Pikedaw

Pikedaw, Yorkshire Dales

Late March, four years ago. Little did we know, but it was to be our last year of freedom for a while. I climbed Pikedaw, a little visited summit to the west of Malham, in the Yorkshire Dales, and was very glad I did. I thought I’d written it up on the blog, but I’ve searched my back numbers in vain and conclude I must have imagined it. Then again, I’m increasingly caught out not knowing what day it is, these days.

When it comes to eye-catching scenery, Malham has it all: the splendid little waterfall of Janet’s Foss, the great defile and occasional film-set of Goredale Scar, and of course the stupendous drop of the Cove. Naturally, this makes it something of a draw for visitors. Indeed, I suspect there are no quiet days here any more, but if your taste is for the quieter, wilder side, you can still escape the crowds in five minutes, and not see a soul. If that’s your bag, then Pikedaw is for you.

So, here we are again, in Malham. We’ve arrived too late for the free roadside parking, which is already tailed as far back as the village bounds. The National Park car-park is filling up too, but the little blue car manages to find a spot between a pair of enormous SUV’s. The evidence of the state of our provincial towns is that the country is in ruins, while paradoxically strung with jolly bunting as if in celebration of it. Meanwhile, the national parks are increasingly dominated by wannabe country squires and these gargantuan latter-day shooting brakes. The little blue car looks like a child’s pedal toy beside them, but I know which I’d prefer to be threading along the narrow lanes of the Yorkshire Dales. We clocked 98,000 on the drive in, and she still handles like new.

The plan is to take the paths west, to a meeting of ways on the high moors, near the ancient Nappa Cross. We’ll be calling at Pikedaw on the way, but the summit is not the main objective. A little below it, and commanding a view over the dale is a lone ash tree, one of my favourite lone trees, and I want to photograph it. From Nappa Cross, we’ll then navigate the moors amid the rapture of skylarks, coming out at the tail end of the dry valley known as the Watlowes. This is where we’ll pick up the crowds again, and join in with the slow shuffle, via the well-worn trail by the Cove, across Malham Rakes, to Goredale, and finally Foss Wood.

To begin, though, we climb along dusty, stony farm lanes, dotted with picturesque barns and amid lush pastures. At the first of these barns, we are threatened by a vicious looking brute of a dog. But I remember it from last time, so I have its measure. It is chained sufficiently to allow it to leap onto the wall and play merry hell with passers-by. One overenthusiastic slip, though, and it will end up hanging itself. I advise it, in passing, to watch its step, for it is clearly an ill-tempered beast, and unlikely to attract much by way of sympathetic assistance.

From here we have a view of Pikedaw. It’s not a prominent summit, which is perhaps why it does not receive more visitors, even though it is signposted from the village. After the last of the barns, we leave the farm track, and the way becomes suddenly vague, crossing a broad meadow. The park authority have been out placing notices, begging that dogs be kept on leads in order to protect ground nesting birds. Larks seem not to be struggling this year, but I have seen fewer lapwing and curlew. The meadow is grazed by Belties, and they have knocked one of the signposts over. We plant it upright again, for all the good it will do.

There is just the faintest indication of a walked way here. It runs roughly west of north-west, to intersect the wall below Hoober Edge, and it is here we find our tree. Unlike many ash trees on my home patch, in Lancashire, and which are showing signs of die-back, this one looks to be thriving, perhaps on account of its remoteness. We sit a while, watching the light change across the dale, and we get our shot. Damn those smug Yorkshiremen. They’re right. This is surely God’s own county.

So, four years since I was last here? No way! It feels like yesterday. I remember how I puffed and panted up the hill on that occasion, and I seem to be no fitter today, in spite of being out on a hill most weeks ever since. It seems all improvements in fitness are eventually overtaken by that great leveller: age. Still, so long as I can put one foot in front of the other,…

The path meanders its way past Pikedaw, with no clear route up it, so we are left to make our own way. The summit cairn is actually a Bronze Age burial, with a distinctly wonky stone cairn plonked on top. As a viewpoint it is superb, especially towards the east, over Malhamdale. We have a wonderful blue sky, across which sails an armada of fluffy clouds, rendering the land in dynamic light and shade. The greens darken to viridian, then warm slowly as they brighten almost to yellow, aided in no small part by a profusion of dandelion, and lesser celandine.

Pikedaw

From here, our way leads north to intersect the main path coming up from Fair Sleet’s Gate. The problem is this is open country, and there is a wall in the way. Heading due north, by compass, however, brings us to a gate which can be carefully vaulted. The wall is showing signs of damage. These are delicate structures and prone to collapse, if one is foolhardy enough to try to mount them. We should respect them. They are ancient structures and a pain for the hill farmers to repair. The gate has been set aside. Our way is clear, and we meander across to meet the path, then turn west towards the Nappa Cross, and lunch.

