Day 23 - Monday 27th April. It was dull and drizzly as Annona drove us back to Marford, but hey, it makes a change! The day was to be mostly on streets and lanes over the level north Cheshire countryside - a lot easier but less scenic than recently. We walked along the B5445 out of Marford, then through a few villages lying to the west of the Duke of Westminster's estate. A lot of houses were painted black and white with rather gothic windows, but not very old, that seems to have been a local style. We turned onto a long straight country lane to Eccleston, a pretty brick village just south of Chester. Here we could see that we had left the limestone behind and were back onto an old red sandstone geology as we passed through a cutting; this rock has been used to build many of the cities in the West of Britain, and Chester is no exception.
The entry to Chester was on another straight country lane, then along pleasant streets with some very impressive houses: there seems to be a lot of money in this part of the world judging by the homes and the tidy state of the countryside. This as my first visit to Chester, and I enjoyed the real and mock-tudor architecture - although there are a lot of original tudor buildings, in Victorian times, much of the city centre was re-developed in a tudor style. We had a sandwich in a pub and took a bit of time to look around this attractive city, then set off northward through less prosperous suburban streets. There followed a long walk along lanes and a main road towards Helsby, but then decided to take a more scenic route to the east. There was another long lane walk to a range of hills, where we joined the Sandstone Trail: this was well marked and very pleasant, winding through the fields and woods and worth the few miles xtra on our day. In the last mile, the route started to rise, and we climbed up and up to about 450 feet before it levelled out. Then the signpost pointed to a further short sharp climb and some steep steps, or an easier route to the left. We made a bad mistake in taking the latter as we were, in fact, within a few hundred yards of the hotel we would be staying at. However the easy path took us downhill to the village of Frodsham (where we thought we would be staying) whilst the hotel was right at the top of the hill. So we descended to Frodsham, doing a circuit of the hill and woods and then had to climb steeply once more to arrive half an hour later at the hotel! We were very annoyed with ourselves - the end of the day practical joke again. The Beatles and lots of other Liverpool groups played in the club that used to be at this venue apparently and we had dinner with a spectacular view overlooking the Mersey river and the towns and factories along it.
The entry to Chester was on another straight country lane, then along pleasant streets with some very impressive houses: there seems to be a lot of money in this part of the world judging by the homes and the tidy state of the countryside. This as my first visit to Chester, and I enjoyed the real and mock-tudor architecture - although there are a lot of original tudor buildings, in Victorian times, much of the city centre was re-developed in a tudor style. We had a sandwich in a pub and took a bit of time to look around this attractive city, then set off northward through less prosperous suburban streets. There followed a long walk along lanes and a main road towards Helsby, but then decided to take a more scenic route to the east. There was another long lane walk to a range of hills, where we joined the Sandstone Trail: this was well marked and very pleasant, winding through the fields and woods and worth the few miles xtra on our day. In the last mile, the route started to rise, and we climbed up and up to about 450 feet before it levelled out. Then the signpost pointed to a further short sharp climb and some steep steps, or an easier route to the left. We made a bad mistake in taking the latter as we were, in fact, within a few hundred yards of the hotel we would be staying at. However the easy path took us downhill to the village of Frodsham (where we thought we would be staying) whilst the hotel was right at the top of the hill. So we descended to Frodsham, doing a circuit of the hill and woods and then had to climb steeply once more to arrive half an hour later at the hotel! We were very annoyed with ourselves - the end of the day practical joke again. The Beatles and lots of other Liverpool groups played in the club that used to be at this venue apparently and we had dinner with a spectacular view overlooking the Mersey river and the towns and factories along it.
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