Our cottage was near Holmes Chapel, but we hadn’t had a look there yet. So this morning  we parked up and explored. Not much to see except a perfectly pleasant town with everything you would want, well-kept, with a station (as have most towns around here), and a charming area around the church. A nice place to live, but too expensive for us (as are most ‘nice places’!).It must have a good community spirit as you see from the herb bins..Our prime destination today a Sunday was Capesthorne Hall which we could visit free with our HHA cards. A very imposing building, the red brick hall was built in the Jacobean style between 1719 and 1732, the turrets and pinnacles being added a hundred years later. Much remodeling was carried out by the architect Anthony Salvin following a disastrous fire at the hall in 1861.We were early, so we had chance of a bite to eat in the cafe and we walked around the gardens to visit the chapel Afterwards we built up our daily steps with a walk around the nearest lake. I say the nearest because there are several……On our return to the Hall I took this pic of the front ‘veranda’ where every alcove held a glass case complete with stuffed bird, an unusual feature to say the least.                           As is normal with ‘private’ houses, no photography allowed inside, so a couple of shots from on-line. The staff were very friendly which is great and as I was asking after one or two of the paintings, a kind lady member of staff lent me her guide for the duration of our visit. Terrific.We wanted to see Northwich having visited the other two wiches, but didn’t linger very long as it is both industrial (salt and chemicals) and run down. Obviously there will be parts of interest but we didn’t want to waste any time looking for them! Instead we headed off into the countryside North and stopped at the extremely pretty Great Budworth. Could any village be pleasanter? Should you be able to afford living here, you might want to think about the cons of living on a film-set with thousands and thousands of  visitors………                  …..and then as Great Budworth sits atop a hill you have a fine view, admittedly in the far distance, of the nearby chemical works!To cap our day off Martin had recommended we visit Mow Cop a folly high up with a 360 degree view of the Cheshire plain and chunks of Staffordshire. It was well worth the effort in finding it (not simple).