Dating from between the ninth and the fifteenth century, not much of the original cross survives. It’s no longer even in its original position, having been moved a little way off and built into a wall. Still, it survives as an antiquity on the OS maps and, though not considered worthy of listed status any more, it is at least deserving of a photograph.

Nappa Cross

From here, the bleakness of the moor is broken by the glittering eye of a distant Malham tarn, which also serves as our way marker, and brings us down to the road near the Watlowes. As predicted, it is here we pick up the company of others. The path through the deep defile of the Watlowes is narrow to begin, and our way is impeded by walkers of indifferent ability. To be fair, the limestone is worn smooth here by long decades of visitors, and can be tricky for the less sure-footed. There are Highland Angus calves grazing the fellside.

Eventually the valley opens out onto the top of the dizzying cove. At one of the last stiles before the cliff edge, we encounter a sobering notice, suggesting the cove’s use as an exit for troubled souls. Indeed, I am reminded of the last time I was here, when someone had gone over to their death, a grim scene with cops on the skyline, and the air ambulance making a precarious approach.

I note with some unease the people who must gather as close as possible to the edge, perhaps for the thrill of it. It is a thrill I cannot share, and turn away from the place. A fearful spot, it gives me the willies. Anyway, climbing slightly from the cove to a less airy place, we are able now to look back at the dry valley of the Watlowes. One side is catching the sun, the other in deep shadow. This is Dales scenery at its finest and most rugged.

The Watlowes

Another mile brings us down to the chuck wagon at Goredale, where we splash out on a restorative brew and a Kitkat. Inflation has hiked the price of a four fingered Kitkat to £1.00. Here, it’s really busy. One family are trailing a pack of ten little yappy hounds. They are making an awful racket, and the hounds are no better. I overhear that they are visiting the falls in the scar, a spectacular sight, but overly populated now by people and Instas who saw it on TV, it having starred as scenery in various movies and dramas. We shall give it a miss.

Goredale

Similarly, a huge school party is hogging the view at Janet’s Foss, the teacher delivering a stern, open air lecture on how to behave. I do feel for him, having discovered long ago that children and water are bound to combine eventually. We pass by unseen. Sunlight is filtering pleasantly through the little patch of woodland, the air thick with the scent of allium. Springtime is such an uplifting season, I would sooner swap it for the stultifying heat and heavy greens of summer any time. For all of its busyness, there is still something heavenly about Malham and its environs, something also, by contrast, hellish about the coves and scars, but which are also beautiful if held at bay by the safety of a telephoto lens.

And then we’re back at the little blue car, which is catching the cool shade between its bulked up SUV minders. We peel the top down. From here to the A59 at Gisburn is what the car was made for, especially on days like this, but first we’ll call at the farm shop for cheese.

Wensleydale of course.

Seven and a bit miles round, fifteen hundred and fifty-ish feet of ascent.

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The World Renewed: Out and about – on Cartridge Hill.

On Cartridge Hill

When the Soviet Union collapsed, footage emerged of Russian motorists travelling deeply potholed roads, even in their major cities. The poor benighted souls, we thought. But our sympathies were edged with more than a hint of smugness. After all, our own infrastructure could never fall into such a parlous state as that. Could it? Fast-forward twenty years, and we can tell we’re entering the environs of Chorley by the sheer violence its roads are doing to our suspension. Thus, we shake, rattle and roll towards the Hartwood roundabout. It’s a beautiful morning, a top-down day, and the little blue car has an excited buzz about her. We’re heading over to Tockholes for a walk up Cartridge Hill, on the edge of the Darwen Moors.

As we make way, I note there is nothing by way of reminder there are local elections on the 4th of May. There are no posters in windows, and I’ve had no leaflets through my door. I suppose they’re always a low-key affair, few punters bothering to turn out. But there seems something almost secret about them this time.

The Labour Party usually retains overall control of the council, here. I don’t expect that will change. It’s not much of a bell-weather for the shifting political tides of the nation, though. That said, I suspect the Greens will do a little better than usual. I read they’re currently attracting disaffected lefties, upset by Labour’s rightwards drift. Disaffected Tories are going the other way, to Reform UK, though they’ve yet to field a candidate here. Thus, we become ever more polarised, and nothing gets any better.

So, we take the Blackburn road towards Brinscall, then Abbey, and the A675 towards Belmont. Chorley is never far from beautiful countryside. Soon, we’re cruising along rural roads, flanked by neatly clipped thorn hedging. We dally with the idea of parking at Ryal Fold, but it’s getting busy there, even of a mid-week. Instead, we settle on the quieter Crookfield Road carpark.

The moors surround us here, pale as straw, and stretching as far as the eye can see. We have a clear blue sky, but a cool wind blowing down from the heights. We step out to the sound of curlew and lark.

