A two hour walk from Alderley Park could be a perfect stroll for a long lunch or an afternoon off work.
A corporate conference centre and laboratory complex might seem an odd venue for a walk. But there’s more to Alderley Park than meets the eye: beyond the plate-glass offices, executive housing and multi-storey car parks is an extensive area of quiet woodland, lakes and ponds connected by a network of well-maintained paths. Adding interest is the scattered relics of the country estate whose curtilage the complex occupies.
Alderley was the home of the Stanley family, who suffered a series of unfortunate events. The Old Hall near Nether Alderley village, which still stands and is glimpsed distantly en route, was built by Sir Thomas Stanley in the early 1600s. It was extended in the 18th century, and its grounds enhanced by an obelisk (also seen on the walk) proudly bearing the family’s spread-eagle emblem, but the new extension was destroyed by fire in 1779, along with its contents. The family moved to a farmhouse at the southern end of the park, where they eventually decided to settle, embarking on a series of extensions and improvements. The surviving stables, dovecote, walled garden and icehouse date from this period, as does the Tenant’s Hall of 1904, now occupied by the Churchill Tree pub.
In 1931 the by now extensive Park House suffered the same fiery fate as its predecessor and was largely demolished. The estate was sold off piecemeal, eventually being acquired by ICI’s pharmaceuticals division in 1950, which was the start of its new life as a centre for technology, business and innovation. Sir James Black carried out pioneering work on beta blockers here, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine in 1988. Current tenants include AstraZeneca, Cancer Research UK and numerous other high-tech operations, supported by a multitude of car parks, gyms, sports pitches, cafés and restaurants.
The woodland above the main complex overlooks Radnor Mere, a sizeable lake, and is crisscrossed by a network of surfaced and unsurfaced tracks and paths. There are also paths across the farmed parkland to the west. This off-road network is mapped at most of its various entry points. Although the route described here is wholly within the Park, should you fancy extending your walk there are two connections to the east with Hocker Lane, giving access to the wider public rights-of-way network in the direction of Alderley Edge.
THE WALK
1. From the entrance to the Churchill Tree, turn left. The L-shaped range of brick buildings on your left, now residential, is the former stables of Alderley Park. Cross the service road to the buildings, followed by the end of a bollarded path. At the next service road, not far short of the main entrance, turn left.
2. Just before the houses, turn right through bollards onto a path under trees. By the old icehouse, turn left and go through a gap in the wall into the water garden. Turn right and follow a path round the garden perimeter, before turning right then left, up steps. Turn left above the retaining wall. The colonnaded archway at the far end returns you to the Churchill Tree car park, but before that turn right through an impressive set of gate piers, topped by Stanley eagles. Follow the path beyond through a grove of Lawson cypresses, turning left at a crossroads of paths to Cedar Square. Turn right and left and walk back out to the main Alderley Park service road.
3. Turn right then, after 100 metres, leave the road through a gate on the right onto the woodland walk network, following a broad crushed-stone track that winds uphill through the trees (and ignoring lesser paths off to the right). Beyond some picnic tables you reach a broader area of chippings, where the track drops off to the left.
4. At a junction close to the rear of the main block of buildings, turn right then left, passing a small building in a fenced compound. Continue, ignoring paths to left and right, past more picnic tables by a roofed shelter on the right. The track then passes a pond and footbridge on your right.
5. At a junction of tracks, keep left. Ignoring a path off to the right, follow the edge of the woodland with distant views of the Stanley Obelisk over the fields, before swinging left back into the trees. Turn right at a fork and descend towards Radnor Mere, where the track curves right to round the end of the lake (with glimpses of Alderley Old Hall to the right).
6. At the end of the Radnor Woods car park, take the path through the first gate on the right, outside the fence. Swing left round the corner of the car park, then right, over a bridge. Wind through a belt of trees and follow the fenced path around the perimeter of the next field, emerging through a couple of gates by the southern entrance to Alderley Park, next to the Tudor Gothick Church Lodge, a listed building.
7. Cross at the traffic island and follow the path opposite. This runs parallel to the road, crossing a service road, then bends right to a hand gate and ‘Farmland Trails’ map. Carry on past farm buildings on your right and, beyond a further gate, continue along the farm track straight ahead. This leads straightforwardly back to the Churchill Tree.
The Churchill Tree
The building housing the Churchill Tree has had an eventful history – as did its architect. Edward Lyulph, 4th Baron Stanley of Alderley, awarded the commission for the building of his Tenant’s Hall to Eton-educated Paul Phipps, a well-connected young architect who had trained with Edwin Lutyens and was elected a Fellow of RIBA in later life. In 1909, not many years after the Alderley commission, Phipps married American socialite Nora Langhorne, Nancy Astor’s youngest sister. They had two children, their daughter Joyce later finding fame under her married name of Grenfell. Joyce’s mother’s subsequent elopement with American-football player and silent film star Maurice ‘Lefty’ Flynn inspired F. Scott Fitzgerald’s story The Intimate Strangers. Nora’s scandalous betrayal haunted Phipps for the rest of his life.
The Tenant’s Hall saw later service as a war hospital and subsequently as the Sir James Black Conference Centre, and a different kind of service as an indoor badminton court. Property company Bruntwood undertook a £3m refit to turn it into a public house and the Cheshire Pub Company obtained the tender to operate it, though the initial opening was impacted by the Covid pandemic. Nearby you will find a dovecote, an archway into the adjoining water garden, and the former stables of Alderley House, now residential. All these historic buildings, and the Tenant’s Hall itself, are Grade II listed.
The pub was named the Churchill Tree after a sweet chestnut tree planted by Winston Churchill, a mere cabinet minister at the time, during a visit to the Stanleys in the company of Herbert Asquith, the prime minister. The baronial interiors and unusual setting belie the fact that it operates as a traditional pub, open from noon on weekdays and 9am at weekends. Walkers and dogs are welcome in the wood-floored Tenant’s Hall, where there is a roaring open fire. If you are not planning to visit the pub, park in the Radnor Woods car park instead and start your walk at step 6: if you register your number plate and payment card on the Alderley Park website (see alderleypark.co.uk/travel/carparking) the barrier will rise as if by magic on your arrival, and you will be charged automatically at a discounted rate.
Compass Points
Area of walk: Alderley Park, south of Nether Alderley
Start point: Churchill Tree, near Alderley Park South entrance, SK10 4ZG
Distance: 3 miles/4.7 km
Time to allow: 1–2 hours
Map: OS Explorer 268: Wilmslow, Macclesfield & Congleton
Refreshments: Churchill Tree thechurchilltree.co.uk 01625 322449
Practicalities: Gentle gradients and crushed-stone permitted paths, a little rough for buggies and wheelchairs. The half-hourly 130 bus from Manchester to Macclesfield visits Alderley Park.
