This 14-mile section of the Sandstone Trail crosses an ancient landscape of hills, woods and ridges, bookended by two fine old inns
D
eep in the heartland of rural Cheshire, there’s a wind-scoured ridge of sandstone that hides a two-storey cave known as Mad Allen’s Hole. Here, on the flanks of Bickerton Hill, it is said that in the 18th century a heartbroken man called John Harris of Handley lived as a hermit for several decades.
As locations to weather the storm of romantic trauma go, this – I mused as I stood above it on a crisp winter’s day – certainly takes some beating. Offering a panorama of nine counties of England and Wales from its entrance, I could spy the white disc of Jodrell Bank Observatory glistening in the sunlight, while the peaks and troughs of the Clwydian range appeared like a watermark in the distance.
I’d come here, not seeking solitude, but to meet up with Jose, an old friend I’d not seen for nine years, and to try a new walking package dreamed up by two Cheshire pubs along a prime section of the 34-mile (55km) Sandstone Trail between the villages of Tarporley and Malpas. The route follows the Sandstone Ridge, an ancient landscape of escarpments and rolling hills, rising from the Cheshire Plain.
