A Walk on Cannock Chase, 1842

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Lord Hatherton's Journal Sunday, 27th March, 1842

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Long walk with Dalmeny to Sherbrook Valley entering it where the old Rugeley road from Teddesley Head or Bednall Head crosses it, then tracing the brook down to Haywood Park, there turning to the left through Brockton Coppice to the top of one of the highest hills thereabouts, from whence there is a glorious view all around. Equally commanding, the Chase on one side and the fertile parts of Staffordshire about and beyond the Trent Valley on the other.

Nothing can be wilder or more beautiful than this walk, hill and dale, wood and water, heath, ferns, wild berries, deer, fawns, grouse, ducks, snipes all around you. No trace of footsteps, no sight of dwelling, no sound of employment.

From Brockton Coppice towards the Sycamores then back along the grass road to Brockton; thence to the Chetwynd Arms public house where I could not refrain from resting five minutes and had three pennies worth of cold brandy and water and a crust of bread and cheese, for which the old landlady, Mrs. Day, asked sixpence and I gave her a shilling, which she did not like to take unless I would take "a sup more". She did not know us. Thence over the fields to Teddesley. This walk must have been a full twelve miles and that through heath half the day. The atmosphere was delightful, the air on the hills being bracing and restorative like that in the Scotch mountains.