest, but Sonning said we should be good bears and not scare the birds.

"We definitely need to bring the other bears here," I told Polar and Grizzly.  "These are great climbing trees and they would love to see the parakeets and the railway line."

"We'll definitely come again," she replied.  "And, when we do, we'll walk right around the lake and see if we can find the canal wharf too."

Polar put Sonning and I back into the Bear Bag for the walk back to the car.  She and Grizzly took a path on the other side of the stream that ran along higher up the hill.  Sonning and I waved to the ponies we had seen earlier, but I don't think they saw us.

  

Although it's sad that there aren't steam engines running along the line these days, it is a great footpath and cycle route, and I'm looking forward to going again with all the other bears.  Maybe there will be parakeet chicks by then?

Paws around the Potteries - A Visit to Mow Cop

Ay up, everyone!  It's Hanley Bear here, taking a look at some of the landmarks and special places in and around my marvellous home city of Stoke-on-Trent and the best county in England, Staffordshire.

This post is about Mow Cop Castle, which is officially right on the border between Staffordshire and Cheshire.  But, as I think the county border ought to be something obvious, like the canal or the railway line down in the valley, I have claimed all of it for Staffordshire!

Although it looks like the remains of a ruined castle, Mow Cop Castle is actually what humans call a "folly", something wealthy landowners used to build because they thought they made the landscape look more beautiful or more dramatic - which it does!  The castle is built on an outcrop of a very hard sandstone rock called Millstone Grit, because it was used to make millstones for grinding wheat into flour.

Us bears were keen to climb all the way up to the top, but Polar said it was too windy that day and that small bears could be blown off the summit.  Instead, we explored the path going north from the gorge below the castle, which is part of the Gritstone Trail, Staffordshire Moorlands Walk and (until my border changes are approved) the South Cheshire Way.

The cubs, Waverley and Dudley, found a very small cave they could shelter in while Polar took some photographs.  

"We're fierce wild bears!" shouted Waverley, but I don't think the humans going past believed them.

It was a slightly hazy day, but we still had some great views across Staffordshire towards Shropshire when we reached the east side of hill.  We will definitely get our humans to take us there again when it is less windy but clearer, as I think we would be able to see all the way to the Stoke City ground from the castle itself.

Polar and Grizzly rounded us all up and back into our Bear Bag so we could cross the road and take the path north along the ridge to the Old Man of Mow.

The old Man of Mow is not an old man.  It is a big chunk of rock.  Polar said that, from the side, it reminded her of the funny carved figures on Easter Island in the Pacific Ocean (which she has only ever seen on the television).  Humans say it was not weathered naturally, but nobody knows for sure whether it was carved as a statue or just left because the stone wasn't quite good enough to use as millstones.

I think he might have been a giant Cheshire troll trying to invade Staffordshire, who got caught by the rays of the rising sun coming over the summit of the hill and turned into a pile of rocks.

We read more about the Gritstone Trail on a noticeboard near the Old Man.  It goes all the way from Kidsgrove Station to Tegg's Nose Country Park in Macclesfield, which is too far for even a long-legged human like Polar to walk in one day, especially as there are lots of hills.  

We walked a little further along it to see the views towards Manchester and Liverpool and the Peak District.  Even though we were high up, some of the path was still boggy, as we have had a lot of rain recently, so if any of you want to walk it, you will need good boots.

We walked as far as the big radio mast on the highest part of the hill.  We could see the hill known as The Cloud, which is near the Bosley Locks on the Macclesfield Canal, right ahead of us and Croker Hill in the distance behind that.

"I'd love to climb those hills!" said Endon, who is a keen mountaineering bear.

Endon, who also likes anything to do with plants and flowers, was very interested in all the moss and lichen growing on the dry stone walls, so he asked Polar to take some pictures for him.

By now, the sun was getting low in the sky and it was getting very chilly, even for small bears with fur and Christmas jumpers to keep them warm, so we let Polar put us back in our bag and carry us back to the car.  

The castle looked even more dramatic with the sun behind it and I can't wait to visit again and climb right to the top!

You can find out more about Mow Cop, the Old Man of Mow and the Gritstone Trail in this leaflet, although it needs updating to include the official Hanley Bear line of the Staffordshire-Cheshire border: 

Gritstone_Trail_Guide_651651353.pdf