Just off a busy turnpike, the carpark is also a favourite with vans and rep-mobiles, guys pulling in for a break between appointments. There’s a boss class Beamer, leaking thump-whack music. Then there’s a beaten up builder’s van bearing the logo of a construction company. He’s listening to Dvorák’s New World, second movement – not heard that in a while. We park closer to the builder’s van, all the better to listen, as I change into my boots. Then we set off to rejoin the curlew and the larks. Unusual that, not the sort of thing you expect to hear coming from a builder’s van. It just goes to show, you can’t always tell the depths of a man’s soul by appearances. So, beware your prejudice.

When the larks are ascending, like they are today, it’s Vaughn Williams that comes more easily to mind. But for our ascent of Cartridge Hill, it’s definitely the New World that worms about in the ear. Composed in the 1890s, and inspired by his time in America, the symphony has great warmth. It conjures up, in my own mind at least, a spirit of optimism, an anticipation of the great adventure.

Considering how the summit of Cartridge Hill must be the least visited of the West Pennine tops – at least judging by the complete lack of detritus – the cairn here takes on a different appearance every time I come by. Although indistinct when viewed from the moor, the hill has a dominant position over the valley. As a viewpoint, it is well worth the effort for a seldom seen perspective.

But now I’m thinking we’ve done this the wrong way round, actually, and climaxed too soon. We’re barely a mile in, and the remaining four have not as much to offer. But that’s just our mood talking. Lunch is chicken soup, and a view to die for. Great Hill, across the way, is dominant. Over its shoulder, I can just about make out the three windmills at Cliff’s Farm, way down on the plain at Mawdesley, near home. Next time I’m there, I’ll have to see if I can make out Cartridge Hill. Thus is it we slot the pieces, one by one, into the map inside our heads. Except now, we rely on the sat-nav and other iron-brained devices to tell us where we are, and perhaps even who we are. And such questions as “what’s that hill over there” no longer have any meaning in the world.

On we go, then, picking up a faint way towards the little moorland oasis of Lyon’s Den. The moor is dust-dry, and sandy in places. The sun is blinding and the wind is keen. I wonder if we’re heading into another of those seasonal droughts that last until July.

Darwen Tower

A huge walking party is coming up from Ryal Fold. They are taking photographs of a distant Darwen Tower with their phones. It looks like they’re heading out that way. They’ll need to hang onto their hats. We leave them to it, and cut down to Ryal Fold. As we reach the lower pastures, dandelion and coltsfoot are in profusion. We’re tempted by a brew and a bacon butty at the Rambler’s Cafe. But they’re queuing out of the doors again, and time is getting on, the long haul up through the plantations still ahead of us.

In Roddlesworth

Mid-afternoon now, and sunlight is filtering through the trees of the plantation. They are mostly bare, and the mosses are luminous. As I’ve written before, the Tockholes and Roddlesworth plantations are a bit of a doggie place. Sure enough, I meet a couple of the new breed of professional dog walker, sleight looking girls with packs of big, bouncy dogs that seem barely in control. They talk to the dogs like they are little people, but can barely manage a passing hello for me.

Roddlesworth and Tockholes are at their best in the autumn. Springtime brings little of interest, none of the carpets of anemones and allium, and bluebells of more ancient woodland. Lone gateposts among the tree trunks mark a long-lost residence, while fragments of drystone wall and fallen tree, thick with moss, speak of a near perpetual winter wet.

The Well House – Hollins Head

It is indeed a long haul from the bridge over Rocky Brook, up past Slipper Lowe, with just a faint respite to the ruins of Hollins Head. A final pull brings us back to the car. Short and sharp. Five miles round and eight hundred feet, according to the Iron Brain. The builder’s van has gone, so has the Beamer. The New World and thump-whack. Each to his own.

There’s a Green candidate putting up in my ward. I’ve had to dig for the information. Should I lend him my vote this time? If there are elections in your area, do turn out, but remember your ID. I know,… it won’t change anything. I fully expect the potholes around Chorley will be even deeper this time next year. So it’s even more important to get out for a walk. Returning from a walk, the world always seems renewed, no matter what mess it appeared to be in before. It is less a path to wrack and ruin, and more another step in the great adventure.

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Into the dead zone – a short circuit around Hodder Bank Fell

When I say “dead zone”, I mean this in a good way. We’re in Dunsop Bridge today, and the pay and display meter on the car park is broken. It says we can also scan the code to pay online. That’s novel, I’m thinking, and good job we have a smart-phone. Let’s give it a go, then. So I scan it, and the phone says there’s no Internet. There is no mobile signal, no 4G or whatever “G” we’re up to these days. This must be one of the last bastions of mobile free sanctuary in Lancashire – at least with my provider. So, I’ve done my best, but there’s no way to pay. Now, I’m never sure of the etiquette in these situations. Does that mean I get a freebie? Or shouldn’t I park here at all? I’ll be lucky finding anywhere else in Dunsop Bridge. We assume it’s a freebie, and trust to luck.

