Springwater Park
9th August 2012
Journey Length 9.7ml
An adventure to Springwater Park in Radcliffe was on tonight’s agenda. We went along the Bury arm of the canal as we did the previous week, past the old steam crane, and as we did Graham and I wondered who would have been the last person to operate the crane, what his thoughts would have been and when it was. (see Photo Page for pictures)
After a short break here we left the canal and dropped down the path onto Mount Sion road, which we followed until the junction with Pilkington Way where we turned right up towards Radcliffe New road. This was a steady climb up the hill, as we did we were looking out for Springwater Park, but we came across Coronation Park, so we decided to have a quick look around. Up the very steep incline up into the park led us to a small grass area with a children’s play area to our left, we followed a path to the right which led us to the back of the small park, but here we found something that we hadn’t come across previously, a croquet lawn.
We travelled from here along New road until we came to the entrance to Spirngwater Park. Here we followed the path which led us along to the main area of the park, this was not flat and we soon found that it was hard going. As we rounded one bend down a hill we were presented with a up hill challenge, this continued for some 800m until we came to the main car park area from where we looked down into the river valley about 50ft below. Rather than cycle down the grass embankment we continued out of the car park and out the other side up the road, which was a continuous climb for about 500m winding our way up along Springwater Lane passing a small gateway on our left and then along Lily Hill Lane until we came out onto Bury New Road near St Bernadette’s R C Church .
We decided to return to the gate way we had passed to find out where it led. The path soon disappeared into a narrow path which in turn faded out altogether, so we continued heading down hill through the woods, this proved quite tricky because of the branches and mud on the ground. We exited the woods into an area covered in grass and plants which was difficult terrain and we travelled through some areas of deep thick mud, where we came bogged down a couple of times. We eventually came down to the river valley floor and rode off to the right and followed the signs of another path which we followed until we realised it was just taking us around to where we had just come from.
We stopped for a breather here and noticed a large tree leaning over and contemplated if it was to fall which way would we run to avoid it, we both agreed it seemed safer to go towards it because the chances of out running the large branches were slim. As we travelled back along the path we noticed a small seedling standing alone in a small grassed area surrounded by all the plants, a little surreal just there all on its own ( any ideas much appreciated ).
Back in the valley we went along the riverbank of the Irwell travelling back towards Radcliffe, as we did we saw a small island in the centre of the river, continuing along we followed the river bank as far as we could before we rejoined the pathway which led us back to the main road. We retraced our route up to Nob End where we the dropped down and onto the vats and across to Wilson’s Bridge near to Cemetery Road , this bridge has been closed since 2008 because it is unsafe but it is supposed to be being replaced with a new one sometime soon. Over the vats and up passed the locks at Nob End we returned home.
