Shutlingsloe and Danebridge: Cowpat Walk No. 5

A Circular Walk in the Peak District Based on Shutlingsloe Hill

Cheshire

Cheshire East

It is over an hour’s drive from Stone to the Hanging Gate, an isolated pub on the minor road that runs from the A54 to the Macclesfield Forest. East of this road the farmland drops away before rising to Piggford Moor topped by the bulk of Shutlingsloe, our target for the morning, while to the west is the Cheshire plain, the view extending from the huge telescope of Jodrell Bank in the south to the distant silhouette of the Fiddler’s Ferry power station over thirty miles away in the north.

Francis & Alison are ready to set off, The Hanging Gate, near Macclesfield Forest

The Hanging Gate to Macclesfield Forest

The sun shone as we walked north to the Macclesfield Forest, first on the minor road from the Hanging Gate, then on an even smaller road past the hamlet of Hardings.

Hardings

Reaching the forest we turned east through the trees, mainly larch, spruce and pine though with patches of beech and sycamore. Some areas have been clear felled - it is a commercial forest - and parts of these are being replanted with oak and ash.

Into the Macclesfield Forest

We could see the wide track we wanted rising steeply towards the moors, but our path seemed to be taking an eccentric route to join it, so we set off on a more direct, unofficial but apparently well-trodden path. It petered out, as these things often do, but we persevered, crashing through the underbrush and across a streambed. Ducking under the branches of a hawthorn bush, I came to an unexpected stop. A sizable thorn had hooked my shirt at the back of my neck and I was left ensnared in the vegetation as Francis and Alison disappeared into the distance. For a while I wriggled ineffectually but, as Alison returned to see if she could help, I finally managed to unhitch myself. I had a large hole in my best tee-shirt (and I’ve only had it ten years) and the freed branch lashed across my forearm leaving several deep scratches. [Update August 2017: Leaving a scar I must now regard as permanent!]

Up to Piggford Moor

We reached the path and slogged up it towards Piggford Moor. I am not entirely clear on our route as the paths on the ground failed to match those on the map, which is not unusual in forests. It mattered not as the relevant junctions were signed and we finally joined the single path across the moor towards Shutlingsloe.

Up towards Piggford Moor

Even in sunshine Piggford Moor is a desolate and boggy place. The National Park authorities have laid flags along the path to prevent erosion and keep it from spreading ever wider as walkers seek out firm ground. It also stops boots from trampling across the nature reserve. The moor does have an austere beauty, but I would seriously question the judgement of any species that chose to make it their home.

Onto Piggford Moor

Up and Down Shutlingsloe

Shutlingsloe had been out of sight since we started walking but now loomed up ahead of us. According to Wikipedia it is, at 506m, the third highest peak in Cheshire – was ever a hill so damned with faint praise? It sits on the ridge of Piggford Moor looking like a huge earthwork; only from close to is its rocky nature obvious. Constructed of alternate layers of mudstone and gritstone it has, like The Cloud in Cowpat 4, a cap of Chatsworth grit though, unlike the Cloud’s sloping cap, Shutlingsloe’s is, if not horizontal, at least a little flatter. The ascent is made up of a series of partly natural rocky steps, some of them large enough to require the use of hands as well as feet - at least for those with arthritic knees.

Shutlingsloe

From the top there is a fine view across the Cheshire Plain, with the Roaches and Ramshaw Rocks to the south, Macclesfield Forest to the north and Shining Tor (Cheshire’s highest peak!) to the north east.

The summit, Shutlingsloe

Even on a fine day it is a windswept spot so we walked a few metres off the summit for coffee and I took the opportunity to wash my arm. The hawthorn scratch had left a thick smear of blood around my watch strap, suggesting to the casual observer that I was enjoying the day so much I had slit my wrist.

Coffee stop just off the summit, Shutlingsloe

According to folk wisdom high flying swallows are a sign of good weather. I have difficulty believing that swallows are capable of meteorological forecasting, but if their altitude merely tells us that the weather is already warm, why bother observing the swallows? This has troubled me for years. A swallow flew past at head height, clearly flying low, four flaps further on it was 100m above the surrounding moorland, clearly flying high. What can this mean? Below us Francis spotted a kestrel gliding easily across the hillside scanning the ground for the slightest movement – some actions are easier to interpret.

