Short-ARS to Marbury

The August short-ARS walk on Saturday, August 25th, will be a circuit round Marbury. We meet in Audlem main Car Park at 9.30am.

The photo shows Marbury Church, on the face of it almost a carbon copy of our own St James Church.

There should be space to park outside the village hall (School Lane) in Marbury.  

The route takes us to the Shropshire Union Canal, which we walk along for a mile-and-a-half or so to Willeymoor Lock, where we cross the canal and join the Bishop Bennett Way. Then the path rises slowly and steadily for a mile (about 100 metres height gain in all) to bring us to Wirswall, the highest point in this part of Cheshire and from which there are great views across to the Sandstone Ridge Hills.

There is a convenient seat here just before we pass Wickstead Hall and start the gentle descent across fields, around the Big Mere and back into Marbury.  

There are ten stiles on the route, but all but one of them has an openable gate alongside!   The total distance of the walk is five to six miles.   Some patches of the section round the Big Mere were a bit muddy when we did the "reccy" and so boots are advisable for the walk.  

To match the classification of full ARS walks as 1 to 5 "booter" depending on the severity of the walk, we are introducing a similar set of categories for short-ARS walks. These will be 1 to 3 carpet-slippers, where

• 1 is more or less flat, maximum five miles and very few stiles.


• 2 can have an easy hill, could be up to six miles with, say, up to half a dozen stiles.


• 3 can include some small hills, possibly several stiles and could be up to seven miles.

This walk is classed in the two carpet-slippers category.

 

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