It started with a chance conversation with Pat Higginbotham at her studio Open Day. There is a magnificent view from Pat’s studio and it led us to ask some simple questions. Why is Chelford where it is? What made people decide that they would live here? What has made people stay there? Over thousands of years, people have placed themselves into the landscape in ways that secure how they live; the land itself has dictated why we live where we do. As communities formed, hunted, farmed, traded etc. so routes between them were made and these long-established tracks also gave rise to further communities. The routes are important for more than just trading; they are the ways along which ideas and news travelled, making them central to the development of a society.
Chelford sits on the Cheshire plain and to the east are the hills of the southern Pennines. For Cheshire, the Pennines are both a boundary and a threshold. From Pat’s studio, one can see the great sweep of these hills. It’s also possible to see the major ways of crossing them and several of these routes pass through or near to our village. This vista could be viewed as one vast, natural sculpture with man-made additions.
It was this notion of journeys, ideas and sculpture that gave rise to our thinking about a village arts project with a difference. The crossing of the threshold symbolises a journey of discovery in the physical, intellectual and spiritual sense. The purpose would be to form ideas about our place in the landscape and work together to express these ideas. This ‘Track’ describes the journey from north to south down that threshold of hills. It’s also the basis of the The Big Idea the details of which will be revealed later.
The furthest point to the north that I could make out from Pat’s studio was Taxal Edge, near Kettleshulme. So, that’s easy then, we’ll start at the Swan Inn, Kettleshulme. The most obvious point to the south is the telecomms. mast on Croker Hill near Bosley and that signals the end of the trail. There are one or two choices but you’ll see that our preferred destination was the Ryles Arms near Sutton. On this ‘Track’ between the two pubs, we’ll pass over every major pointy bit on Pat’s horizon.
As it’s a fairly long route over rough terrain, I’ve divided it into sections and this gives us lots of choices. So, to whet your appetite, here’s the story and pictures (see Chelford's Big Idea Route) of a Friday evening’s run.
On longer routes, you pick your companions carefully. My fellow sufferer of choice is my pal Stigger. He is as determined as they come, very humourous, tolerant of my poor navigation and, as a professional performance coach, excellent at ‘re-framing’. As a hill runner, you need a lot of that. Mrs Shak dropped us off at the Swan Inn at Kettleshulme as the sheep men and fencing contractors were parking their pick-ups for a pint. We set off up the road to Taxal Edge, the sun shone and the stiff headwind was just a cooling breeze.
We were both excited and told each other repeatedly to slow down until the hill settled that matter to the point where we popped over a wall, ran up through a small paddock and went calf-deep into water. The lambs and their mums looked disinterested as we hopped about, swearing horribly until we reached dry land. Another half mile and we turned south to Taxal Edge and Windgather Rocks with the view to the south west opening up. From that point, it’s uphill most of the way to the top of Shining Tor, so the best plan is to settle into a pace that suits, keep going and enjoy the company of the curlews, meadow pipits and sheep.
Pym Chair (461m) came up quickly and we turned down the roman road to the Goyt valley for a few steps before carrying on south over Cats Tor (515m) and on up toward Shining Tor (559m). Looking back from close to the Shining Tor summit, you can see the entrance to Thursbitch, that strange, hidden valley below the ridge to the west. There are lots of spooky stories associated with Thursbitch.
By Shining Tor, we’d been going uphill for five miles or so and the point of Shutlingsloe was still disturbingly small. The mast on Croker Hill was just a pencil mark on the horizon. However, there was a welcome bit of ‘down’ before the gradual climb up to the Cat and Fiddle (510m), where we ignored the pub and crossed the road carefully in the wake of a ‘shoot-out’ between a Porsche and a Ferrari. Scary. Across the road, the track toward the top of Cumberland Brook is wide (and slightly uphill!) so for a while we managed to run side by side and chat. The sun was still with us, the clouds spectacular, we’d warmed up and were looking forward to the long stretch down to Wildboarclough. To the west was Chelford; to the south west was the pub.
We turned right at the Cumberland Brook sign and bounded down the pebbly track to the farm, to cross the road and begin edging up to Bank Top and the shadow of Shutlingsloe. Apart from more ankle-deep water, it was going easily and we pounded on beyond Shutlingsloe Farm to the point where the contour lines are so close together that walking is more efficient. All was forgiven on the summit of Shut (506m), from which point we could see the mountains of North Wales, a distant glimmer of the sea to the west and an awful lot of the south Pennines. It was one of those moments that keep you running through bad days.
Another ten minutes and a familiar figure came pounding up towards us from the Macc Forest track. Kath had run up from Trentabank to join us for Shutlingsloe to Nessit Hill. Ignoring a few crampy twinges, we ran down to the forest track, parted company with Kath and headed over Nessit Hill. As we neared Meg Lane(?), I noticed Stigger had dropped off a little and cramp was biting his calves. A few jelly babies got him to the Hanging Gate and with a sense of impending success, we cracked on down the cool, grassy section of the Gritstone Trail toward Sutton Common.
Stigger was bitten horribly by cramp as we neared some buildings and joy of joys, we were in the yard of the Ryles Arms. Should we carry on over to Bosley? The clink of glasses after 13.5 miles of rough hill was enough to make us decide to call Kath to meet us at the Ryles, and a most friendly and welcome end to a great run. So what was the guest beer? Windgather from Storm Brewery. Recognising the mark of providence, we decided that for the Big Idea track, this was really a fitting end. As Stigger said, it’s a brilliant piece of re-framing.