Castlefield Co-owners Complete Cheshire Three Peaks for Francis House

A dedicated team of Castlefield Co-owners completed the Cheshire Three Peaks Challenge in aid of Francis House Children’s Hospice. David Gorman explains more about the challenge, the fundraising and the Francis House charity in this piece. 

Every year, as part of our ongoing commitment to raise money for charity, we try to do a “challenge,” something which takes us out of our comfort zone and is impressive enough to deserve being sponsored for doing it. So, on Sunday, June 22nd a crack team of Castlefield co-owners took part in and completed the Cheshire Three Peaks Challenge 2025 in aid of Francis House Children’s Hospice, a registered charity based in Didsbury.  

The Hospice was established in 1990 and provides respite and end of life care for children and young people in Greater Manchester with life limiting illness and the necessary support and short-term care for their families. 

According to Hospice UK, it costs £1.8 billion each year to run the 200 or so hospices in Britain. Of this, the hospices raise over £1.3 billion through their own fundraising efforts, while less than £0.5 billion comes from government funding. UK hospices employ around 16,000 clinical and care staff and benefit from the efforts of 95,000 volunteers.   

Our walk centred around Macclesfield and took in the peaks of Tegg’s Nose, Shutlingsloe and Shining Tor as well as Trentabank Nature Reserve and Lamaload Reservoir.  

the day was wet, windy and at times chilly

In contrast to the glorious weather in the days leading up to the event, the day was wet, windy and at times chilly, especially at our second checkpoint, the lunch stop at the former Cat & Fiddle Inn, high up and close to the Cheshire/Derbyshire border, where it felt like January. 

Full credit to the fundraising team and volunteers at Francis House for a very well-organised day and (soaking wet) hats off to nine Castlefield colleagues for completing the 13-mile route which featured around 2,672 ft of climbing, although it was the coming down again that I struggled with. The walk took us about six hours to complete.

If you would like to support our efforts, we have a JustGiving page here. All funds raised go to the Hospice. And we'd like to say a very big thank you to everyone who has donated. 

Written by David Gorman