The best walks and hikes around Great Altcar

Rejoining the Cheshire Lines

Beltin pub for a bite and pint, just off Cheshire Lines path.

The Trans Pennine Trail is a coast-to-coast route across the entire breadth of England from Southport to Hornsea. It is well signposted and some sections, including this one, are suitable for horse riding. This section follows the route of the historic Cheshire Lines railway, now dismantled. The Cheshire Lines Railway Company used to operate services across the Lancashire Mossland along this route between Liverpool and Southport. After its closure in 1952 and acquisition by West Lancashire District Council in 1988 the line was constructed as a dual use cycle and footpath with parallel bridleway.

If you go very early, there is a barn owl that you may catch a glimpse of. The last time I visited she was teaching her young how to hunt.

This section of the Trans pennine trail is predominantly made up of gravel and uneven hard packed dirt, once you get close to Maghull the surface changes to tarmac.

The Scotch Piper is a traditional thatched inn and retains most of its original structural features. It was built round an oak tree in 1320, originally named the "The Royal Oak" until as legend tells, an injured Highland piper from the 1745 rebellion took refuge at the inn. The Piper said to have fallen in love with the innkeepers daughter, hence the name changed to " The Scotch Piper". The pub has also been named "The Bag Pipes", "Highland Piper" and "The Old Lolly" old lolly could refer to Lawrence Ireland, who owned large parts of Lydiate, his family were a very prominent part of the village at that time. The inn is a two-storey "yeoman" dwelling with a cruck frame consisting of three bays (crucks are a medieval form of construction found in the west of England). The inn is a grade II* listed building, protecting the building under strict guidelines to retain its authenticity, which can be seen through out, including wooden beams, open fires and the thatched roof. Next door to

Around 8000 years ago as Britain was becoming the island that we recognise today the earliest people living here were hunter-gatherers in what is known as the Mesolithic period. Evidence for where they lived is widespread in Britain and many sites have been archaeologically excavated. However, good surviving evidence for how these people lived is restricted to a very few sites. The common view has been that they were scattered nomadic people who lived in small groups with little evidence for them building substantial settlements. In the last ten years or so understanding of the period has begun to improve slowly with new discoveries that have modified this view. The most recent discovery in 2012-13 of rare 8,000 year old houses at Lunt Meadows, Sefton, north of Liverpool, is another important development in our understanding of a way of life that began to disappear about 6000 years ago with the introduction of farming into Britain.

This spectacular wetland nature reserve, nestled along the meandering River Alt in North Merseyside, wasn’t always the wildlife wonderland it is today. Between 2012 and 2014 it was intensively farmed arable land, and only when it was bought by the Environment Agency for development as a flood storage reservoir (that would double as a nature reserve) did Lunt Meadows become a real destination for bird-lovers. The cycle path is gravel good for MTB, gravel and hybrid would be careful with road tyres