The forecast was a bit dodgy. We had a gloomy start following on from heavy rain overnight. But as we cleared the M6, and came up through Longridge, the clouds became fluffy and, further on, as we emerged from the forests around Whitewell, the fells of Bowland began to preen in pools of soft sunshine.

Easter’s a funny time. In the secular sense, to be frank, I see it as an obstacle to the proper enjoyment of spring. Things are just starting to look up, and you’re anxious to get out in the balmy air, after all that cold and wet. Then,… bang! The kids are off for a couple of weeks, everywhere is rammed and, as for the Easter Weekend itself – forget it. Our later years, and especially retirement, make us selfish with our time. The seasons pass so quickly, and there is a growing sense they are numbered, so we resent missing a moment. The kids are off this week as well, pre-Easter, but Dunsop Bridge is mercifully quiet. Then again, lovely a spot as it is, I don’t think I’ve ever seen it busy.

We’re looking for another short walk today, around four and a half miles, around Hodder Bank Fell, and it’s looking like the weather is going to be on our side. The forest of Bowland is Lancashire’s best kept secret, an area of wild beauty you can truly lose yourself in. Most walks I’ve done here, I’ve encountered very few others on the trail. It really doesn’t have a downside, but if I was pushed, I’d say this was tough country, and it’s hard to find a good circular under five miles, and five is what I need right now. I’m expecting a bit of a bog on top, after all that rain last night, but we’ll see how we go.

There was a hoo-hah in the media yesterday about this guy who ended up with a rare form of encephalitis. He’d caught it from a tick bite in Yorkshire. They worked climate change into the story as well, hyped the whole thing up and basically made out all us ramblers were risking life and limb in the great outdoors, and things were only going to get worse. As far as I know, Bowland is not especially troubled by ticks, but I tuck my trousers into my socks anyway, and off we go. I suppose they have a point, but there’s no need to make such a song and dance about it.

From Dunsop, we walk up the tree lined avenue and cross the Hodder by Thorneyholme Hall. Then we turn upstream, following a fairly straight forward, though faint way across meadows. A path eventually gathers confidence and leads us by the lonely house at Mossthwaite, then down to the imposing Knowlmere Manor, with its many chimneys. This place must have burned a lot of coal in its time.

I’m reminded of a snippet of Wilfred Owen’s poem “Miners”.

Comforted years will sit soft-chaired,
In rooms of amber;
The years will stretch their hands, well-cheered
By our life’s ember;

The centuries will burn rich loads
With which we groaned,
Whose warmth shall lull their dreaming lids,
While songs are crooned;
But they will not dream of us poor lads,
Left in the ground.

The path has become the main drive to the house, now. We follow it down to Giddy Bridge, where our way finally parts for the moor. A fingerpost points us confidently up uphill, but the ground appears not to have been walked for years. I lose my way a bit here, double back, check, and gradually bumble my way to the fell gate that leads on to the open moor. Like all things, the way is easy, once you know it. So, having gained an extensive view we settle on a stone for lunch, check for ticks. There are none. Damn the media and its click-baity hysteria.

What day is this? Thursday. Retired now for over two years. I know of colleagues who didn’t last this long before begging to be taken back. Not everyone can find themselves in emptiness, in sitting on a rock, watching sunlight play upon the green. Perhaps there is something wrong with me, but I can’t get enough of it.

Okay, lunch done, we tackle the bit of moor across the flank of Hodder Bank fell, a cold wind coming at us now from the west. There is a good path, not heavily trod but naturally boggy, I think, especially after rains. It does not threaten to swallow us, not yet, and we enjoy its barren nature, and its wonderful views towards Totridge Fell. A series of low rock pillars mark the way. There is more serious bog on the descent of Fielding Clough, requiring careful footwork. Water is pouring from the moor in glistening rivulets and gathering in vast areas of reedy quagmire. At the farm, at Burholme, the plains of the Hodder are glistening with flood, and alive with birds.

We return to Dunsop through the meadows, by the Hodder. This section has become familiar ground now, in recent years, and is always a delight, with its views across to Totridge Fell, and Mellor Knoll. There are flocks of piping Oystercatchers. I have never seen so many together, always thought them solitary birds, but they circle the meadows now, en-masse as tightly packed as coastal dunlin.

Just a couple of hours out, but a good walk and, it being the first time, there’s always a buzz of satisfaction at unpicking the puzzle of it. We come back to Dunsop to find the car unadulterated by a penalty charge, or perhaps they deliver these things by post now, and I shall have to wait and see? No sense fretting, though. The day was worth it. We top it off with coffee at Puddleducks. This is my kind of Dead Zone.

