This sister volume to Leek Through Time considers some of the villages and countryside skirting the north of the town. Although rural and sometimes bleak, none of the areas covered here is more than twenty minutes' drive from Leek. To the north-west of Leek lies Rudyard Lake, created in 1797 to feed water to the Caldon and Trent & Mersey canals. The lake, with its two railway stations, once attracted huge numbers of visitors and gave Rudyard Kipling his name. Rushton straddles the Leek - Macclesfield road and plays host to many walkers passing through en route to and from the Dane Valley. The Dane 'feeder' provides a footpath from Rushton to Wincle and Swythamley, above which rise the Roaches at the end of the Pennine Chain. Also nestling beneath the Roaches are Meerbrook, Upper Hulme and Tittesworth Reservoir. The journey ends at Blackshaw Moor.