Down into Wildboarclough

To the east the land drops directly into Wildboarclough, making the descent both steeper and much longer than the ascent. Without my poles I would have struggled to make it down to the farm track, along which we made a gentle descent into the depths of the valley.....

Finally a gentle descent into Wildboarclough

...pausing only for the mandatory photograph of botanical interest.

Foxgloves beside the track into Wildboarclough

We reached Clough Brook, walking beside it for a while before crossing it to cut off a bend and then re-crossing it to reach a minor road which we followed south to and across the A54.

Clough Brook

The Valley of the River Dane

Leaving the minor road we made for the confluence of the River Dane and Clough Brook.

The valley of the River Dane

Although there was only one path on the map the track split, an old sign pointing down the lower branch and a brand new one directing us to the higher branch. We followed the new sign, partly because its newness, partly because the map suggested we should keep high on the valley side. For a few hundred metres we followed the track in and out of the gorse, round (and through) a thicket or two and then it petered out.

In and out of the gorse....

Making a small downhill exploration Francis spotted a marker post a little lower in the valley and we made our way down to it. A very clear trail led downwards and Francis set off along it. A fainter track contoured along the valley side and Alison stood on that and wondered. I walked back to the marker post. The arrow pointed back the way we had come, but as there was no path there I suspected Alison was on the right track. Francis, though, was confidently striding down the most obvious path and as he is never wrong I shut up and followed him, and so did Alison.

The wide, clear path led us several hundred metres along the side of the valley before coming to a full stop at a wire fence. There was nothing for it but to climb straight up the valley side, the abundant boot marks in the steep slope suggesting we were not the first to make this mistake.

It was ten minutes’ hard slog (well, maybe five but it felt like fifteen) up to the opening in the fence on the correct path. We followed the path high above the river to Bottomley Farm and then through a small wood where a footbridge crossed Hog Clough. We emerged in the village of Danebridge, a long way above the bridge but, more importantly, right beside the Ship Inn. After a long morning’s walk it was nearer to 2 o’clock than 1 and the pub was a very welcome sight.

The Ship at Danebridge

The Ship, Danebridge

I have visited the Ship several times over the years on various walks – though none previously in this blog – and have often wondered why a pub as far from the coast as is possible in this island is called The Ship. We ordered sandwiches and soup and a couple of pints of JW Lees bitter and let Michael, the cheerful and informative landlord explain. Danebridge, he told us, was once a stopping point on a drovers’ road and shippen is a dialect word for a drovers’ shelter, a two story building with animals quartered below and people above. Over the years the ‘shippen’ had become 'The Ship', though the pub itself, built from stone recycled from the local monastery after dissolution in the 1530s, is far too grand a building ever to have been a shippen itself.

Michael, the cheerful and informative landlord, The Ship, Danebridge

The building's use as a pub predates the ship on the inn sign, partly hidden by vegetation, by two hundred years. This vessel is the Nimrod, Ernest Shackleton’s ship that was crushed by antarctic ice in 1907. The pub was once part of the estate of nearby Swythamley Hall, seat of the Brocklehurst family, and Sir Philip Brocklehurst, the second baronet, was on the Shackleton expedition. In the 1970s the Brocklehurst family- like several of our footpaths - petered out . The pub was sold separately from the Shackleton memorabilia it then housed, and the sign is now the only connection with early 20th century heroics.

North to The Hanging Gate via Hammerton Farm

The afternoon’s walk was appropriately brief, a mere 5km almost due north. It may have been short but the first 4km were almost all uphill – though not too steeply. From Danebridge at around 200m we reached a high point of 382m on the road south of the Hanging Gate.

We started with a gentle climb over pasture land, before dropping down to re-cross Hog Clough 400m upstream from our earlier crossing. It was a warm afternoon and the streamside vegetation clung on to the heat and exuded humidity. It was a relief to return to more open land climbing up to Hammerton Farm.

