Congleton to Scholar Green via Mow Cop

The first item to be noticed on leaving Congleton is the aqueduct that I found yesterday and the renovated warehouse that is now inhabited and very good it looks too.

This is now Moorhen country.  Hadn't seen them for some time. Must have been scared off by the Canada geese.

Opps - passing a load of moored boats and where else are you likely to come across another boat heading in the opposite direction.

Time to look for a mooring and a walk to Mow Cop.

The way to Mow Cop is over the West Coast Main line and happily for me there is a tunnel under the track. From here on the footpath is well signposted and very easy to follow.

It is all up hill but the occasional glance backwards makes it worth while.

Plenty of berries out on the bushes. Not sure what they are but if you are into free food .....

Brilliant views back to the Pennines.

The last lap with a glimpse of the folly appearing on the right.

The Old Man of Mow is a gritstone pillar over 20m high, left standing as the stone around it was quarried away. Stone from here was used to build the church and grammar school at Sandbach.

Traces of a prehistoric camp have been found here, but in 1754, Randle Wilbraham of nearby Rode Hall built an elaborate summerhouse looking like a medieval fortress and round tower.

The name is first recorded as "Mowel" around 1270 AD. It is believed to have come from either:

• Anglo-Saxon Mūga-hyll = "heap-hill", with copp = "head" added later
• The Common Celtic ancestor of Welsh moel (= hill), with Anglo-Saxon copp added later.

Evidence is still there of the use of the stone to make millstones.

At its summit men had quarried stone to make into querns used for milling corn since the Iron Age; this trade ended in the Victorian period.

Mow Cop is noteworthy as the birthplace of the Primitive Methodist movement. Starting in 1800, Hugh Bourne from Stoke-on-Trent andWilliam Clowes from Burslem began holding open-air prayer meetings. On 31 May, 1807 a large 14-hour camp meeting was held and as a result the Primitive Methodist Church was formed in 1810. These camp meetings became a regular feature at Mow Cop and camps were also held to celebrate the 100th and 150th anniversaries of the first camp.

The view from here does right across to the mountains of Wales.

I climbed up to the part of Mow Cop that had been used as a summer house and on the top step found a set of keys that had been dropped by the last visitor.  Whoever had dropped them would be having a problem as they contained house and car keys.  I left them with the bungalow below the building.

The walk back is much more interesting with wonderful views all the way down to the canal.

The view from the stern having moved on to Scholar Green on the way to the junction.  Mow Cop stands out very clearly on the mountain top.

The view from the bows is of the public house that is just over the field.