Sixteen of us today, including four visitors, two from Mid-Staffs, one from East Cheshire and one from the Chester area. The weather behaved itself with a little sunshine now and again, just a few spots of rain here and there and with the strong winds of Storm Amy easing down somewhat. The walk from Haslington was seven miles long and took in Slaughter Hill, which didn’t look anything much like a hill but was the site where in December 1642 some Parliamentarian and Royalist troops decided to have a good set to, with the outcome being the nearby brook flowing red with blood by all accounts. We moved on to and through Crewe Golf Club crossing fairways up to the small nature area at (the now deserted) Hall O’ the Heath farm. Field paths and tracks took us to an early lunch overlooking Winterley Pool (Group photo) where we sat on benches on the dam itself, it being built in 1769 to create the pool with water coming in at the far end From Fowle Brook. The pool was created to provide a source of power for the corn mill that was built at the same time as the dam. In 1998 the mill and outbuildings but not the mill house were demolished and the modern houses were built in 2000.
Derek Lowe
