Tegg's Nose Country Park
A gritstone hill above Macclesfield with old quarry machinery to clamber round, a summit view across the whole Cheshire Plain and a good coffee shop at the bottom. Free apart from the pay and display car park.
Macclesfield Forest and Trentabank Reservoir
Macclesfield, Cheshire
This is proper hill country, five miles out of Macclesfield towards the Peak boundary, and it does not pretend to be a family attraction. There is a car park at Trentabank, a toilet block, a picnic area and several miles of forestry track between the reservoirs.
The heronry saves it with younger children. Grey herons nest in the trees above Trentabank Reservoir and you can see them from the waterside path without any equipment or patience. Beyond that it is water, trees and a lot of sky. The shorter loop by the reservoir is doable with small legs. The longer routes climb, and they climb properly.
Nothing costs anything except the parking, and United Utilities is oddly coy about what the parking costs, so bring change and do not rely on a card. The toilets shut at 17:00 even though the forest and the car park stay open much later, which is worth building the afternoon around.
The larch felling programme means this is a working woodland with machinery in it, and paths get shut with barely any notice. Give the United Utilities page thirty seconds the morning you go. The lanes round here are not the place to be reversing out of a closure with two children in the back.
Know before you go
- The toilets shut at 17:00 even though the forest and the car park stay open much later. Work the afternoon around that rather than discovering it at 17:15.
- These are forestry tracks and mud paths, not tarmac. A three wheeled buggy handles the main routes, a lightweight stroller will be carried.
- United Utilities is actively felling larch for disease control, so sections close at short notice. Read the page the morning you go, not the week before.
Looking for more parks & outdoors near Macclesfield?
Also in Macclesfield
West Park
One of Britain's oldest public parks, opened in 1854 and part-paid for by Macclesfield's own workers: playground, toddler area, skatepark, gardens and a daily cafe. The little museum on the park edge is currently closed.