Started about 3pm bound for nowhere in particular.  Snow had been falling again, and the day was very cold but bright, and well wrapped up (except for headgear, which, as always, was conspicuous by its absence), I soon got as warm as toast.  From Four Lane Ends I sped along to Walkden, then Barton, and the ‘tons’ road.  Towards the latter end of last year, this road got wearisome, so often did we traverse the setts, but now it seemed quite a long time since Tom and I used it.  We call it the ‘tons’ road from the names of the villages it passes through, namely Barton, Flixton, Urmston, Carrington, Partington and Warburton.  From Warburton, I ran along to Heatley, and near that narrow canal bridge on the Broom Edge road, I took a narrow bylane, then a bridle path to Lymm, and then a short run brought me to Thelwall Brook for tea.

Near here is the ‘Pickering Arms’, an old fashioned hostelry.  On two of the beams that run across the front are the words: ‘In the year 923, King Edward the Elder founded a cyty here, and called it Thelwall’.  This Inn, and one or two cottages are all that remain of the ‘cyty’, and the only record of its existence is the notice on the wall.  Be it noted that last year was the 1,000^th anniversary of its ‘foundation’.  I now started for Grappenhall, then took the Warrington – Knutsford road to High Legh, then proceeding along to Broom Edge and the Lymm – Altrincham road.  At Bucklow Hill, I climbed up to St Margaret’s, then Altrincham, Stretford, Barton and so to home at 9.30.

54 miles