Chelford: Lapwing Hall Pool and Acre Nook Quarry

Sketch map: Chelford Station to Lapwing Hall Pool and Acre Nook Quarry

Lapwing Hall Pool and Acre Nook Quarry are sites that you see every so often in bird alerts and reports and wonder where they are. As it happens, they're a couple of the more easily-accessible sites in Cheshire away from the main towns, about twenty minutes' walk from Chelford Station (a bit longer if, like me, you're dawdling to see what's in the fields and trees along the way).

Chelford's on the Crewe — Manchester Piccadilly line just south of Alderley Edge and trains stop roughly once an hour (you'll need to check times beforehand to make sure you don't hit one of the gaps). Once you've left the station head East along the main road out of town, past the parish hall and you get to a petrol station at the junction between the A537 (the Knutsford to Macclesfield road) and the A535 (the Alderley Edge to Holmes Chapel road). Head down the Holmes Chapel Road. There's a pavement most of the way down this stretch, though it's a bit thin on the bridge by the church, and it's an easy walk. The pavement stops at Congleton Lane but there's a very wide (about ten yards) grass verge between here and Lapwing Lane so you'll be OK walking down here.

Holmes Chapel Road 

For your first visit I'd suggest you go down Lapwing Lane to get your bearings. You could overshoot the area if you walk down Congleton Lane, it's impossible to do so on Lapwing Lane as it's a cul-de-sac. As you walk down you'll see the usual suspects in the fields and gardens, not all the sparrows are house sparrows. One of the small quarry pools can be seen through the trees near the beginning of the lane, it's worth checking out just in case.

Lapwing Hall Pool

About halfway down the lane, after the bend in the road, there's a kissing gate into the field containing Lapwing Hall Pool. The path around the Northern edge of the pool is a nice easy walk, getting a little muddy in a couple of places but not atrociously so. You never get a close view of the pool: the bank's quite high, some parts are planted with trees and some areas are fenced off as nature reserves. Even so, you'll be able to see nearly all the pool from one angle or another.

Smew (left) and goosanders, Lapwing Hall Pool

Generally speaking the birdlife is pretty much what you'd expect from any modestly-sized lake: plenty of wildfowl, especially in Winter with flocks of wigeon and goosanders. Smew seem to be annual Winter visitors here, usually single redheads. Black-necked grebes visit on passage. 

At the end of this path you'll meet the path that runs between Lapwing Lane and Congleton Lane through a patch of woodland called The Mosses. It's a nice walk and it lets you add a few woodland birds to the visit list. Turn right and walk down and you'll soon get to Lapwing Lane. Turn left and follow the lane to the end and you'll get to a gate that overlooks Acre Nook Quarry.

The Mosses

Acre Nook Quarry has been flooded and forms an elongated stocking of a pool with a series of sandbars and islands forming a sort of garter. You can see roughly half of the pool from here. There are quite a few lanes and footpaths coming off Lapwing Lane and Congleton Lane and you can see other bits and pieces of the pool from some of them.

Again, most of the attraction is the wildfowl, the shallows and islands attracting shelducks as well as passing wagtails, terns and waders. In Winter there are pink-footed geese on the local fields, this year they were joined by a couple of Russian white-fronted geese. Last year a Slavonian grebe lingered for a few days on passage when we were in local lockdown and I couldn't visit, last Winter a couple of ring-necked ducks hung around for a while.

There's another local hotspot: Mere Farm Quarry, just to the North of the petrol station. I haven't visited that yet so I don't know how easy or hard it is to get around. It hosted a great northern diver for a while last Winter, it also seems to attract a lot of storm-blown seabirds stopping for a brief rest.