Raw Head
11th November 2009
Ten ramblers, including three new to the group, set off for Burwardsley, a village near Beeston Castle on the Sandstone Trail, best known for its Candle Workshops. After a quick browse round the shop we set off along the Trail, passing through the woodland on Bulkeley Hill and gaining wonderful views across the Cheshire plain, where one of the main landmarks was the telescope at Joddrell Bank. The remains of an inclined plane was the only visible evidence of the construction of a covered reservoir on the hill, with a pumping station at the foot. A short detour off the track took us to the Droppingstone, a spring which in former times was where the villagers had to come for water. From here the castles of Peckforton and Beeston stood picked out in the sunshine, on adjacent but separate hills.
Later, looking westwards, we were able to pick out the Anglican cathedral at Liverpool, and if one stared hard enough it was just possible to make out the Crown of Thorns of the Roman Catholic cathedral.
We followed the trail to its high point at Raw Head and then dropped down a flight of steps through the woods where we stopped for a lunch break. A further flight of steps, more recently constructed, brought us below the bold sandstone outcrops and led to a track through glorious autumnal trees and emerged at an exciting extreme skateboarding course. Across more fields and then the lane back to the Workshops where we settled in the café for tea and cakes.
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