Towards Hammerton Farm

We continued along a small swale which led us onto more open land rising up to the A54. Across the main road the path rounded the low protuberance of Brown Hill before bringing us out on the road to the HangingGate.

Between Hammerton Farm and the A54

The walk finished with a kilometre and a half on tarmac along the ridge we had driven up at the start. Shutlingsloe came back into view, first poking its head over the farmland to the east.......

Shutlingsloe pokes its head above the famland

.......then gradually rising above it until finally, as we passed the high point on the road, we had a fine view of the hill and its surrounding moorland.

Shutlingsloe and Piggford Moor

Despite the heat I thought I was keeping up a good pace, but I started to lag behind Francis and Alison who reached the car about a hundred metres ahead of me. Then they had wait, because I had the keys.

I seem to be flagging

Approx Distance: 15 km

The Cowpats

1 Ironbridge Gorge

2 Eccleshall and Cop Mere

3 Swynnerton to Whitmore

4 Biddulph, The Cloud and Rushton Spencer

5 Shutlingsloe and Danebridge

6 Crowdecote
7 Scaling the Mighty Weaver Hills

 8 Morridge and Onecote
9 Codsall
10 The Roaches and Lud's Church

Street Chess in Armenia, Bosnia and Vietnam

Chess and its Variants are Played in Every Country - and in Any Space

I am not much of a chess player. I can usually beat the computer on Microsoft Chess Titans at level 2, which probably puts me at the level of a very average ten-year-old. Nor do I wander round the world looking for chess players to photograph, but when they fall into my lap......

Gyumri, Armenia

Armenia's second city Gyumri, formerly Leninakan (and before that Alexandropol, and before that Gyumri) is situated in the northern highlands some 130 km from the capital Yerevan. We visited in 2002, 14 years after the city was devastated by an earthquake that forced Mikhail Gorbachev to cut short his visit to London. Damaged buildings were easy to find and there were still people living in shipping containers. Worse, we saw several relief projects that had been abandoned when the money ran out, and there were signs that some foreign donors (Americans, to be precise) had been more interested in rebuilding churches than rehousing people.

A game of chess,Gyumri, Armenia

These chess players were sitting on a wall at the edge of a street near the city centre, completely absorbed in their game and oblivious to passers-by.

Sarajevo, Bosnia

This oversized chess board is in Trg Oslobodenja (Liberation Square), the centre of Sarajevo's Austro-Hungarian quarter. Whenever we went past a game was in progress and there was always a crowd of people watching - and advising. How they decide who gets to play we never discovered.

Trg Oslobodenja, Sarajevo, Bosnia

Sarajevo went through hell in the 1990s. The stylised, bloodless form of warfare that is chess is a vast improvement.

Can Tho, Vietnam

Chinese chess, or Xianqi, is a closely related game. Each player has a general and soldiers, advisors, elephants, horses, cannons and chariots who all have different moves. The 'board' is often made of cloth, plastic or even paper and can be unrolled anywhere. The game is widely played and can be seen in any park or open space in China, and even in the street.

And it is not just played in China....

Chinese chess, Can Tho, Mekong delta

...Chinese chess is also played in Vietnam. These two were deep in concentration on a street corner in Can Tho, the largest city in the Mekong delta.

Ilkley and The Box Tree

Driving the few miles from Bolton Abbey to Ilkley took us out of North Yorkshire and the Dales National Park and into the City of Bradford - at least that is what the sign said; the rolling green fields and dry stone walls did not look like anybody’s idea of Bradford or any other city.

Ilkley looks and feels like the country town it is. Athough it is an ancient settlement pre-dating the Domesday Book, modern Ilkley is largely a result of its development as a Victorian spa town. As a spa it never attained the grandeur of nearby Harrogate, but it did all right. The famous moor (visiting is inadvisable without appropriate headgear - or bah t’at as the locals are alleged to say) rises to the south of the town.

Ilkley Moor rises to the south of the town

Older buildings include the Manor House, now an art gallery, which is set back from the main road.

