Tandle Hill, Oldham
Today was a good day!
For the first time since lockdown started, my wife and I were able to
see our daughter who lives 28 miles away.
(It would have been a perfect day if we could have also seen our
grandchildren and son-in-law but hopefully we will be allowed to do that soon.)
She came to meet up with us for a walk to
Tandle Hill Country Park – one of her and our favourite local haunts. The park is
a 48 hectare expanse of mixed woodland and grassland in Royton, Lancashire - just
5 minutes walk from our house away along a very pleasant country track.
The weather was glorious: ultra bright sunshine and deep
blue skies which only served to make the greenery even greener. At the summit of Tandle Hill we gazed out
over the Pennines uplands at towards the Yorkshire boundary, and over Rochdale,
Oldham and the Manchester plain. In the
distance we could see Jordrell Bank radio telescope in 25 miles away to the
south in Cheshire and the Welsh mountains to the west. On the summit is a war memorial - a Portland
stone obelisk commemorating the men of Royton who died during the First World
War. In fact, the woodlands and grounds
were gifted to the people of Royton as a thanks offering for peace after the
Great European War 1914–1919. Earlier in the 19th Century, the area was used as
a meeting place for radicals and for practising marching and drilling in the
period leading up to the Peterloo massacre
in Manchester in 1819. Next to the war memorial is a memorial stone
erected by the Council in 2019 to honour those who marched from Oldham and
Saddleworth. The inscription on the stone points out that they drilled, “Not
with the loaded muskets and steel” as the Authorities then claimed. It commemorates the radical movement leading
up to Peterloo as “an important milestone in the struggle for democracy”.
So, the beech woodland - planted to prevent the gathering of
radicals after Peterloo - is now a well loved public park and designated site
of biological importance and, fittingly, the recent focus of demonstrations
into the proposed release of adjacent green belt for development. Looking out from the Summit and reflecting on
the years as a family we enjoyed pottering around the park, I tried not to
think of the prospect that extensive areas of adjacent rolling green belt countryside
could disappear under thousands of houses and industrial buildings.
As we walked back, walkers, runners and cyclists smiled and
bid us ‘hello’ and ‘how do?’, always keeping their distance and their dogs
under control.
In the afternoon after our daughter left, we planted up some
hanging baskets, chatted to neighbours over the fence and enjoyed the garden
and the sun. At 4pm we excitedly retired
indoors for some right ripping entertainment in the form of the Dominic
Cummings v the Press showdown in the Downing Street garden. In the evening, we
relaxed with a glass of wine and enjoyed some mindless telly – ‘The Real
Housewives of Cheshire’ - rounding off a very good day indeed.
P.S.
Did you know Tandle Hill is mentioned in the lyrics of ‘Mill
Boys’ on the album Everyone Is Everybody Else by Barclay James Harvest. Also on the album cover ‘Script of the Bridge’ by
The Chameleons, there is a sketch by the band's guitarist Reg Smithies, of
Tandle Hill, and the song ‘View From a Hill’ relates to an event singer/songwriter Mark Burgess experienced on Tandle Hill. Also, Alan Partridge creator Steve Coogan ran
many a cross country run up to the monument.
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