Now this is not a walk I could have done given that it was featured in the Manchester Guardian way back March 1889.
It was one of several “Summer Rambles round Manchester” which Mr Alfred Rimmer offered up but reading the opening paragraph would have made me join him on that March day.
“Stalybridge – or as it was spelled until recent times Staleybridge-lies on the borders of Cheshire and Lancashire, in the district of picturesque beauty and grandeuer.
The spires of the Pennine Range envelop it, and this is the high ridge which has been called the Backbone of England. It affords us in different places views of panoramic landscape which are not to be excelled by any scenery in any country.”
Well I don’t think any of us could better that claim and that was just the start.
Mr Rimmer went on to praise Stamford Park which I have often visited, and Staley Hall which I haven’t.
I doubt many will recognise his description of the Hall which “is a gabled building that dates back to the time of Elizabeth and is now occupied as a farmhouse. Webb speaks of it as a ‘fine old manor’ and the incumbent of St Paul’s as a ‘house of five gables with three bands or course along the front making it three storey.
The site was selected with excellent care and taste. It stands on an eminence which rises abruptly from the plain, clothes of old with wide spreading oaks, while it was watered on one side by the bright Tame and on another by the sparkling rivulet Swineshaw Brook.
In one direction it commanded an extensive view of the wood of Stayley, and in another it looked up into the romantic valley of the Brushes, a rural scene which taken together cannot be easily surpassed.’"
And that is all I have to say, other than we did our walks through the summers of 1974 to 1976, enjoyed the park along with some of the spectacular views, but never made it to the Hall, which I guess does not qualify us for a rambling badge or an entry into Guide Books of Stalybridge.
Picture; Brushes Valley, from the series Stalybridge, produced by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/
*SUMMER RAMBLES ROUND MANCHESTER: STALYBRIDGE, Manchester Guardian, March 26 1889
“Stalybridge – or as it was spelled until recent times Staleybridge-lies on the borders of Cheshire and Lancashire, in the district of picturesque beauty and grandeuer.
The spires of the Pennine Range envelop it, and this is the high ridge which has been called the Backbone of England. It affords us in different places views of panoramic landscape which are not to be excelled by any scenery in any country.”
Well I don’t think any of us could better that claim and that was just the start.
Mr Rimmer went on to praise Stamford Park which I have often visited, and Staley Hall which I haven’t.
I doubt many will recognise his description of the Hall which “is a gabled building that dates back to the time of Elizabeth and is now occupied as a farmhouse. Webb speaks of it as a ‘fine old manor’ and the incumbent of St Paul’s as a ‘house of five gables with three bands or course along the front making it three storey.
The site was selected with excellent care and taste. It stands on an eminence which rises abruptly from the plain, clothes of old with wide spreading oaks, while it was watered on one side by the bright Tame and on another by the sparkling rivulet Swineshaw Brook.
In one direction it commanded an extensive view of the wood of Stayley, and in another it looked up into the romantic valley of the Brushes, a rural scene which taken together cannot be easily surpassed.’"
And that is all I have to say, other than we did our walks through the summers of 1974 to 1976, enjoyed the park along with some of the spectacular views, but never made it to the Hall, which I guess does not qualify us for a rambling badge or an entry into Guide Books of Stalybridge.
Picture; Brushes Valley, from the series Stalybridge, produced by Tuck & Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, http://tuckdb.org/
*SUMMER RAMBLES ROUND MANCHESTER: STALYBRIDGE, Manchester Guardian, March 26 1889
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