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| Staffordshire |
I spent most of last week feeling miserable, depressed by the state of the country, depressed by the state of the world and depressed by the weather. I could write (at length) about my general dissatisfaction and feeling of looming disaster, but I will settle for a moan about the weather – not even climate change, just the weather, which is not quite the same thing. It has been a week of cold and drizzle, and as the winter solstice is approaching, cold and drizzle in the semi-dark. I hate cold and drizzle even in the light, but this was beyond.
And now the shortest day has arrived and we gathered in the Cutting Car Park on a day that was grey but dry and milder than it has been for some time. And there were eight walkers this year, the most for some time, possibly ever, so I decided to cheer up as we clustered round not for the usual semi-formal group photo but a multi-mug selfie on Anne’s phone.
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l to r Lee, Anne, Mike, Alison T, Alison C (front), Sue (back), Me, Francis
Pity we only have half the photographer's face - you'll have to bring a selfie stick next year as well, Anne |
And then we set off along the top of the cutting, the bottom, as usual this time of year, being unwelcomingly muddy. As I reported in 2014 (one of the two January Chip Walks) the cutting was dug in 1914/15 to provide railway access to the military training camps on the Chase, one of which later became the headquarters of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade. Camps and railway have long since been dismantled.
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| Eschewing the muddy cutting for the not entirely dry path along the top, Cannock Chase |
At the end of the cutting we took the middle of the three paths,
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| Reaching the end of the cutting, Cannock Chase |
….following the Heart of England Way which keeps to the flatter land away from the Sherbrook Valley. The winter sun put in a rare but welcome appearance, low in the south-eastern sky.
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| The Heart of England Way around Brocton Coppice, Cannock Chase |
But neither path nor valley are straight so we inevitably veered towards it, and watched a large group of horse riders cross between us and the valley's edge.
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| Horses and, beyond, the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase (photo: Anne) |
Staying, roughly, with The Heart of England Way we drifted a little westward, crossing Anson’s Bank and reaching Camp Road by the Springslade Lodge Café. The ladies of the party decided to pop over the road and use the café’s facilities. The gentlemen who, like bears, are content with the woods stood around considering the attraction of coffee and cake. Lee, Francis and I had sought sanctuary in the café during the extraordinarily wet 2012 Chip Walk, but this year it was not raining, indeed it was turning into as good a day as December can manage, even so, cake is attractive…. The ladies returned sooner than expected, the café was closed, they said, preparing for a function.
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| 'The café is closed', Springslade Lodge, Camp Road, Cannock Chase (photo: Anne) |
With the decision made for us, we walked a hundred metres or so deeper into the woods to the Katyn Memorial where we stopped for a thermos of coffee – not as good as a proper coffee in a proper café, but such is life.
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| Coffee break near the Katyn Memorial, Chase |
The memorial has been a landmark on several of these walks. I wrote about in 2011, but as there have been some alterations since, it is time for another photograph.
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| The Katyn Memoral, Cannock Chase |
From the memorial we headed down into the Sherbrook Valley, not that there is much down - here it is more of a fold in the land than the real valley it becomes a small distance downstream. Walking from the valley bottom to the memorial after the deluges, 2012 was a splashy ascent against the flow of a stream several centimetres deep.
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| Down into the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase |
We turned left along the valley bottom.
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| Along the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase |
We would follow it for some three kilometres during which the group began to split in two, the faster walkers marching off as though they had places to go and things to do. Mike is recovering from an Achilles tear, his physio had sanctioned the walk, but not too fast and very gently up hill. Some held back to keep him company; I would like to say that I did that as some repayment for all the times Mike has dropped back to help me, but in truth there was no way I could keep up with the younger, lighter, fitter people at the front.
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| The group splits, Sherbrook Valley |
The sun came out fully as we strolled along, there was even a feeling of warmth on our backs and I had a, wisely resisted, impulse to remove some outer clothing. I would like to think the faster group failed to observe winter colours on the sunlit side of the valley,…
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| The sunny side of the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase (photo: Anne) |
….the different hues on the shadier side….
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| Ths ashed side of the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase |
….or even the lilttle brook between which dug the valley.
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| The Sherbrook, Cannock Chase (Photo: Anne) |
But I would be wrong as two of the pictures above were taken by Anne, right at the front.
When we reached the silver birches near the stepping stones the leaders were out of sight, but they were waiting round the corner at the start of the path up the valley side.
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| Through the silver birches to the Stepping Stone |
The stepping stones (or if not these, others) appear in every Chip Walk blog, so for once we can do without them. This far down the valley the ascent is longer and steeper than at the top. Mike took it steadily.
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Mike and Alison climb out of the Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase
You have to respect a man who goes walking in shorts in December |
On the climb, my eye was caught by the sun glinting on droplets of water on a carpet of dead leaves.
