A walk in the woods

A weekend in the homelands (otherwise know as Manchester) with the Aged Parents and a Sunday morning walk in the woods around the Styal Estate in Cheshire.

Styal is home to a water powered calico mill, famous for being a well-preserved example of Industrial Revolution technology and purpose-built workers colony.

Quarry Bank Mill, run in the mid-1800s by the Unitarian Greg family, utilised unpaid child labour, frequently the children of the workhouses - and can be toured today, while costumed guides regale you with gruesome tales of fingers lost in satanic machinery and deaths from cotton lung and damp-induced consumption. Ahh, many a happy school trip spent in such a manner.

And it is also a beautiful park of dense woodland, meandering rivers and steep gorges, which in the crisp autumn sunshine was an absolute delight.