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A moorland mystery – around White Coppice and Great Hill

White Coppice

There’s a feel of spring in the air today, as we drive over to White Coppice. It’s been a cold, wet week, and the change is welcome. The plan is to climb Great Hill, with a little deviation to visit what I can only describe as a Neo-Pagan temple. We’re in the little blue car, so we park down by the village green, rather than pressing on up the bumpy track to the cricket field. The last time I tried that, she was almost beached in the deep pots left over from the lock-down days. It adds a mile or so to the route, but all of it is pleasant.

Once home to the rural poor, White Coppice is now a place of desirable residences. It’s looking very pretty this morning, too, with its Wordsworthian daffodils fluttering and dancing in the breeze. The local celebrity here is Alfred Ephraim Eccles, not a poet, but an industrialist, social reformer, and stalwart of the temperance movement.

If White Coppice folk wanted a drink, they had to sneak out of the village. But Eccles had a good view of goings-on from his elevated home, the rather grandly named Albion Villa, and was reputedly stern in his reprimands. He was also the main employer, so not a man to antagonise.

It’s easy to be cynical about the killjoys of the temperance movement, but that would be to take it out of context. In 1872, the Chaplain of the Salford County Gaol claimed 90% of prisoners owed their incarceration to the influence of strong drink. But also, with crippling poverty hitting wives and children especially hard, it wasn’t a bad idea to prevent the publicans from emptying the pockets of men, before they’d even made it home from the mill.

The other famous son is Sir Henry Tate, sugar magnate, and founder of London’s Tate gallery. It’s also home to Big Al, from my story “Winter on the Hill”. I always look out for her when I’m passing her cottage.

The week’s heavy rains are tumbling from the moors, and remind me I’ve still not managed to get my leaky roof fixed. Roofers are an elusive breed in my locale. There are several falls up this way, impressive in the wet, and always worth a photograph.

White Coppice

The route eventually narrows to a couple of sporting options. One of them would take us along a narrow, exposed path, into the intimidating jaws of Black Brook. I’ve never liked the look of that one. The other involves a bit of a scramble onto the moor, to rejoin the main path coming up from White Coppice. We take the latter and head on up to the ruins of Coppice Stile.

Great Hill from Coppice Stile

There’s a beautiful thorn tree here, looking gaunt today. Somewhere among the ruin there’s an OS benchmark from the Victorian period, chiselled into a cheese press of all things, but I’ve yet to find it, and today is no exception. From Coppice Stile, we can see Great Hill, and the usual well-walked route up to the summit, via the ruins of Drinkwaters farm. But, just a little further along from Coppice Stile, we take a detour across open moor to investigate another ruin. I’m not going to name it, but anyone who can read a map will work it out. A substantial ruin, over the years it has been quietly refashioned into a Neo-Pagan temple.

I have seen photographs of it, an old and weighty lintel raised as a central upright, amid a tidy circular space, and decorated with intriguing magickal symbols. Its presence isn’t exactly advertised, but I’ve been thinking it’s inevitable the trolls will find it, and I want to see it before they get to it.

Sadly, I’m too late.

Fallen

Someone has pushed the central upright over, and the ritual neatness I have seen in photographs, is in disarray. But there’s something odd about it. What’s most curious is the scallop shell at the base of the fallen upright. Needless to say, scallop shells are not a common sight on the moors. There is a symbolism here that’s intriguing, but beyond me. The scallop is associated with Christian pilgrimages, but it also features in the practice of witchcraft, as a protection from the evil eye, or the ritual containment of rogue spirits. Or it can be a symbol of water, from the five elements of the old alchemists. Take your pick.

We touch nothing, and withdraw quietly.

There are no paths here, only sketchy ways. We strike out across the moor, until we hit the track coming up from Brinscall’s Well Lane, then we head for Great Hill, still puzzled and not a little spooked by our encounter. The imagination cannot help but invent stories about it. At first, I have it as the Christian fundamentalists catching wind of Pagans in their midst, and violently shutting them down. But then I have a scene of Crowleyesque magick, raising Pan, and scaring the pants off the participants. They only just manage to contain the horned one, and coax him under that shell, where he remains to this day,…. until disturbed.

Other suggestions gratefully received.

Drinkwaters

Anyway, we have a more cheery aspect awaiting us at the ruins of Drinkwaters farm, where I usually settle for lunch when I’m up this way. The aspect is gorgeous, with afine views south over the moors. But we’re a bit early today, so press on up the track to Great Hill. At the summit shelter, however, there is the overpowering stench of marijuana, which puts me off my soup. I also note a fellow walker has left his sit mat – perhaps he was too stoned to remember it. I have donated quite a few of these to the moors myself over the years, and seeing it makes me smile. I fold it up and wedge where it won’t blow away. Perhaps he’ll come back for it. Then we head down the side of the hill towards Spitler’s Edge, to find somewhere less malodorous.

