Knutsford and Surrounds

Jane and David came around for dinner (we did ourselves proud - Gefilte fish for entree, meatballs for main, and lamingtons for dessert - Jewish, Italian and Australian - for non-cooks be impressed!) - they also bought us our first house plant - so its in the lounge, enjoying the occasional sunshine and keeping Harry company while he watches tv - it brightens up what so many have called 'our student flat'.

It was a bit like a wander through a time travel machine this weekend. On Saturday, we got up early (earlier than planned as we had forgotten we'd set the alarm earlier than normal the day before) and so arrived at Hawkstone Park (north of Birmingham) just on opening time. The Park was built in the late 1700's by Sir Roland Hill and his son (sounds like a nice family, helped the poor with food and clothing and provided park like surroundings for the community to enjoy). The park has a history similar to the Gardens of Heligan but far less well known. Neglected for over 100 years it has been restored in the 1990's by the owners of the hotel and the golf course with the same name which we looked at from afar. The countryside is mainly red rock, along the top of a cliff, and quite soft as the many footprints trod before us were engraved in the steps, and we walked across areas which had more sand than many English beaches. The many visitors back in the 1700's would have seen a wonderful rhododendron garden (now huge spindly bushes and still would look lovely in the flowering season) and the follies used in the filming of one of the Narnia films. It took us three hours to wander around the paths of the 100 acre garden, wandering over bridges and along the rocky outcrops and exploring the caves. The park is now on the Grade-1 Historical list and we can see why. It is actually on our WOW list.

1. Mt Kau Kau, Wellington
2. Cathedral, Milan
3. Cemetery, Milan
4. Newgrange, Ireland
5. Quantock Head, England
6. Waffles, Brussels
7. Food, Poland
8. Tower, Glasgow
9. Cycling in the Snow, Amsterdam
10. Walking the Cliffs of Dover, England
11. The Pavilion in Brighton, England
12. Hawkstone Park, England

So, at this park we:

• Climbed the Monument (known as the Tower) standing over 100ft high (thats 150 steps) which commemorated Sir Roland becoming the first Protestant Mayor of London. From the top you can view 12 counties - or see what we saw, the mist rolling in covering the countryside and promising bleaker than hoped for conditions (thankfully it didn't last and after our 3 hour excursion we were treated to some lovely sunshine in which we ate our lunch and dozed for a while).
• The Swiss bridge that was one plank of wood wide which crossed over a very narrow gorge called the Cleft and originally only had one hand rail - two felt a lot safer.
• The Gingerbread Hall - where visitors centuries earlier collected their guides and wandered towards the Grotto - we got our guide book at the gate - which did help in finding our way around.
• The Arch at the top of Grotto Hill - built to be the 'midpoint' where we stopped to enjoy the scenery, recover from the climb, have a drink and snack and wonder why so many people enjoy getting dressed up on a Saturday afternoon in 1700 clothes.

But the fascinating part was where we trod - one moment we were jumping over mud, another walking across tree stumps grown and cut strategically to avoid more mud, climbing steps that were so well trod the footprints were engraved permanently in the rock, tredding gingerly on the Swiss Bridge, negotiating large tree roots (beware of tripping hazards said the notice), squeezing through rocks, slipping up stone slopes covered in water and moss, feeling our way through caves engraved many years ago by diligent stone masons, climbing stairs that were higher than our knees (yes Harry's too), and just occasionally when lucky walking a flat path . All great fun.

