Sheet 117 – Summer

I’ve been tracking my progress across “Sheet 117” (my local OS Landranger map) for some time now. Here’s an update on my progress last summer.

Summer arrived and June was a scorcher, so I shifted my focus from doorstep rides to loading the car up and exploring rides. It’s always a faff loading up a car and I swear it takes just as long to load and drive out as it does to actually just ride out. I had been eyeing up Bishop Bennet Way, a mixture of bridleways and roads that snakes from Beeston to Whitchurch via Malpas. It is 34 miles in length and was developed by William Bennet (Bishop Bennet to you and me) and the Bishop of Cloyne (evidently lost…) in the late 18th and early 19th Century.

Although new to me, there was plenty of slightly-dated blurb out there on the route, so I was expecting a well matured route to explore. I picked the Tattenhall Ice Cream farm as my base for rides and started exploring what the area had to offer. I initially went anti-clockwise on the route and followed some lovely backroads to the off-road sections. The first section was lovely, classic grass up the middle riding along a dirt road, weaving in and out of some fine countryside. Not a sole to be seen.

Jackpot!

This was going to be a good venture, the evening sun was warm, no flies and some top-quality lanes and bridleways. Why has no-one talked about this? I continue along the track, take on a familiar road and cross over the A41 and head to the next bridleway. This time I’m fighting through some over-grown bushes but no drama, I manage to get through. I continue on a much better gravel section and come to some gates stopping for a brief moment to take in the scenery and the stillness.

A long gravel road is ahead and I make good pace, almost too good as I have to double back on myself. This time it’s overgrown, through dense brush, over a small bridge (that type that is narrow and full of nettles). Stubborn, I press on through the thick stinging brush and get to the point on this type of bridleway where I don’t know whether it’s easier to carry on into the unknown or turn back and get doubly stung!

I press on now pushing the bike in front of me in the hope it will flatten some of the nettles, it sorts of works but sort of doesn’t. Not to worry, the sun is still shining, it’s warm and I’m riding (ok, pushing) bikes, so life is good. Eventually I pop out into a field and the signpost points straight across the field, I double check the map and this confirms it. Feeling naughty I ride straight through the middle still in disbelief that the route is not diverted to the perimeter of the field, I spy some gates up ahead and aim towards them to exit the field. Relieved that the long section is over, I bump into two farmers talking about the day’s work.

They jokingly tell me that I’ve exited the wrong way and by rights, I should go back and head through the thick bush just to the left! They confirmed my thoughts about the bridleway, saying that the council had not been down there for many years to cut it back. Wish I met them at the start. They ask where I am heading to and looked surprised when I tell them my route, they say I won’t make it this evening and I get a bit flustered as maybe I’ve taken too much on for one evening. We check the map to confirm that I’m actually ok timewise, have a longer chat about work/life balance and I set off south.

The gravel roads come thick and fast, some absolute gem of tracks taking me through farm yards, by-passing tucked away private homes and through vast fields. I feel lucky, the dramas of the thick bushes earlier in the evening are soon passed. I decide not to head all the way to Whitchurch but divert off the route towards the Peckforton Estate. I came across one section through a farm that was just not passable, so I retreated, checked the map and took a detour around it. It would be nice if someone took some machinery to the paths once every decade!

Back on familiar territory, I loop around the Peckforton Estate. There are some lovely rolling hills this way and some great gravel roads too, the sun was fading and the chill of the summer evening was setting in on the final descent.

What a ride!

Despite the frustrations of some bridleway sections, I return over that month on several occasions and ‘project the route’. It took a while but I think I manged to get a good loop taking in some of Bishop Bennet’s way and bypassing other sections.

Summer stats: I covered 135 more squares on the map

Words and Pictures - Simon Bryant