From the age of 7 until I flew the nest at 18 I lived in a village called Holmes Chapel.
You may not have heard of this village, until the X Factor put it on the map as it’s the same village that Harry Styles, of One Direction, lived in at the time. He even worked in Mandeville’s, which I recall used to make a good pork pie. Holmes Chapel is situated about 8-9 miles away from Northwich but, because I went to school in Crewe, my friends and social life were very much in Crewe and Nantwich. It wasn’t until the Sixth form, when I became good friends with Simon Foster, that he introduced me to the drinking dens of Northwich.
Of course Northwich was much smaller in those days and, other than the Bee Hive pub, I don’t actually remember a great deal about it. Since I left school I’ve been living in London and Edinburgh, so Northwich became a bit of a forgotten place to me. Two years ago my partner was relocated to Cheshire, with her job, and, as I’d had enough of 12 hour shifts, I made sure I was in a position to be given redundancy to enable me to move with her. This meant we would come to Cheshire together to start another new life. Unfortunately the terms of my contract, and, as those in the know will know, I don’t break contracts, meant I wouldn’t finish up in Edinburgh until December but Carole would be down in August. What this meant was that Carole bypassed Northwich, in her search for accommodation, and we ended up in Hassall Green. Now I have nothing against Hassall Green, it is a nice little village (a little too close to the M6) and has some great running along the canal, plus it’s near to Sandbach which is a really nice small town and the scene of my first ‘Run with Rog’ sessions, however, it’s too rural for me, after 23 years living in capital cities.
When our contract, on that house, ended I was able to persuade Carole to take a look at Northwich. This would give us a chance to get to know another part of Cheshire, to help us to decide where to buy a place of our own. So last July we moved into a house in the Kingsmead area of Northwich (this area was just fields in my Bee Hive days but is now a nicely laid out area of Northwich). As is the case whenever I move somewhere knew, I quickly get out on a run and try to discover as much of the place as I can. I was pleasantly surprised, what a truly attractive place Northwich has become.
So lets start off with Northwich from a runners perspective, though you can count cycling in this as many of the running routes are also suitable for cycling. There are countless runs that can be done. You can run along the river Weaver, almost into town, and out as far as Winsford (I say as far as Winsford as I’m still on a max distance of 7 miles running and my bike’s still in Edinburgh, it may be that you can run further and no doubt one of my VRAC friends could point that out). You can also run along the A556 for some distance in either way, this is often a route I use when doing my repetitions and running with clients, though I’m finding more places each week (more about a challenging run I’ve just found later). There are a few small parks near town, which you could aim for but another of my favourite running places is the conglomeration of parks at the top end of town (Carey Park, Neumann’s Flash, Ashton Flash, Marbury Country Park, Anderton Wildlife Park, etc) which run for miles and offers some great terrain for training in, there is also a canal that runs through it as well as the river Weaver on the edge of it. It was here that I organised Lee Riley’s killer session on his way to breaking the Marathon World record. This is a great area of open parkland and I often use it for taking a nice casual walk after a hard training session. Parts of the park are also used for horse riding. Of course there are many more places to run, which I’ve still to discover but this is a good starting point. I’m sure my friends at VRAC know many more, I know they train at Gadbrooke Park for part of the year because I trained there with them for a while. And there is another point, if you are an athlete, like myself, Vale Royal AC are a really friendly club to be associated with. Of course my allegiance is still with Herne Hill Harriers, but I’m friendly with a number of the VRAC athletes – though work has meant I haven’t seen them in weeks.
Of course not everybody likes running but, as I’ve mentioned, a lot of the above is also suitable for cycling, walking or horse riding. You could also use in-line skates on the tarmac’d paths. Northwich also boast it’s own rowing club, why wouldn’t you when you have a great river running through the town, plus the Sir John Deane’s College appears to have it’s own club for pupils there. Rowing is something I’ve never tried for real, I’ve used a concept II as part of my training regime to great effect, though I’m currently waiting for a convenient time to bring that down from Edinburgh, but I wonder how good I might be. Maybe it’s something I’ll look into if I suffer from injury again, or, perish the thought, get board of running. Anglers also use the river, often my only company on my early morning runs.
Tennis is another sport where there is a club in Hartford, is Hartford a separate place to Northwich or is it a bit like Leith in Edinburgh? I’ll leave the established locals to fight that one out, all I know is that you pay a lot more for a house in Hartford but you get a lot less for such a large amount.
There are gyms in Northwich, there’s LA Fitness, for those who like to be associated with a big gym, also Dave’s gym, which charges from £1 a session, and a ladies only gym (which I can never remember the name of seeing as I’m no lady). There’s Moss Farm Leisure complex, which hosts a number of leisure interests, Winnington Park Recreation Club, which hosts cricket, hockey, bowls, archery, football, and table tennis amongst other things, and Sir John Deane’s College which has football and badminton as well. There is also an outdoor fitness suite in Vickers Way Park, which is suitable for inexperienced people to try some light exercise. Having my own gym (more about that in a later blog) I have not yet tried out the Northwich gyms.
I read in the news last week that a new boxing club has been set up in Queen Street. It doesn’t just cater for boxing but will have martial arts classes too. I go past it on some of my runs so maybe I’ll check it out sometime.
There appears to be a good following for motorbikes, perhaps due to the proximity to Oulton Park, and every year there is a motorbike Thundersprint competition, which takes place in the town centre. I went along this year and it was quite fun, but if you’re really interested in motorbikes you would really enjoy it. You may ask where this fits in with fitness but it’s still sport, isn’t it! Plus I like to promote local things, as I’m now a local.
Northwich also has football teams; Northwich Victoria and Witton Albion (don’t ask me which league, quite a way down from the Premiership) plus a Rugby Union club, there may also be other minor league teams, and of course you are not far from the heartland of Rugby League or the great football teams that grace Manchester and Liverpool, not forgetting Crewe Alex (or my nephews will be mad with me).
Northwich is where I base my Personal Training business, whilst I cover the whole of Cheshire, I’m looking to concentrate more of my business within the Northwich area, there is so much to take advantage of here and with my capacity for creating varied sessions in different locations I look forward to receiving more clients from the area.
Of course there may well be numerous other fitness / sports related things to do in Northwich, but I’ve only been here a few months and I don’t know everything yet.
But, getting back to the point of why I like Northwich. I think it is a great place to get fit, by whatever means you choose, and there are many different walks for pleasure along the river or in the parks. It’s also only a few miles away from Delamere Forest and Tatton Park. Communications with Manchester and airport, Liverpool and airport and Chester are really good and you are close to the M6, making travel up and down the country easy. The people appear to be friendly and the town centre does have it’s own charm to it, though it’s in need of a bit of a refresh. We could do with a cinema and some restaurants in town but then it would need the local people to support them. Now that we’ve bought our place, and I have my own gym, I really feel at home here and hope that the, promised, regeneration of Northwich goes ahead, as I believe, with the right planning, Northwich can become somewhere desirable for people to, both live and visit.
Sounds like you should be a tourism ambassador for Northwich! Looking forward to seeing what it's like if we get a chance when we visit later in the year.
ReplyDelete