UPDATE 8 May 2004:
Considering the weather, which started out very wet, there were a surprising number of people at the bridge to see us off, so thank you to everyone who came along. A press photographer was there too, so hopefully we'll make the papers again this week. 

Ready for the off

First Heron

Footsore?

The first few miles were uneventful and, as we were on very familiar territory, not all that interesting. However, we did both nearly fall in the cut on slippery stones going under bridges, which wouldn't have been very funny! We saw our first heron in close-up, which was quite exciting, and we soon found that they were a common sight on a quiet canal bank. We'd seen at least eight in close-up by the end of the day.

Clarence Mill

Working boat from Marple

After stopping for butties at Bollington our journey continued without incident until Macclesfield. At bridge 40 we found our way blocked and had to divert off the canal to find an alternative route. We called in the Beehive at Macc, purely to ask for directions of course but it would have been rude not to have a pint! We were back on the tow path at bridge 43, having added an unwelcome mile or so to our journey.

Way blocked at Bridge 40

The reason why!

By now we were getting a little foot-sore and were relieved to meet up with John for a brew and a few minutes rest. The remainder of the journey became a countdown of bridges and mile-stones as we headed for our target of the day, Bridge 55 at Bosley Locks.

When posing at the 16 miles to Marple stone we were amazed to run into a boatload of people from Marple who had read about the walk in the paper were excited that they recognised us. They didn't offer to sponsor us though!

After a shower in the excellent British Waterways facilities at Bosley we headed back in the motorhome to the Fools Nook at Oakgrove (Bridge 49), which we had passed a couple of hours earlier. We ate and had a couple of very good pints of Boddingtons before heading off to the Harrington Arms, where we'd arranged to stay overnight in their car park. Unfortunately for John, who obviously hadn't had a decent drink yet, the beer here was pretty lousy and as it had been a very long day we retired to the motorhome early. 

According to the pedometer we completed 19.5 miles today, a couple more than we had anticipated due to the diversion at Macclesfield, and we were both pretty foot-sore. New territory tomorrow and we'll learn how good our powers of recovery are!

UPDATE 7 May 2004:
The big day's nearly here and we're all set and ready to go. We'll be leaving the Iron Bridge in Brabyns Park at approximately 10.00 am tomorrow morning and we're hoping that lots of people will come along to see us off.

Our target for the first day is to reach Bosley Locks, which is approximately 17 miles. We'll be joining the Peak Forest Canal tow path from Brabyns Park and then taking the Macclesfield Canal from Top Lock to Bosley, passing through High Lane, Higher Poynton, Bollington and Macclesfield.

Sponsorship is going very well and we've now broken through the £2,000 barrier. The final amount remains to be seen and we're hopeful that pledges and donations will continue to keep coming in.

Everything is set up so that we can update this web page on-the-move so, subject to the technology not letting us down, we should be able to give visitors a daily report with photographs. We'll do our best to ensure that we thoroughly test all the pubs on route - as an additional public service of course!

If you have any queries, comments or words of encouragement, please feel free to use the forum by clicking this link and we'll do our best to respond.

UPDATE 2 May 2004:
Sponsorship is going even better than we'd hoped and currently stands at a total of £1917.54. There is a more detailed breakdown of this in the Project Diary, along with a report on our success at the Co-Op on 24th April and 1st May. We will now be raising over £20 per mile, which is a fantastic incentive! 

There is still time for you to help us raise even more money by downloading the sponsorship forms or the Gift Aid form using the links below.

Please click here for our press release

Regular visitors to the Iron Bridge Project Diary will know that Peter and I have been planning a sponsored walk to raise funds towards the next phase of the Iron Bridge Restoration. We are due to leave the Iron Bridge in Marple for "A 90 mile stroll" to the first Iron Bridge, in Shropshire, on 8th May 2004.

