Daisy Nook is one of those places that just keeps giving.
It’s the country park that runs through the Medlock Valley and offers 40 hectares of woodland meadows, water ways and a lake.*
And despite having lived in Ashton-Under-Lyne for three years back in the 1970s I had never been, and so, with the sun shining and the weather promising to be good, we ventured there on Sunday.
As ever I should have read up on the place before we went, but instead fell back on that limited knowledge which pretty much started and stopped with the Benjamin Brierley, who wrote about Daisy Nook in a book published in 1859.
But more about him another time.
For now, it was the walk, through Boodle Wood beside the river Medlock, with some stunning views across the valley that occupied us, until we came to the wall, some overturned stones and an entrance which went nowhere.
Clearly what ever lay beyond the ghost entrance had been a significant building, leading me to speculate on a mill or a country home.
As it turned out it was a country home, which shows up on the 1854 and 1894 OS maps for Lancashire as Riversvale Hall.
The maps and pictures show that it was an impressive building set in its own grounds with ornamental paths, a fountain and heaps of trees.
So far I have only dredged up fragments of its story, which suggest it dates from around 1843, was demolished in 1946, and was for a time the home of the Bradbury family and in particular to Kate Bradbury who was a well known and respected Egyptologist.
At which I know that someone will come up with chapter and verse, which will take the story much further.
But for now, that is it, and like countless others we walked over the Valley Bridge and along the path which had once been the carriage approach to the hall and now by degree leads to a section of the Hollinwood Branch of the Ashton-Under-Lyne Canal.
For those with canals running through their blood, this stretch may sadden them, for while there is water still there it is overgrown with vegetation.
It was still in use in 1928 but there after suffered from the general decline in canal usage, and local subsidence, and it “unofficially closed in 1932, although parts of it remained navigable. It was not until 1955 that most of it was officially closed and the short remaining section from the main line at Fairfield Junction was officially closed in 1961.”**
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| Riversvale Hall, 1894 |
My copy of Priestly, tell me that in the 1830s it was used by several collieries along its route with a “collateral cut to Fairbottom Colliery”***
And just north of the water way were the Warmby Wood Colliery and the Copperas House Colliery both of which were bringing up their dark stuff in the 1850s.
We left the canal just as it reached the remains of a set of weirs which led back to the visitors centre.
So, I fully intend to go back, armed with copies of the 1854 and ’94 maps to make sense of this last bit.
But again someone might beat me to it.
In the meantime I shall make contact with who will be able to tell me more about the canal, and will close with a reference to Riversvale Hall by Richard Unwin, which describes the history of the hall.*****
Location; Daisy Nook
Pictures; walking the Medlock Valley, 2021, from the collection of Andtrew Simpson. The Medlock Valley, 1894, from the OS map of Lancashire South, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, https://digitalarchives.co.uk/
*Daisy Nook Country Park, https://www.visitmanchester.com/things-to-see-and-do/daisy-nook-country-park-p85061
**Hollingwood Branch Canal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollinwood_Branch_Canal
***Historical Account of the Navigable Rivers, Canals, and Railways Throughout Great Britain, J Priestley, 1830
****Hollinwood Canal Society, http://www.hollinwoodcanal.co.uk/
***** Riversvale Hall by Richard Unwin. 40pp. A5. 2007. £4.50
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