Do join us for a walk. Every Monday morning I take our daughter's labrador, Harvey, for a walk. It is only a couple of hundred yards to a disused railway line, which has become a long distance trail called the Middlewood Way.
The single track railway was opened at the height of the Industrial Revolution in 1869. The owners of local coal mines and stone quarries wanted to transport their raw materials to the booming cities of Stoke and Birmingham.
Sadly the remorseless passage of time saw the coal deposits become exhausted and the stone is now transported by wagon, leading to the closure of the railway in 1970.
As we walk along the path it is easy to imagine heavily loaded goods trains rumbling along the track under this very bridge.
The incredibly well built structure is constructed from local Derbyshire gritstone with an arch of engineering brick. The only sign of repair is to the face of the brick arch.....not bad for a structure that is almost exactly 150 years old.
It has been a wet and windy winter in the UK.....this fallen tree bears evidence to the high winds we had a fortnight ago.
It won't be long before Easter is here and children will be sitting at these picnic tables during their holidays.
Harvey, who is nearly 11 years old, finds the walk harder nowadays, so he gets an occasional treat to keep him going.
This old, cut down, engine wheel is the only sign that this was once a railway. It reads Marple 5 miles Macclesfield six miles.
As we walk home I look forward to the forthcoming spring when cowslips and daffodils will be brighten up our Monday morning walks.