Burrs Country Park in Bury is the former site of Burrs Mill and
Higher Woodhill Mill, both built in 1792. The first car park is on
the site of the latter. Nearby you can see the wheel pit built in
1850 to house one of the last and largest waterwheels in Britain.
To the NW is the site of Burrs Mill which was associated with the
Peel family, burrs being a type of millstone. The chimney, built
around 1870, is still intact, as are the millworkers’ cottages
which now house an activity centre. The aqueduct which channelled
water from the Irwell is also intact.
The Irwell Sculpture Trail passes through; you can see
“Waterwheel” at the park entrance, “Picnic Area” near the chimney,
and “Stone Cycle” on the other side of the feeder canal. It's worth
getting close to "Stone Cycle" and examining the engravings on the
stones, which depict facets of Bury's industrial and natural
heritage. This sculpture can be seen in the distance from the cache
site.
The cache is located on Bury's showground, which replaced Bury
Ground at Castlecroft as the site of the annual Bury and District
Agricultural Show. There are broken down remains of an old stone
wall close by but there is no need at all to disturb any part of
the wall. The cache is a plastic tub with gold coloured lid, with
log book from Stone View Willow (mark 2 after the first one was
muggled) and the usual bits and bobs. When I place my caches, I
usually put in some quite nice goodies to start them off. Please
note that I don't expect people to trade equally value-wise - if
you find the cache, you are welcome to take whatever item takes
your fancy - well, except the log book of course! - and just leave
some appropriate item, so long as it's not total rubbish e.g. a bus
ticket, dead leaves or broken piece of plastic!
