The walk of Sunday the 17th of September, 2023.
It had been much too long since my last outing. So much time had past by since getting incinerated at Belmont that I thought it wise to build up to my next West Pennines wander. Thus my walking for the rest of the year will probably focus on local – Southport walks.
So here was the first, and to be honest it doesn’t get much closer to home that this as I, erm, well set off from home. One of the main landmarks which was a motivation for this walk was the very oddly named London Road. Given that this pathway essentially dissects a field, for the life of me I don’t understand the “London” connection – unless it’s meant to be glib / flippant. Anyway, with ten minutes I was on the main, pathless and pavement-less road known as Birkdale Cop, which of course is in Halsall! Nobody knows where is the centre of Halsall, nobody really knows where it finishes, save to say that when you are somewhere else – you’re not in Halsall anymore! Can you tell it’s in Lancashire as opposed to the less dry-humoured Merseyside? Update: it’s highly likely that the ‘road’ is so named in reference to ‘London Farm’ which is in the same vicinity although quite how that name was derived – well who knows?
I managed to not get killed by the cars flying past at in excess of 50 mph and before long turned right onto a road that is not a road – London Road, yes it really is that close to where I live! It’s been a hell of a long time since I walked along such a path as this, the odd bit of tarmac, a puddle here and there, the obvious signs of farm vehicular activity, it kind of reminded me of Ainsworth’s / Affetside’s Bentley Hall Lane – or Ainsworth Hall Road. Actually it was a really lovely location through which to travel, aided of course by the near ever-present Canada Geese overhead, well it is September.
All too soon I was at the end of the track and turning left onto New Cut Lane – it’s our unofficial racetrack – and a bumpy one at that! Here is a 60 mph single carriageway road – but this time with a decline on either side, in some cases shallow, at other sections you could probably lose a foot or two in altitude – not as severe as “The Moss” but not exactly a bowling green either! The difference between the two main roads is that whereas Birkdale Cop has temporary traffic lights and roadworks to slow the cars down, New Cut Lane relies on the prospect of people not wanting to:
A: Crash and die
B: Kill someone else – some evidence of this was in play today!
C: Total their car as the very road surface turns against them on the straights and inertia attempts to pull them off the road on the corners (of which there are few).
New Cut Lane is a real, grown-up road and one whereby each person traversing its entirety undertakes a silent agreement with the gods of highways! Thankfully I survived the racetrack and turned left onto the nearly always wet Renacres Lane. In reality there’s not much to Renacres Lane, the road is flanked either side by farmland and fields until the first corner where the impressive Shirdley Hill residential centre lies is an impressive, serene looking building, next door to what could be a chapel – there was no obvious name plaque! And as expected, there was a huge puddle covering the entire road-span, I’m now of the mind that this is in fact as residential as the chapel and the water never truly evaporates! It’s funny how what in reality seems like a bendy, corkscrew of a road is represented by a straight line on a map. Whilst not dead straight, the mapped version of this road gives not a hint of the two blind corners, care was taken, not least because around these parts mobile phone signals are about as abundant as skateboarding horses and you just don’t want to need to have someone call an ambulance for you – you’ll probably die! Shirdley Hill fails to be a hamlet – it has a church, Saint Aiden’s, but in all other ways it is most definitely a hamlet and a lovely, insular-looking one where the outsider assumes everyone here is related to one-another or the village squire is on the lookout for new potential bloodlines, sorry it’s just that kind of village! After a couple of hundred metres I went off-road but this time it was the real deal – no pavement, no tarmac, not even any stones, this was effectively a sheep trod, backed up by the witnessing of a large number of feet who were enclosed in some kind of electrified paddock – or whatever sheep’s home domain is called. The ground under foot had taken a turn for the damp but I knew that soon enough I would be back on paving and that with the day being fairly warm – my feet would soon dry. The terminus of this verdant path was marked by Black Brook Bridge – which is quite impressive for a minor road at the edge of obscurity. It’s a real shame that the path doesn’t continue at the other side of the road and follow the Black Brook wherever it next flows through, I think this is goes (comes from) Pool Hey Lane at The Moss having first crept under the A570 in between Carr Cross and Brown Edge – Southport has a lot of water.
Next came the racket that is Southport Road – the A570 and the motorists were out en-masse. I’ve come to hate the sound of busy roads and this is the busiest we have by far, also the fastest moving traffic although the speed limit has been capped to 40 for the most part. I know my walking pace picked up a lot here, I really felt no desire to loiter and to get to Tesco for a drink and a snack as by now the throat was dry and the stomach rumbling loudly and often – I think I’d frightened the sheep away! I pressed on and covered the half mile to the supermarket in less than ten minutes – or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!
From Tesco I purchased two boiled eggs and a delightful Yazoo Vanilla milkshake – with no added sugar…except for what was already in the milk, what with lactose being a sugar and all that! They’re not fooling me. I sat and consumed my ‘lunch’ whilst listening to the odd solitary goose fly over, have I mentioned I love this time of year? Before long I was back on Folkestone Road and at a canter as I wanted to get home for a nice long sit down…
Summary
At a little after 13:00 I did just that delighted with having finally got some walking in after too long away from the hobby / regime. It was a wise move to start low and slow although to be honest I did pick up speed quite quickly and if it wasn’t for my photo taking I’d have taken fifteen minutes from the 2 hours 35 minutes that I’d spent on route. I’m the first to admit that I have not really begun to explore what is my (relatively) new locale, I’m still a bit sore at having lost such easy access to The Moss – although to be fair I think I live closer to Pool Hey Lane so really have no excuses. I’ll see how I can extend this route, after all London Road did have a number of paths joining it, who knows where they could lead!
Time on route: 2 hours 35 minutes
Distance covered: 6.6 miles