We've been fortunate enough to receive a response to our appeal for the loan of a camper van from local man Andy Glossop, who has made his superb 6-berth vehicle available to us.  We hope, if we can overcome the technical difficulties, to update the web site each day with photographs and details of our progress.

With less than a month to go, we need to begin raising as much sponsorship as possible and hope that our regular visitors and supporters of the campaign will be able to help us. If you would like to help raise money towards the restoration phase of the project you can do this in a couple of ways:

Collect Sponsorship on our behalf:
You could collect as much sponsorship as possible on our behalf, maybe at work, at school, at your club, or even at your local pub. To help you to do this we've prepared a poster and a sponsorship form that can be downloaded using using the links below:

If you are prepared to do this we would ask that you collect and bank all the sponsorship money you raise yourself and then send us a cheque, made payable to Marple Local History Society, for the amount collected after we have completed the walk. It is also important that you send us the completed sponsorship forms too, so that the History Society, who are a registered charity, can reclaim the tax using the Gift Aid it scheme. If you would like to do this and require any help or further information please get in touch. 

Simply make a donation:
If you would simply like to make a donation towards the restoration phase of the project, please send us a cheque made payable to Marple Local History Society. If you are a tax payer and you send us a letter with your donation declaring that you would like us to use the Gift Aid it scheme, the History Society will be able to claim back an additional 28p for every £1 you donate. To help with this we've created a standard Gift Aid it form that you can download and send with your cheque, but you can make the same declaration in an ordinary letter if you wish:

Gift Aid it Form

All cheques should be made payable to Marple Local History Society, who are a local charity and act as the project's banker for community raised funding.

All donations, sponsorship and correspondence should be sent to:

The Marple Website
72 Woodville Drive,
Marple,
Stockport,
Cheshire
SK6 7QX

Please contact us if you have any questions or need further information:

 Peter (0161 427 1861) or Mark (0161 427 4955)

ironbridge@marple-uk.com

Additional Information:

The Walk
The walk is due to commence at 10.00 am on Saturday 8th May 2004 from the Iron Bridge in Brabyns Park. The distance is approximately 90 miles in total, of which approximately 70 miles will be along canal tow paths. It is expected to take between six and seven days and we have been loaned a 6-berth camper van as overnight accommodation. We also have an experienced driver who has volunteered to drive the camper van between stop-over locations.

Purpose of the Sponsored Walk
A project planning grant of over £30,000 has already been awarded by the Heritage Lottery Fund towards Phase 1 of the project and this work is currently underway. Phase 1 will determine exactly what is wrong with the bridge, develop a detailed scheme for its restoration and establish the cost of completing that work during phase 2, so that a second grant application to the HLF can be made towards these costs.

The second grant application to the HLF, if successful, would provide a maximum of 90% of the funds required. Provisional estimates identify that the phase 2 restoration will cost in the region of £150,000, which means we will need to find at least £15,000 of match funding from alternative sources. The purpose of the Sponsored Walk is to raise money towards the 10% of match funding required.

About Gift Aid
Gift Aid is a scheme that allows donors to increase the value of their donations to charity. Provided you are a taxpayer, Marple Local History Society will be able to reclaim from the Inland Revenue the basic rate tax paid on your gift, boosting the donation by 28%. So a gift of £10 from you is worth £12.80 to the Iron Bridge Restoration Project. All we need is a simple declaration from you saying that you want us to use Gift Aid, which we've included on the sponsorship forms and the Gift Aid it form. For more detailed information visit the Inland Revenue pages.

To learn more about Marple's Iron Bridge and the campaign for its restoration, visit the Project Diary and Campaign Diaries using the links below:

Project Diary - Phase 1 (from August 2003)

Campaign Diary - YEAR 2 (July 2002 - July 2003)

Campaign Diary - YEAR 1 (June 2001 to June 2002)

To voice your opinion about restoration of the Iron Bridge,
please visit the Local Issues section of the forum and noticeboard.