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| Sun on fallen leaves, Sherbrook Valley, Cannock Chase |
We regrouped at the top and then re-fractured into new groups as we chose different routes round the square of paths at the Coppice Hill Car Park, where we all crossed our earlier path. I walked with Francis past the bird feeding station and we were rewarded with the sight of a nuthatch – not that I would have known that. The picture below is poor, but the best I could do; it is a small bird, I had to keep my distance and had no tripod, so under the circumstances it is worth including - just.
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| It's a nuthatch. This one will not make earn me the wildlife Photographer of the Year title, but it is what it is |
Reunited, we passed Freda’s Grave on our way to the Oldacre Valley. I have blogged ten chip walks and spent numerous other days on the Chase, I have seen the Glacial Boulder, the German Military Cemetery, The Commonwealth War Cemetery, the Shooting Butts, the Iron Age Castle Ring and pretty well everything else worth mentioning but I had never before seen Freda’s Grave. In 2015 I recorded that we walked within 50m but could not be bothered to make the detour, but today it lay on our route. Freda, a Dalmatian and the mascot of the New Zealand Rifle Brigade stationed here in the First World War, died in 1918. She is buried here; too many of the New Zealand Rifles are in the cemetery 3km to the south, mostly victims of the 1918/19 influenza pandemic.
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| Freda's Grave, Cannock Chase |
The Oldacre Valley is a strange place. Crossing 800m of undulating woodland and brush to reach Camp Road should be easy, but never is. There are paths on the map and there are paths on the ground, but they bear little relationship to each other. Lee took a compass bearing and marched purposefully forward at the head of the column. Unfortunately, no path ever matched the bearing, and the closest always found a way of twisting in the wrong direction. After some zigging and zagging we finally followed a deer path going in roughly the right direction. That led to the Staffordshire Way, the only path on both map and ground, which took us to the road.
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| Following Sue through the Christmas tress, Oldacre Valley |
The tedious drag along Camp Road spread us into a long, thin straggle, but once the A34 was reached it was only a short step to the Chetwynd Arms. This is the Chetwynd Arms, Brocton, not to be confused with the Chetwynd Arms, Upper Longden, our venue for the last two years. Entirely independent of each other, they were named for the Chetwynd family, the Viscounts Chetwynd of Ingestre Hall once being major local landowners, though a junior branch, the Chetwynd Baronets of Brocton Hall, is maybe more relevant to this particular pub.
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| Straggling down Camp Road |
One by one we wandered in to join Lynne, who was already there and waiting. Fish and chips were ordered by all, except those who have no respect for tradition (you know who you are!).
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| Lunch at the Brocton Arms |
Given the large party Francis had booked a table, and on this busy Saturday the earliest available slot had been 2 o’clock. He had thus lengthened the morning route which inevitably became a little convoluted, crossing itself at Coppice Hill. According to Lee and Anne’s fitbits we had taken between 21 and 22 thousand paces, which my map measurement made 13.5km. The late lunch (the picture above was taken at 3.05) and early sunset (3.50 on the shortest day of the year) meant no afternoon walk was planned.
All that remained was for Lynne to take the drivers back to the Cutting Car Park while the two Alisons, Lee and I sat drinking more beer (well two us did) until their return.
Which only leaves some thank yous. Thanks to Francis for his organisation, thanks to Anne for the photos, proving once again that in the right conditions and in the right hands phone cameras can produce some remarkable pictures, thanks to Lee for so clearly explaining the current workings of the Teacher’s Pension system (I’m so glad it does not affect me!), and thanks to Lynne for driving me (and others) around and, as always, for just being there, and finally a very big thank you to everybody for your company. It cheered me enormously to be part of a large group of good people. The feeling will probably last through the festive season, then I shall be forced back to contemplating the actions of a certain tousle-haired congenital liar.
The Annual Fish and Chip Walks
The Nth: Cannock Chase in Snow and Ice (Dec 2010)
The (N + 1)th: Cannock Chase a Little Warmer (Dec 2011)
The (N + 2)th: Cannock Chase in Torrential Rain (Dec 2012)
The (N + 3)th: Cannock Chase in Winter Sunshine (Jan 2014)
The (N + 4)th: Cannock Chase Through Fresh Eyes (Dec 2014)
The (N + 5)th: Cannock Case, Dismal, Dismal, Dismal (Dec 2015)
The (N + 6)th: Cannock Chase Mild and Dry - So Much Better (Dec 2016)
The (N + 7)th: Cannock Chase, Venturing Further East (Jan 2018)
The (N + 8)th: Cannock Chase, Wind and Rain (Dec 2018)
The (N + 9)th: Cannock Chase, Freda's Grave at Last (Dec 2019)
The (N + 10)th: Cannock Chase in the Time of Covid (Dec 2020)
The (N + 11)th: Cannock Chase, Tussocks(Dec 2021)
Dec 2020 - no walk
The (N + 12)th: Cannock Chase, Shifting Tectonic Plates (Dec 2023)