By the stile here, I note the wire has been snipped, and curled out of the way. I’ve seen this at several access points on the moor. It’s a troubling phenomenon. The bikers carry wire cutters up here, then they can thunder through without the inconvenience of dismounting, and lifting their bikes over stiles. But the wire is there to keep the sheep in, to stop them wandering off and getting into trouble. I’m all for freedom of access, but come on guys, cutting the wire is not cool, and reflects badly on all of us who use these moors for recreation.

Great Hill

Anyway, the edge is not for us today, tempting though it might be. Instead, we turn for the ruin of Great Hill farm. There are some fine trees on this side of the hill, and we spend a while photographing them. The light is suddenly very bright, but we have clouds moving in. It’s warm, too, and I’m wondering if we might be able to drive home with the top down. But there’s rain forecast for around the time we’ll be getting back to White Coppice, and those clouds are telling me the forecast is going to be spot on.

Great Hill Farm

Probably the loveliest oasis of trees, hereabouts, are those surrounding the ruins of Great Hill Farm. They form the cover art for “Winter on the Hill”, a graceful collection of thorns and sycamores. So, finally, we settle for lunch. No scent of marijuana, and no magickal symbols to raise the hairs on my neck. Boy, am I glad I didn’t touch that shell!

It does indeed come on to a light rain as we make our way down. Passing by the little preschool at White Coppice, I am struck by a couple of inspirational quotes on notices. One of them I quote as best I can from memory: There is no WiFi in the forest, which is why the connection is always better.

Never mind Wordsworth, in Lancashire, everyone is a poet.

Village Green, White Coppice

Around 5 miles, 860 ft of ascent

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Out and about – around the Yarrow Reservoir

I tested negative for COVID on day ten, so nipped out to fuel the little blue car. The drive wore me out, and my arms and legs didn’t feel like my own. I’ve been a bit cautious then, getting back into the walking saddle, so much so, today’s walk hardly counts, at barely two miles, but enough to see what’s what, and hopefully get things rolling again.

It’s one of those cold, grey, late winter days. The light is flat, the colours muted. We have clumps of snowdrops, plus the miniature daffodils are out, and the garden forsythia is showing yellow. When in doubt, I always let the car decide, and it always delivers me to the Parson’s Bullough road, by the Yarrow Reservoir, at Anglezarke. You’ve a good choice of routes from here, from the epic, to the bimbling, and I think bimbling is the more sensible choice, today. We’ll see if we can claim our legs back, and trust the rest will follow when it’s ready.

So, you catch up with me driving up Adlington’s Babylon lane. I was always going to buy a house up here, handy for Rivington and the moors, and I seem to drive it every week. I could save myself some miles. Babylon Lane is mostly old mill terraces, and can look a bit dour, but as you reach the top, and the junction by the Bay Horse, everything opens out, and the beauty of the West Pennines hits you all at once. You can travel straight on from here to Rivington, or cut left down Nickleton Brow, for Anglezarke. This is one of the most beautiful roads in the district, dropping to the bridge over the Yarrow, then up the other side, to the Yew Tree inn, and the reservoirs.

I’m not great, festering in doors for long periods. Even a few days of rain can make me twitchy, so the 10 days of self-imposed isolation was a bit of a trial, one that renders the outdoors strange, as the self-important media holds one captive, injecting its bad news, like a poison infinitely worse than COVID. In his recent piece, fellow blogger, Narayan, quoted Kurt Vonnegut as saying we are dancing animals. We are made to move, to get outdoors, to experience the world and other people. This struck a chord. Isolation, and gawping day after day at a computer screen, or doomscrolling our phones is not good for us. It is not dancing.

So, here we are, now, on the Parson’s Bullough road, looking to dance. There’s a huge flatbed truck in a little lay-by, and goodness knows how he got that up here, but it looks like they’re repairing the Allance Bridge, after a boy racer knocked the parapet off. My sense of smell has yet to make a return, so I can’t smell the leaf mould, or the moorland air, but as I crack open the door, something in the air is sufficiently welcoming, and revivifying. We step out, eager to embrace it.

In one of my early COVID reveries, I was wondering about getting a body-cam – though not because I fear assault when I’m out and about. I enjoy fiddling with clips from the little blue car’s dash cam, and wondered if a mash-up of a walk would be a fun thing to do. Of course, there are plenty of vloggers out there with the full kit and caboodle, including the buzzy drone for tracking shots that would make my efforts look childish, but still, I may have a go.

So, anyway, we’re moving. One foot in front of the other. The first test is the short, sharp hike up Hodge Brow, to where the path leaves the road, by Morrises. I was thinking it would flatten me, but we seem to have fuel in the tank. Things are looking good. The colours are so soft today, we’ll need to have a think about how to pull anything out of them with the camera, but without over-blowing it. What tends to happen is we lose detail, especially the distant woodlands blurring out, and everything looking muddy. Not a great day for the camera at all really, but we’ll try setting the upper limit on the ISO to 800, then we can get faster shutter speeds, and hopefully dissolve any noise in post-processing.