When we were looking at what to do last week on our trip up north I read all about Market Drayton - 'The Home of Gingerbread'. How could we resist taking a small diversion to visit this town when we read that the locals 'have baked this delight to a secret recipe' for the last couple of centuries (it probably includes rum, but just to make sure you could follow the locals example and dip it in port before you eat it). So armed with our thermos of hot water, our tea bags, and our mouths watering we left for Market Drayton. However, we found out that Saturday afternoon isn't the time to visit this town (really didn't seem to give the appearance of being around 200 years ago, it looked like so many other towns in England built in the 1960's with little character - sorry to the local Market Draytonites if we are doing their town an injustice). But we were disappointed!! We didn't find a gingerbread man with a 'Welcome to Market Drayton' standing in the bed of sunflowers and marigolds at the roundabout, and the closest thing we got to gingerbread all weekend was visiting 'Gingerbread Hall' at Hawkstone Park. But I did read more about Market Drayton - on Wednesday the town comes alive, as that's when Henry III declared it market day that's where we might find the gingerbread men sitting amongst the handbags, clothes, materials, fish, sausages, fruit and vegetables, jams, cheeses and pies. Clive of India came from here - his little pies won the Guinness Best Pub Food Award in one year or another - he sounds as though he was one of those lovable rogues (lovable cos he makes good pies) but he may have run a protection racket amongst the local shopkeepers (not a nice way to make money), climbed the church tower (adventurous), defeated the French (not on his own), and secured the spice routes for the British empire and bringing home ginger to the town (to make gingerbread. So, we drove on 'gingerbreadless' (get over it Denise) without trying this wonderful cake with 'curiously restorative powers'. Anyway, enough about what we didn't see (except we also didn't get to Rudyard Lake - known because that is where Rudyard Kipling's parents 'courted' presumably before he was born). We drove on to the Anderton Boat Lift (not onto really but to the car park). It takes boats 50 feet up in the air joining the Trent and Mersey Canal and the River Weaver and it is where these two water channels meet and is the home of the salt works. It was built in 1875 and used for over 100 years before it was closed for restoration and opened again about 8 years ago. The salt has been taken from the rock since Roman times. By the end of the 17th century a major salt mining industry had developed around the Cheshire "salt towns" and two waterways shipped the salt up and down the country (River Weaver and the Trent and Mersey Canal). The owners of the two waterways put there heads together and decided that they could make a tidy sum by by linking the two waterways (first they used cranes and then chutes to run the salt down) - before they decided on the Anderton Boat Lift.
That was enough for one day and we settled into a nice pub in Knutsford for a meal and a read of the newspaper before finding our hotel for the night.


After an 11 hour sleep (boy do these oldies get a bit tired) we arrived at Jodrell Bank Observatory and sat down to watch a 3D movie on a visit to Mars (we were in a spaceship the SS Enterprise and it was a real 'beam me up Scotty' film) before going outside to look more closely at the 50 year old Lovell Telescope (it reminded me of a meccano set and I wondered if Meccano had modelled their famous toy on the telescope or the other way round - so later I did a bit of quick research and found out that Meccano was invented in 1901 by Frank Hornby, an Englishman) . The observatory however was built the year I was born and since then has been ' probing the depths of space, a symbol of our wish to understand the universe in which we live. Even now, it remains one of the biggest and most powerful radio telescopes in the world, spending most of its time investigating cosmic phenomena which were undreamed of when it was conceived'. Actually, before I was born (and even before Harry was born) Bernard Lovell was already at work, looking at cosmic rays at a little place called Jodrell Bank. We had the fun of watching it turn on its axis to look at another bit of sky, before wandering off to our next stop.

And to finish off the trip up north we wandered around the Peak District for a couple of hours - climbing to Solomons temple which was built in 1896 on a site which is a neolithic burial mound. It's another folly by Solomon Mycock and was designed and built to give the unemployed in Buxton some work. It is 439 metres above sea level and with only a few steps to the top we could see some lovely views (probably 12 counties) and some cloud. Apparently, the hills was originally an old lime kiln but once the tower was built visitors would take the waters in the baths below and then walk the short distance up the hill to enjoy the fresh air and scenery (that was back in Queen Victoria's time).

And in the news this week...a new clothes shopped open up in Bristol - well it is a bigger version of a smaller one that recently closed - it is known for its cheap clothes (they have clothes factories in 3 countries and pay their workers 7pence an hour) and young people in England love it - you can change your wardrobe every week (eg 99 handbags can be bought instead of 1 from an Oxford Street shop in London). Anyway, they interviewed many of the young girls queuing for 2 hours before the shop opened and one said 'I've come all the way back from New Zealand for this - you just can't get fashionable clothes over there' - but she's going back so there must be something else attracting her in little old kiwiland. But this really got me wondering...at the end of the week I read about people queuing from 6.00 in the morning for an opening of a new supermarket (the chain is already in Bristol - so one could ask why?)