Drive & Stroll, with RON FREETHY -- this week, Styal and Quarry Bank.

WHENEVER I collect or deliver friends to Manchester Airport during daylight hours I always try to fit in a walk as a break from the often horrendous traffic.

I have written about Quarry Bank before in this column and this resulted in a letter from George Myerscough who asked if I had ever visited Styal Village. I had not and this week's winter walk made me realise what I had been missing.

First, however, I visited the National Trust owned Quarry Bank Mill which is one of the best preserved "cotton factories" in the world. It was built by the Greg family in 1784 and it continued to work until 1955. At first it was powered by the River Bollin and there is still a working water wheel for visitors to see and especially to hear.

After water came steam power and this engine is still in good working order. A huge chimney and an impressive clock tower are also in an excellent state of preservation.

There is a shop, cafe, restaurant, toilets and guided tours of the interior are often on offer. The mill area is surrounded by acres of woodland with clearly marked trails and information boards. The ponds which once provided the essential water are now the haunt of wildfowl.

Children are welcome and there is a playground where the climbing frames are designed to look like cotton mill machinery. Very clever. Opposite the playground is a wall confining what is left of the old gasworks which the Gregs built to light the mills. This allowed shift work to keep the mills open much longer. This had led some writers to depict the Gregs as heartless employers who also used child labour.

It has to be said that in the context of the time the Gregs were good folk. Children in towns worked up chimneys and down mines; their parents worked them hard and neither they nor their offspring could read or write. Nobody had enough to eat!

The Gregs employed up to 100 children (from eight to 18) which they got from workhouses. They were fed, clothed and were taught to read and write. They were, however, forced to work hard. I climbed the steep track from the mill to the white painted apprentice house where the children lived. Here I turned left along a footpath indicating Styal Village. I passed through fields which were close to the airport flight path. The cattle in the fields ignored the sound of jumbo jets and the scene can't have changed much for hundreds of years.

I passed through a gate and was faced by the steps of a medieval cross and straight in front of this is a beautiful village green. To the right of this is an old methodist chapel and to the left is another chapel. This dates to the 18th century and is still used by the Unitarians.

I walked ahead from the chapel and passed into a woodland. This was a joy and a footpath returned me first to the Apprentice House and then within a few yards to the car park.