This eastern flank of the reservoir is the most attractive, the route meandering through open meadows, and quite elevated with views all around, to the moors, to the Pike at Rivington, and then out to the estuary of the Ribble. The land feels real, and comforting in its familiarity. Does that sound too obvious? But stuck at home, vulnerable to the worst of bad-news media, it’s easy to lose our way, imagining things to be important which are not. Or is it more a case of being encouraged to believe certain things are important, when they are not, in order to distract from other issues, which are.

I read this week the novels of Roald Dhal are to be censored, removing language that has, shall we say, fallen out of polite usage. The same fate is to befall Flemming’s Bond novels. The media seems made to inculcate strong opinions on such matters, and perhaps it’s because I’ve been ill, but I find it difficult to care. Philip Pullman suggests we should simply let such works go out of print if they are no longer suited to contemporary sensibilities, and I have some sympathy with that view. I’m no fan of Dhal or Flemming, but many still are. I am a fan of LeCarre, and some of his early works contain a language that was certainly of its time, so how soon before he is added to the mix. Many household names are the same. I suppose the issue is that these works still sell, and publishers are loath to let a good earner go out of print. But what do I think, urges the breathless media, you have to have an opinion. No, I don’t. Not today.

I think it was Krishnamurti who said something to the effect that the craziness only starts when men start to think, and then we argue over who’s right, even to the extent of killing one another over trifles. The natural world is not beset by such madness, which is perhaps why so many of us seek it out to regain our footing in the pell-mell of the world of men.

We come down to the southernmost point of the walk through Dean Wood, now, and the avenue of the chestnuts. When I last came this way, it was under snow. It beguiles me every time, inviting a shot, but I always struggle to do it justice. Here we pick up the track that comes up from Rivington, and we follow it around the western shore of the reservoir, first in the shadow of the Turner Embankment, named after the farm that was demolished to make way for it.

There’s a lone tree here that’s always photogenic, in any season. Again, I’ve yet to do it justice, but it’s always worth looking out for. Then the reservoir comes in to view again. There used to be a face in the wall, here, reputed to be a carving of the head of an unpopular foreman overseeing the works – this would be in the latter Victorian era. We used to have fun as kids, seeking him out on our family walks. He survived into the nineteen eighties, before disappearing, I presume stolen. I’ve often thought it telling how he survived in plain view for so long, and no one thought to steal him before.

Another landmark along this way, harder to steal, is the building we used to call the Diddy Man’s house – Ken Dodd was a mainstay of children’s TV when I was growing up. I presume the building houses a valve for the waterworks. We would knock to see if the Diddy Man was in, then press our ears against the door and hear the spilling of water. My father would tell us the Diddy Man was having a bath, so could not come to the door. He is having a bath again, today.

From the northwestern embankment we get a view down to the Anglezarke reservoir, and beyond, over the Lancashire Plain, to where the little blue car and I will shortly be returning. There’s a steep ravine here and, though I’ve walked past it hundreds of times, something about the trees overhanging it catches my eye today – the colours, the shape of them – and is certainly worth the last shot of the day. I remind myself this is all man made, and must have been a dramatic change to the landscape up here, armies of men with picks and barrows, then flooding the valleys, flooding out farmsteads and pastures. It’s been a long time coming, but there’s been a healing, and this is a landscape now much loved by many.

So now we’re back, the little blue car waiting in the layby with a flask of tea, and some lunch. The legs feel like my own again, and the mind seems capable of its usual accompanying ruminations. You know, after joining the ranks of COVID veterans, I think we’ll do. We’ll make it four miles next time. Thanks for listening.

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Out and about – reminders of wartime, on Anglezarke Moor

On the Parson’s Bullough Road

Today’s plans were scuppered by a couple of road closures, which had cut off our destination, White Coppice, from the rest of the world. We’d intended going up on the moors to investigate a remote ruin sources inform me has been re-purposed into a neo-pagan temple. But the gods had other ideas. So, we read the runes, accepted their counsel, and drove on over the twisty little road, to Anglezarke.

Those who live magically say you should always be on the lookout when your travel plans are upended, that the trickster archetype is at work, and you might be about to learn something important, or that your life might be about to jump the rails into some new and fruitful direction. We’ll see. I’m not sure if this is living magically, but the road up by Manor House Farm is a delight this morning, affording magical views of the misty plain. It’s a lovely sunny start to the day, but banked clouds to the north and east foretell a change.

