The Ultimate Guide to Chester and Cheshire - Spring Edition

Lumb Brook Valley
(Warrington) is a smaller
affair, its semi-ancient trees
managed by the Woodland
Trust. It is linked to another
mature wood by Millennium
Green, an area of young-ish
trees, open space and (sweet
relief) benches. Make a plan
to return later in the year:
Lumb Brook is carpeted with
bluebells, lords-and-ladies,
lesser celandine and wood
anemones come spring.
Likewise Warburton’s Wood
(Kingsley), a three-hectare
clough woodland managed
by Cheshire Wildlife Trust.
It runs down to the River
Weaver, and its rich soil
(and mix of tree cover and
grassland) is home to fifty
kinds of flower, including
violets, giant bellflower,
yellow archangel and the
common spotted orchid.
The thundering Daresbury
Expressway may not on first
glance appear to be the most
peaceful of settings, yet it
runs alongside Big Wood
(Runcorn), a wildlife haven
whose history is intertwined
with Norton Priory. It was
once part of the 900-yearold
priory’s estate and was
later owned by the Brooke
family, who turned it into
a pleasure garden full of
ornamental trees such as
sugar maple, dawn redwood
and monkey puzzle.
Gnarled,
hollow, usually
a bit skew:
a truly ancient
tree tends not to be
a showstopper. Yet there’s
something about a 500-yearold
tree that does stop you
in its tracks: a living thing
that has borne witness to
civil wars and world ones, to
kings who lost their heads
and a sun that rises and
sets, seemingly without
end. There’s one such
oak at Dunham Massey
(Altrincham); it stands by
the moat and predates the
neighbouring National Trust
house by around 200 years.
It’s not alone: the deer park
here is renowned for veteran
trees, home to a huge array
of incredibly rare beetles
and insects, and in turn to
the sorts of animals that
feed on them, such as the
beetle-eating noctule bat.
So, as we head into 2019,
make time for some of
Cheshire’s better and
lesser-known woods and
forests – today places of
sanctuary and pleasure that,
as PK Khaira-Cresell at the
Forestry Commission points
out, “are some of the most
varied and beautiful places
in the country”.
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