The Manor House, Ilkley

All Saint’s Church is a largely Victorian construction, though there has been a house of worship on the site since the 7th century. The three Saxon crosses which once stood outside but were moved into the church in 1860 are particularly impressive.


All Saint's, Ilkley

Ilkley is a foodie town featuring, among other attractions, a branch of Betty’s Tearooms (a delight so far unsavoured), a serious fishmonger’s and Lishman’s butcher's shop. David Lishman, one of Rick Stein’s food heroes, has twice won the national sausage championship so, inevitably, we went home with a kilo of sausages and a slab of black pudding. Pre-eminent, though, is the Box Tree which, in 1977, was one of the first restaurants in Britain to gain two Michelin stars. Fortunes have varied and stars have been lost and gained over the years but in its present incarnation under chef/owner Simon Gueller it has held a Michelin star since 2005. Marco Pierre White served his apprenticeship at the Box Tree and became a partner in the business in 2010.

[Update: At the start of 2018 Simon Gueller decided to let go of the reins in the kitchen and appointed Kieran Smith head chef and in October the Michelin inspectors took away their star. The decision was a surprise to many and a great disappointment to Gueller who said he had every faith in Kieran Smith, but the two parted company soon after. In September 2019, two head chefs later, Simon and Rena Gueller put the restaurant up for sale. In 2020 just before the arrival of Covid-19 they changed their minds. They did sell later in the year. Adam Frontal is now the owner, Kieran Smith is the head chef and they are operating a fine dining restaurant with a modern French style.]

The building was constructed in the 1720s, and if the décor does not quite date from that time, it has been criticised as being old-fashioned and stuffy. I think ‘retro’ is a better word, and we found it relaxed and comfortable rather than stuffy.



The Box Tree, Ilkley

Rejecting the Menu Gourmande as being more than we could eat and the Menu de Jour as rather tame, we went for the à la carte which offered an amuse-bouche and four or five choices for each course. The style leans heavily towards classic French resulting in a menu of tortured Franglais. English may lack words for velouté, terrine or foie gras (fat liver? Perhaps not) but ‘paupiette of squab pigeon’ was not the only uncomfortable linguistic juxtaposition.

The amuse-bouche, velouté de topinambour, came only in French. Although my French is modest I thought my menu French was pretty good but I had to ask about topinambour. It is, I learned, Jerusalem artichoke - so why not say so? Two huge bowls arrived with an amuse-bouche sized depression in the middle containing several small cubes of artichoke and a tiny heap of grated parmesan. The velouté was poured on top. The ratio of china to food was absurd, but the rich flavour of the velouté and the wonderfully old-socky parmesan made that a forgivable eccentricity.

The scallops in Lynne’s starter were, of course, ‘hand-dived’. I doubt it does anything for the flavour, but we appreciated the nod towards sustainability. They were huge and meaty, not necessarily the ideal texture for a scallop, but well flavoured, as these giants sometimes are not. The broad beans had been peeled (the sine qua non of fine dining!) but it was the slices of rich and powerful summer truffles which made the dish. The accompanying glass of unoaked Australian chardonnay was undistinguished.

The menu prominently featured foie gras and dishes à la Perigordine. Two foie gras dishes would have been over the top, but two Perigord inspired dishes seemed a good idea so I started with the terrine of Perigord foie gras with a salad of smoked eel and granny smith apple.

The slab of foie gras was generous in size and everything I could have wished for. The tiny sticks of smoked eel arranged around it were a fine counterpoint and the apple, in tiny cubes and blobs of purée, did the same for the eel. The tiny green/red leaves scattered around allowed it to be called a salad but were mainly for decoration.

The dish came, for a price, with a small glass of Monbazillac. Monbazillac may be Sauternes’ poor relation, but although this example* lacked the honeyed quality of a top Sauternes, it was intensely sweet and possessed an acidity which sliced elegantly through the fattiness of the foie gras. I know there are ethical issues with foie gras; my excuse is that it is a traditional food and that I eat it very rarely. I suspect this is an inadequate justification, but Victorian writer and clergyman Sydney Smith’s idea of heaven was ‘eating foie gras to the sound of trumpets.’ I would merely swap the trumpets for a glass of Monbazillac.


