Distance: just under 6 miles

Difficulty of the Terrain: easy

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

Canal towpath walk from New Mills in the foothills of the Peak District, along the Peak Forest Canal to the town of Marple just inside Great Manchester. With optional extension to the spectacular Marple Aqueduct.

The Story

The Walk

Getting Back

A Town Called Marple

There is something about the name Marple – a town in the western half of the Metropolitan Borough of Stockport – which is incredibly warming. It sounds like a treacle pudding, the setting for a toffee-ish sweet advert, or an old school ale (indeed, Bakewell based brewery Thornbridge clearly thinks so as well, having named their “classic bitter” Lord Marples).

Another person who liked the name was Agatha Christie. Personally, I always associate Agatha Christie and her work with the portion of the country south of Oxford. However, Miss Marple, her chronically underestimated elderly spinster sleuth, bears the town’s name and marketing on the railway station’s platform clearly plays up the connection.

I first heard of Marple in the summer of 2020 when I was in a pub somewhere close to Kelham Island in Sheffield. A party was talking at a table close to where I was sitting. A man had just joined the group and was talking to a few of the people at the tables that he did not know so well. Somehow the conversation twisted to the topic of where people had grown up, a woman said “Marple”. And the man said “oh yes, where is that?”. The woman replied “nowhere really” – waiting for the laugh – before segwaying into an explanation that it was part way along the railway line through the Hope Valley and Edale linking Sheffield with Manchester. 

This overheard conversation intrigued me, what was it about this interestingly named town that made it “nowhere really”? A quick Google search confirmed what I had presumed, which is that Marple is a sleepy, mostly affluent dormitory for Manchester. Yet there are also plenty of things there to interest visitors.

Chief amongst these is the wonderfully named Peak Forest Canal. At 14 miles it is not amongst the longest canals in the UK, however, running from Buxworth on the western flank of the Peak District up to Ashton-under-Lyne, it is one of the most attractive.

The Peak Forest Canal was opened in the 1790s to transport limestone quarried just south of Buxworth in the northern part of the White Peak to Manchester and beyond. Its southern section runs through the foothills of the Peak District, whilst the northern half runs through the long, linear Tame Valley greenspace and is very interesting in its own right. The Peak District National Park is not served by canals because the geology of it makes canal construction very tricky, either having to cross porous limestone or very tough gritstone.

Marple is home to possibly the most impressive sight on the Peak Forest Canal. This is the Marple Aqueduct, constructed to cross a deep ravine through which the River Goyt flows. The Aqueduct stands 30 metres tall and is nearly 100 metres long. It is the highest canal aqueduct in England (only exceeded by one other in the entire UK at Pontcysyllte) and it is also the country’s tallest masonry arch. It is flanked by an equally impressive structure carrying the railway from Sheffield to Manchester via Hope Valley and Edale.

Elsewhere in Marple there are similar interesting canal side sights, including a place where the canal runs in parallel with a residential road for several hundred metres.

New Mills where the walk starts is also an interesting town. Being slightly further from Manchester it retains something of an independent identity. One which is tied up with an interesting and unusual combination of the bohemian and the still industrial. Well worth spending some time there as well.

The Walk

Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox

I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.

On this occasion the walk actually begins inside New Mills Central Railway Station which is served by frequent trains from Manchester and Sheffield throughout the day. The footbridge allowing access between the two platforms forms part of the footpath that you are walking along.

It is also possible to get onto the route from New Mills Newtown on the Manchester to Buxton railway line, and New Mills’ little bus station is little more than 100 metres uphill from New Mills Central, allowing handy access to the start of the route by bus.

From the Manchester bound platform at New Mills Central Railway Station, exit the platform via the exit beside the ticket office and waiting room building.

Once stood on the steeply sloping road outside the station, turn right and start walking downhill.

At the bottom turn left and head onto a path leading along the river bank.

This first section of the walk leads through The Torrs, a riverside park at the bottom of a steep gorge that carries the River Goyt through New Mills. Today the area is an unusual and dramatic park, however, it was the motive power of the water which first attracted millers to the area in the 14th Century, leading to the development of the town in the first place.

After some distance you approach a narrow bridge across the river on your right.

Above you sits the Torr Vale Mill, constructed in the 1780s to make use of the power of the River Goyt to spin cotton.

Having crossed the bridge, turn left.

This leads to a flight of steps up the steep hillside past the mill buildings.

Once at the top of the steps turn right and follow the road a short way uphill.

At the top you emerge into a car park of sorts.

Take the road more or less straight ahead of you on the left hand side of the car park.

This road is residential in character and you follow it along short rows of terraces for some distance.

Presently you emerge on a main road.

Cross over this road and walk down the road immediately in front of you.

Soon canal boats moored at New Mills Marina come into view.

Once on the towpath turn right.

Here you walk past an old mill which is still very much in industrial use as a factory for Swizzels Matlow a sweet maker whose brands include: Love Hearts, Parma Violets and Drumstick lollies.

Shortly after passing the sweet factory building you start to leave New Mills behind. You also leave the midlands behind, as this is where Derbyshire ends and a small north eastern slither of Cheshire stands between you and Marple on the edge of Greater Manchester. 

The canal meanders, seeking out a flat route along the sides of the hills that mark the edge of the Peak District.

Unfortunately I was walking the route (a little slice of the route I walked between Sheffield and Manchester in early April 2022) on an incredibly wet day, so I saw relatively little of the views which are purportedly some of the best on the entire canal network. I was able to get a few glimpses however, as the pictures below show.

After a little over an hour of walking steadily you begin to approach the outskirts of Marple.

Then the town suddenly fully announces itself at the point where the Macclesfield Canal joins the Peak Forest Canal at Marple Junction.

Here you head over a bridge to cross the line of the Macclesfield Canal feeding into the Peak Forest.

Then continue along an unusual section where the towpath is also part of the pavement down the first part of the Marple Flight of Locks.

At the bottom there is a stone archway and a short passage which you head through to get to the next section of the towpath.

This emerges onto a small basin, presumably a staging point for barges looking to get up the lock flight. On your left there is a park, in what is more or less the centre of the town.

Here you can either go off and have a look around the town centre, or carry on a little further in the direction of Marple Railway Station, and the Marple Aqueduct.

Keep on the towpath a little further.

Presently you come to a road bridge.

Here the towpath switches sides and you need to turn right and walk across the road bridge to get back onto it.

At this point if you continue down the road you have just stepped onto heading right then you can get to Marple Railway Station.

Alternatively if you want to head onto the Marple Aqueduct, keep heading along the towpath, it lies a little over a mile after this point.

When you reach Marple Aqueduct that is where the walk ends.

…Unless you want to do what I did as part of my Sheffield – Manchester walk in early April 2022 when I walked the route and carry on a further 15-16 or so miles into Manchester.

Getting Back

Once at Marple you have the option of taking a train to Sheffield or Manchester from Marple Railway Station (Sheffield trains call at New Mills Central), or alternatively to the east of the town there are trains to Manchester from Marple Rose Hill Station. There are also buses to destinations across the Great Manchester, High Peak and Cheshire areas. If you continue to the Aqueduct then it might make sense instead of walking back to Marple, to continue on a little way along the Peak Forest Canal to the Hyde Bank Tunnel, walk over the top, then head the short distance past the Romiley Board Mill and along the Oakwood Road to Romiley High Street where it is possible to catch a train (also on the Manchester – Sheffield line).