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Download mp3 of 'A Guided walk with a Park Ranger Track 5'
The text below is a transcript of Track 5 of the walk.
Well I hope you feel refreshed now, I do. Lets go on.
Now as we leave the viewpoint turn left down the main path keeping the fence on our left.
On the left out on the plain we can see Macclesfield Canal one of the last to be built in Britain and Thomas Telford has had his hand in its construction The company went into receivership shortly after the canal was opened as its construction of the railway closely followed it. However it has left us with the heritage of some remarkable bridges and one of the most beautiful canals in Britain. Walking down here you get view out over the Country Park and on the slopes bushes of gorse.
Now Gorse was probably introduced as animal fodder, and I know you are going to find this hard to believe. But it was ground up and fed to animals. The old Country saying is typical of course that you can only kiss a girl when the Gorse is in flower. Well there is no need to hold yourself back here as the gorse is generally in flower somewhere on the site all the year round. But it is definitely at its loveliest in the summer with the pods popping and the insect eating birds making hay in the bushes.
On the left is the way down to Langley and it is the Gritstone trail, the long distance trail that Cheshire County Council manage. It's now 35 miles long and stretches from Kidsgrove to Disley and goes through the most enchanting and at times challenging countryside in Cheshire, but that’s for another day.
If you visit the park in summer, you’ll see the meadow on your left, yellow with tiny mountain pansy flowers, although the flower flourishes in this meadow, it’s quite an unusual flower in Cheshire and it’s considered fairly rare and it’s a relative of the pansy. Quarry workers used to play football on this field at dinner time, needless to say, it’s now called the football field.
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