Billinge Hill

County - Merseyside

Elevation – 179m

Date – 16/07/2021

Distance – 3.2km

Elevation climbed - 71m

When I started thinking about the County Top challenge, part of the attraction was being able to bring "guest Toppers" along on the adventure with me - ideally some company should a top be near a friend's house. Every time I travel now I think about the potential for County Topping, and visiting my old pal Nick in Wigan gave me a great opportunity to "bag" the County Top of Merseyside.

Given the bizarre machinations of local government in Britain since the 19th century it's hard to establish whether Merseyside is actually a county at all. It doesn't have a county council, it's not a ceremonial county, there's no Merseyside Cricket Club competing in the County Championship...these days it's just a catch all for five unitary authorities in and around Liverpool. But - it's got a County Top, I was staying 15 mins away from it, I had time available, so we went off to bag it.

Going with Nick was a bonus in many ways. Nick accompanied me on several early County Top expeditions - Helvellyn (Westmoreland) in 1989, Coniston Old Man (historic Lancashire) in 1992, and Whernside (N Yorkshire) in 2011. He's a much more accomplished (and fitter) walker than me and truly loves a bit of navigation, so we parked up at the Holt's Arms in Longshaw, whacked on the boots, and he took over mapping duties, which was fine by me as I could focus my attention on Pixie the Puppy who'd come with us on the walk.

Slightly oddly the first ten minutes or so were spent winding through a housing estate, finally coming out between some houses into the kind of woodland mucky-faced kids built dens in back in the 80s. Overhead was a police helicopter (insert your own joke about Scousers here) and down the path charged a young couple, the man with his top off on this gloriously sunny day, who excitedly told us how they'd spotted three lads breaking into a car, called the cops, helped guide the helicopter onto them, then laughed when the cop drew his Taser on the quivering thief, who begged for mercy. You don't get THAT up Ben Nevis.

Shortly after we exited the wood (I like to think we "broached the tree line") and with a few strides we passed the stone tower at the top of the hill and touched the trig point.

Billinge Hill might not be the biggest County Top in the country, but it had cracking views over the Cheshire crags at Frodsham, the Welsh Hills to Snowdonia, Liverpool, the Lakes, Winter Hill, Manchester and Kinder Scout, some of which I comprehensively failed to capture:

That's North Wales...

The Stone Tower had seen better days, and with Pixie the Puppy being frightened by over-enthusiastic bigger dogs we headed down the, erm, West Face and worked our way through barley fields off the summit.

After a mile of so of coming down into Longshaw we were quickly back at the Holt's Arms, where several pints of Jennings allowed me to rehydrate after such an epic hike. Sterner challenges would await...