Cannock Chase in the Time of Covid: The (N + 10)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

Or the (N + 10)th Annual Fish and Chip Walk

The Cutting

Staffordshire

Even the wretched pandemic cannot stop people going for walk, so this year’s participants posed for the usual departure photo in a responsible, socially distanced group. Even in Tier 3 we are allowed to do this, provided we obey the ‘Rule of Six’. Like most glib Johnsonian phrases, it seems to mean something, but doesn’t. What precisely is the rule of six? Six people, yes, but are children counted? What about bubbles? And what account is taken of the Higgs-Fermi effect: whenever six are gathered together in an appropriate quantum configuration a seventh slips into existence from the sub-space envelope? It once caused the Big Bang (as I am sure you know).

Social Distanced in the Cutting Car Park, l to r, Ed, Anne, Francis, Sue, Lee. Mike

We, again, started from the Cutting Car Park, near Milford on the northwest edge of the Chase, though it was a very different photo last year when we crammed together in Anne’s selfie.

What a difference a year makes

Back then nobody had heard of 'Covid', the words 'social' and 'distancing' were hardly acquainted, let alone partners in a bubble, and masks were worn only by bandits.

After a week or two of drizzle, sometimes rain, our chosen day dawned with blue sky, mild temperatures and a dry forecast. Just occasionally something has to go right.

‘Sparrowhawk!’ said Francis suddenly as we moved off. I looked up to see a small raptor-type bird flash past, not far above our heads. I hardly had time to focus, but if Francis said it was a sparrowhawk, then a sparrowhawk it undoubtedly was.

As usual we walked out over the embankment rather than through the cutting - it is so much drier – then dropped down to follow the old railway line.

Along the line of the 'Tackeroo'

From the embankment down to the Tackeroo

The 13 mile long ‘tackeroo’ (nobody seems to know where the name came from) was built in 1914/15 to service the army camps, stores and POW camp on Cannock Chase. The line was built south from Milford Station on the LNWR mainline (now the West Coast Line), climbed onto the Chase through the cutting we had just used, then followed the high ground along the western edge of the Sherbook Valley. At the head of the valley, it turned east, branching out to service the various camps. The southern end ran from the Hednesford colliery siding onto the Chase via Brindley Valley. The lines met a few hundred metres south of the point now known as Rifle Range Corner.

Along the line of the Tackeroo - the western edge of the Sherbrook Valley

I have walked this path dozens of times, but never before noticed the relentless nature of the upward gradient from the cutting. The rise is roughly 70m over 2+km - persistent if hardly steep - and my memory tells me I have previously sprung up it like a gazelle (though memory is a treacherous beast). I would like to blame the exercise I have not had during the recent lockdown but I am also acutely aware of having ‘enjoyed’ a milestone birthday since I was last here ‘Maybe it’s the time of year, or maybe it's the time of man’ as Joni Mitchell pondered in a totally different context 50 years ago. Francis dropped back to walk with me. ‘I’ve slowed down a lot over the last few months,’ he said ruefully.

Down to the Sher Brook for Coffee then up to Rifle Range Corner

Almost as soon as it flattened out, we turned down into the valley.

Starting the descent into the Sherbrook Valley

Cannock Chase is remarkably well drained, as befits a 200m high pile of pebbles, but rainfall has been plentiful of late so it is not entirely mud free, and if your confident stride hits a patch of slippery mud, you can be precipitated onto your backside. Fortunately, Anne is made of stern stuff, and rose as quickly as she had descended, muddied but unbowed.

This far up the valley the stream has largely disappeared, but a bridge – or channel from the Chase’s obscure industrial past – crosses the stream bed between a marshy section and a pond. It was a good spot to pause for coffee.

Taking Coffee across the streambed, Sherbrook Valley

With good weather, and a dearth of alternative entertainment under Tier 3 rules, the Chase was busy with walkers and mountain bikers. A pair of dog walkers stopped by the pond, threw a ball into the water and their charge bounded in and swam across to retrieve it. And repeat. And again, several times. We had a grandstand view; questions were asked about the dog and a conversation developed. I have never liked dogs (I am not the only one, but people rarely admit it) and I thought this continual jumping into cold muddy water to fetch something that had been thrown away, went some way to explaining why.

