Salford

Walk Details:
Date: 17/04/2005
Total ascent: 5m/ 16ft
Total distance walked: 0.31 miles
Walk difficulty: 1/10
Enjoyment rating: 0.5/10
Best bits: View of Winter Hill
Worst bits: Noise of motorway, parking in rough housing estate
Walkers: Anth, Jim
Car Parking: We parked in Moorhey Road at SD 716 048

Top details:
Name: Greenheys
County top number: 63 of 207
Grid reference: SD 71445 04871 View Map
Height above sea level: 115m/ 377ft
How nice was the top? 1/10
Views: 2/10
Description/Notes: The highest point of the Unitary Authority of Salford is an unmarked spot on top of a bank besides a green on a golf course

The Walk:

So far all the urban tops we’d visited had been in rather salubrious areas – when you think about it, it’s fairly logical that the highest point of a given area will have the best views and therefore the most expensive housing. Salford was different; quite the roughest area we’d gone bagging in (although admittedly still not that dodgy). Just as well it would be a short walk and we wouldn’t have to leave the car there for too long.

This top was potentially a tricky one from an access point of view, being in a golf course. The map showed a couple of footpaths running across the course, but to reach the highest point of Salford we would have to leave the footpaths and wander along the edge of the course. Fortunately there was no problem – squeezed between the M61 and the Greenheys estate, this was not the most exclusive of golf courses – I expect they were more worried about kids on bikes tearing up the greens than they were about occasional visits from baggers. At any rate, we were preceded down the edge of the course by a chap walking a large dog.

After just a few hundred metres walking we were able to bag the Salford top. It’s a curved bank running around the back of a green just a dozen metres from the edge of the course – an easy bag given that no-one was playing that hole when we arrived. Behind was a strange conflict of the natural and artificial – the huge bulk of Winter Hill (our next stop) subdued beneath a crown of radio masts and lost behind the noise of the M61.

Altogether this wasn’t the most inspiring of tops, and we were glad to get back to the car and head off to Winter Hill.