Lynne’s main course – paupiettes of squab pigeon - also contained foie gras. The small legs were swiftly devoured, the paupiettes, two of them wrapped in Alsace bacon, were large and rich, indeed so large and rich she could not finish them; fortunately I was on hand to help. The petit pois à la Francais were undercooked for Lynne’s taste and the stock they were cooked in had become overly sweet as it reduced.

My fillet of beef (à la Perigordine, of course) was a wonderful piece of meat. Striking a balance between tenderness and texture while maintaining a full flavour is a difficult trick but was performed to perfection. The petits legumes (surely ‘baby vegetables’ would have done) involved several tiny, tiny turnips and the inevitable broad beans (they are in season as a glance at our vegetable patch confirms). They came with a Madeira sauce, which was sweet, as Madeira sauce will be, but not too sweet.

A wine from Perigord, or around, seemed appropriate, and my search of the extensive wine list came up with Domaine Capmartin from Madiran, a bit further south west, but near enough. Tasting it before the main course arrived, the tannin drowned out all other flavours, but drinking it with the food revealed booming fruit and unexpected subtleties. I was pleased with the choice.

I am not a great fan of desserts; once sugar becomes involved other flavours tend to back off and let it dominate. I can often be seduced by pineapples or pistachios, but on this occasion found myself opting for millefeuille of raspberries with lemon curd and elderflower. It was, without doubt, as pretty a dessert as I have ever seen, three roundels of pastry separated by henges of raspberries encircling the elderflower and lemon curd cream. It was a shame to break it up and eat it, but I did. The raspberries were fine, but they were only raspberries, the pastry was excellent, but the flavours of lemon curd and elderflower had rather gone missing.

Two very pretty deserts
The Box Tree, Ilkley

Lynne’s iced apricot parfait with apricot ice-cream and an almond biscuit was pretty, if not as pretty as my millefeuille. It delivered full-on apricot flavour (not my favourite, but that is my problem) and Lynne declared herself well satisfied. They were both good desserts, maybe very good desserts but not great desserts, which are rare indeed and must be sprinkled with magic powder as well as icing sugar.

Back in the lounge we enjoyed coffee and petits fours, delivered by tweezers from a wooden box resembling an antique medicine chest. The coffee was disappointing, but a glass of Remy Martin brought a fine evening to an appropriate conclusion.



Petits fours in the lounge
The Box Tree, Ilkley

In Ludlow last year I was very impressed with La Bécasse which promptly lost its Michelin star. The fault lay, perhaps, in their inexperienced front of house staff rather than the cooking. That will not happen to the Box Tree, where the every aspect of the service oozed professionalism. Pleasingly old-fashioned, both in its décor and its cooking, The Box Tree does not cook sous vide or insert things into baths of liquid nitrogen. It sticks to the French classics and does them very well, which is comforting in this ever changing world. It also a reminder of why they became classics in the first place.

*wines buffs might like to know it came from the respected Bordeaux négociants Borie-Manou

'Fine Dining' posts

Abergavenny and the Walnut Tree (2010)
Ludlow and La Bécasse (2011) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn)
Ilkley and The Box Tree(2012)
Pateley Bridge and the Yorke Arms (2013) (No longer a restaurant, post renamed Parceval Gardens and Pateley Br)
The Harrow at Little Bedwyn (2014)
The Slaughters and the Lords of the Manor (2015)
Loam, Fine Dining in Galway (2016)
Penarth and Restaurant James Sommerin (2017) (restaurant closed, post withdrawn. JS has a new restaurant in Penarth)
The Checkers, Montgomery (2017) (no longer a restaurant, post withdrawn. Now re-opened under new management)
Tyddyn Llan, Llandrillo, Denbighshire (2018)
Fischer's at Baslow Hall, Derbyshire (2019)
Hambleton Hall, Rutland (2021)
The Olive Tree, Queensberry Hotel, Bath (2022)
Dinner at Pensons near Tenbury Wells (2023) (restaurant closed Dec 2023, post withdrawn)
The Cross, Kenilworth (& Kenilworth Castle) 2024