There was no plan from here (in pre-Covid days Francis always knew where we were going) so a decision was necessary. Walking back along the other side of the brook to the Stepping Stones was universally agreed to be too short, while Lee’s suggestion of walking to Rifle Range Corner, down Abraham’s Valley to Seven Springs and back to the Stepping Stone felt over-ambitious. A compromise of Rifle Range Corner and then finding a route west of Abraham’s Valley was accepted, though no-one claimed knowledge of the paths in that area.

Reaching Rifle Range Corner involved walking further up the valley, then turning left up a well-marked path, initially on the Heart of England Way, to where a minor road makes a sharp bend. This is the closest tarmac to the remains of the First World War rifle range, hence the somewhat grandiose name for an otherwise undistinguished spot.

Rifle Range Corner to Cherrytree Slade

We briefly followed the wide path from the corner towards the range,...

Leaving Rifle Range Corner

...and after a couple of leftish turns found ourselves in unfamiliar territory, even to those who regard the Chase as an extension of their back gardens. A stop and a think was called for. Lee had an opinion, 'left' if the picture is to be believed, Francis had an opinion, the rest of us shrugged.

Lee wants to go left - others look less interested

Once their discussion had coalesced into a single opinion, Francis raised another issue. Pointing to a bird standing on the path we were not taking he asked. ‘Is that a crow or is it big enough to be a raven?’ Lee joined the shruggers this time and we set off down the agreed path. The bird immediately lifted itself into the air, flew over us and croaked as only a raven can.

The path took us onto the ridge between the Sherbrook and Abraham’s Valleys. Despite the number of walkers elsewhere we had the ridge to ourselves though there is no obvious reason why few people come this way. Observing the Sherbrook Valley from the ‘wrong’ side, only the pattern of paths was different making it strangely familiar, yet unfamiliar.

The Sherbrook Valley from the 'wrong' side

Down Cherrytree Slade to the Stepping Stones

At the end of the ridge, Cherrytree Slade led us among silver birches.

Cherrytree Slade

As we descended, the sonorous rasp of the raven followed us into the valley, as if labouring a point. Mike and I wandered along at the back looking at the subtle colours among the bracken and winter trees. The Chase offers a range of muted hues while winter in the White Peak tends to the monochrome.

Beside Cherrytree Slade

The Stepping Stones and to the End of the Walk

We reached the valley floor and a few hundred metres later arrived at the Stepping Stones. After the recent rain there had been speculation that the water might be higher than the stones, but not so. We had seen almost nobody for some time but this point is a magnet for families – small children find the stones and flowing stream irresistible.

The Stepping Stones have featured in most of these walks and I have almost made a virtue out of no longer photographing them, but I should have done this year. Never mind, here is the 2016 picture, little has changed except Lee’s hat.

Crossing the Sherbrook at the Stepping Stones in 2016

Over the brook we took the path to the right which turns away from the stream, rounds Harts Hill and then a left takes you back up to the The Cutting.

And so the walk ended where it had begun. Lee informed us he had taken some 18,000 steps, no doubt a satisfactory total, and Francis later calculated we had walked 12km in not much over three hours - good going for an old git, I thought.

Fish 'n' Chips and a Tradition Observed, More or Less

And finally the matter of fish and chips, central to the concept of this walk. We finished before two, when the nearest chippie closes, so fish and chips could be fetched for those who fancied standing round in a cold car park eating rapidly cooling greasy chips from the paper. Mike and I found that prospect resistible, and as Alison and Lynne usually joined us for the pub lunch we headed for our respective homes promising we would continue the tradition from a distance. The Fitzherbert Arms in Swynnerton is currently closed (the joys of Tier 3!) but operates a weekend take-away menu. In the morning Lynne had placed an order for fish and chips, so later, showered and rested, I strolled up to fetch them. And very good they were too (whisper it quietly, but I am not a huge fan of soggy, chip shop chips*) and we could have a drink as well.

Fitzherbert Fish & Chips at home

But next year in the pub!

*Along with my earlier admission of disliking dogs, this finally outs me as a traitorous remoaner who hates everything British. A firing squad is probably too good for me.

The Annual Fish and Chip Walks

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)