Greater Manchester Tour – An Occasional Series No. 1 – Bury

The Greater Manchester Tour

When our region entered Tier 2 Covid restrictions, our son Adam agreed to “social bubble” with Caroline and I. When we went into Tier 3 we were advised against travel outside of of our restricted zone, so the three of us decided to go on a tour of discovery of the area. We each selected 3 of the 10 boroughs (Salford missed out, but we will come back to it) , and in turn we will lead a day out exploring an interesting place, or places, in each borough.

Bury – Discovering Ramsbottom

Adam had a day off work today, and on the roll of the dice, I was the one who had to select the first of my 3 boroughs, and I selected Bury, and specifically, the market town of Ramsbottom at the northern tip of the Borough, 4 miles north of Bury.

Travelling time is around 35 minutes each way, though we took longer as we picked up Adam in West Didsbury. It’s an easy drive via the M60 and M66.

Weather – dry when we started out, but fairly heavy showers were never far away once we got north of Manchester!

The nature of our day meant that we broke it into 3 sections. We walked about 6 miles in total. The second and third sections can be easily joined to make a single walk of around 5.5 – 6 miles.

Section 1 – Ramsbottom Town

The first section was a short (wet) stroll round the town, which has many small independent shops, few of which were empty, and a pretty station on the 12.5 mile East Lancashire Railway, a heritage line running steam trains from Heywood to Rawtenstall. The centre of the town features a pleasant church, St Paul’s. Lots of pubs, cafes, and a brewery would make this a lovely place to visit in less restricted times.

Section 2 – The Peel Monument

Sir Robert Peel, the father of modern policing, and prime minister from 1834-35 and 1841-46 was born in Bury in 1788. A monument to him was erected on Harcles Hill (known locally as Holcombe Hill), above Ramsbottom, and was completed in 1852.

There is a small free car park on the B6214 from which we completed a short 1.6 mile round walk. The weather conditions made the views exceptionally spectacular, so no commentary is really needed!

And So To Lunch

Very enjoyable – good food, good beer, good company! Trip Advisor reviews are a bit mixed, I think because they can get too busy, which wasn’t the case on this Tuesday lunchtime.

Section 3 – Nuttall

We drove round to another free car park, and set off south on the Irwell Sculpture Trail, We saw no sculptures! The map shows the Peel Tower and this morning’s walk start point, so plenty of options for a single walk joining the two.

The first half of this walk was delightful, passing over the swollen River Irwell and between Brooksbottoms and the main road. The rest was mainly on roads, as we somehow missed the path above Tagg Wood. A longer round walk over Holcombe Hill and back to Nuttall via the town centre would make an excellent “half-day walk”!

Here’s some pictures of the pretty section.

And a last view across the park to the Peel Monument…

And Finally…..

No music in the car today, so I thought it would be nice to capture this week’s great good news story, with the short classical piece by Paul Harvey the 80 year old former music teacher living with dementia.