Finding Ringley

Friday August 16th

Today we were on a mission to find Ringley.  This is the tiny village where
Edith Collier's father's family originally came from before settling in Wanganui and starting a music business.  They built a family home in Wanganui and called it Ringley.  The house is now gone and the land has been subdivided into the Ringley Estate.  We plan to build our new house there  in Edith Collier Drive.  So we were really keen to get to Ringley on this trip if at all possible.   When we knew we would be coming up towards Manchester to stay with Joyce we felt sure she would be up for the challenge and she certainly was.

Alan had done a resasonable amount of research on the internet and had found an old map of Ringley dating back to the sometime in the 19th century.

In the morning we went out to visit a National  Trust Property, Dunham Massey, on the way.  None of us had read the guide book properly as we arrived on a day when the house was not open to the public.  The gardens were, so we decided to stay and look around them.

Mary and Joyce in the rose garden.

The stately home we didn't get inside.     

After  lunch in the cafe at Dunham Massey we set out armed with maps to find Ringley.  It was such an obscure place the satnav didn't seem to know about it.  However Alan was an excellent navigator and all went well until we saw a sign that the Old Ringley Bridge was closed for repairs until Dec 2013.  This meant a quick replanning of routes around the houses.  Eventually we got to a place where there was a footbridge over the river to the  other side that we were sure was Ringley.

The Ringley footbridge which was really the only way over the river into the part of Ringley we wanted to go to.  We could have driven but it would have involved leaving the area completely and getting back on the motorway and coming at it from the opposite direction.

This was confirmed when we found this street sign.

The church of Saint Saviour Ringley was across the footbridge that seemed to be the only way to get to old Ringley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The village stocks and the notice about the bridge.

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A helpful sign near the bridge.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We stopped by the local pub called the Horseshoe and tried to get as much information as we could from the locals.  There were lots of photos from the earlier days of Ringley on the walls.  We wanted to get to Higher Heaps as we knew that the Colliers had lived there at some stage. We found that we could take a marked walking track up through the woods to Higher Heaps so we set out to do this after having a drink in the bar.

The walking track up through the woods was narrow steep and wet but it was a sunny day and was all very pretty. We felt like we had taken a step back in time.  We had expected to find it all urban and fully developed but it was not like this at all. 

We did manage to find this sign so we knew we were in the right area. Joyce was very good at talking to the locals. most had horses and stables and the homes looked subtantial.  this one was being rented and was for sale.  We checked when we got back home and found it was offers over 995,000 pounds. We have not made an offer.

The only original part of a building we could find was this end of a cottage and a wall.  There was no evidence of Clough Cottage where the Colliers had lived.

The only evidence of old cottages but no one knew where Clough Cottage would have been.  On speaking to the current tenant at Higher heaps barn he told us that we could walk across the fields back to the pub down Ringley road and we would nto need to take the steep slippery slope through the woods.  It was a pleasant walk across the fields.  We notices that most of the farms were set up with livery  stables and horses. We made our way back to the village and came across a beautiful garden on the way.

 
This was the most beautiful hillside garden.

So now we have  been to Ringley and think that a good name for our house would be Ringley Fold as that was another area and one of the roads was named Ringley Fold.