Ten minutes brings us to our default location, a little layby on the Parson’s Bullough road. New car today. Well, new-ish. We were overdue. It drives well, but has a lot of gizmos I don’t really need, including the intrusion of a computer screen. I can plug my phone into it for navigational purposes, and can ring people up while on the move, should I ever feel the need, and truly hope I never do. We traded the good lady’s little Corsa for it, which appeared on Autotrader last night. The dealer is looking for a breathtaking 100% profit on what he gave us, which of course also means my new one is worth half as much as what I paid for it, but that’s the way it goes, and it doesn’t do to dwell.

So, it’s looking like a short hike up Lead Mine’s Clough, then maybe onto the moor. For all that sunshine, cracking open the door, the air feels cold and bleak mid-winterish. This is familiar territory, walked and photographed to death, and written about here, but I couldn’t think of an alternative on the hoof, after the neo-pagan temple plan was kyboshed. If the Trickster has anything to show me, it’ll have to be in the details, something subtle I would otherwise have missed. We’ll see.

Ruined Walls and straw-coloured grasses – Anglezarke Moor

The falls are musical in Lead Mine’s Clough, emptying the moor of its recent rains, and the melting of last week’s snows, but I always find them difficult to get a decent angle on, and not dramatic enough for the scramble that would otherwise be necessary. A popular spot for picnicking down the generations, and well-loved. We hid a coin here, as children, a token of something ineffable, something magical. It’s still there.

We follow the track up onto the moor by Wilkinson Bullough, a long, bleak track, this. We have the ruins of drystone walls, above Green Withins Brook, and isolated groups of pines, sorry survivors of a more extensive forestry, planted thirty years ago, and destroyed by one heath fire after the other – all this amid a sea of straw-coloured moor-grass, upon which the wind strokes waves of silver.

Remains of forestry – Anglezarke Moor

I remember coming this way one summer and meeting a pigeon walking the other way. No, seriously. I may have told this story before. It passed me by, and I wondered why it was walking. Was it hurt? Was it just tired? I looked back, and it paused, looking back at me. I took a few steps towards it, and it carried on. I paused. It looked back. The pigeon seemed to want me to follow it, so I did, for a bit, but it was leading me back to the car, and I wanted to get on with my walk, so I gave the job up as stupid, and carried on. When I got back to the car, hours later, it had been broken into, robbed out and nearly stolen. That pigeon was trying to warn me. I’ve always been superstitious about birds. You ignore the Trickster at your peril.

Approaching Hempshaws – Anglezarke moor

Anyway, no winged messengers today. I’m tempted by Standing Stones hill, which rises bleakly to our left, and from which all the standing stones have disappeared. The old maps, however, show some features I’ve been wondering about checking to see if they’re still there – an old well, the site of a Victorian shooting hut, and the scant remains of a possible Bronze Age burial. But there are no paths up there any more, and the moor will be heavy going, so we’ll just head on round to the ruins of Hempshaws, have lunch, then wander back by the Dean Wood route.

Heinz Chicken soup today, and half a pork pie that needed eating. Delicious in the open air. We find shelter in the lee of a wall at Hempshaws, and settle down. As we do so, our eye is taken by some curious artefacts. Someone must have been having a sweep around with a metal detector. I thought there was a by-law against that on access land, but anyway, they’ve turned up what look like .303 cartridges, the brass corroded to a wafer, now. And they are displayed as if a hand had just left them there for me to find. Look at these, says a voice? What do you think?

Reminders of wartime – Anglezarke Moor

Indeed, says I, but these weren’t used for shooting grouse. They hark back eighty years, to the second world war, when the moors were closed for army training. Suddenly I’m hearing the crack of Lee Enfields, or maybe they’re from M1 carbines, because the Americans were up here too, and I fancy they could better afford the ammunition. Dark days. What must our grandparents have felt, as the world fell into chaos, and their precious boys were being called up to have little fingers of death like these pointed at them? Hempshaws is a peaceful spot, now, but it wasn’t always so.

I feel a shiver, someone stepping over my grave, as they say. It’s a story maybe, something in the casual scatter of these remnants of the past, and the way they are presented. Don’t try to grasp it, let it sink. It’ll come back more pointed if it’s serious, with a cast of characters and a snatch of dialogue to get you going. Leave them be. Next time we pass, they’ll be gone.

Is that why we’re here, then? Did the Trickster want us to see this? Or was it just the old gods didn’t want us photographing around that neo-pagan temple? I would not have blogged it, I plead – or at least I would have been vague about its location, while waxing lyrical about neopaganism. I’m not of a neo-pagan bent myself, but I would not have wanted trolls going up there and vandalising it. The gods remain silent on the matter, and fair enough.

Yarrow Reservoir

Anyway, we leave the cartridges to the elements, make our return by Old Rachel’s, and then the right of way which no longer exists, through the electrified meadow, where we must now run the gauntlet of rich people’s horses. The horses, muddy and over-coated, ignore me, but horse can have a peculiar sense of humour, and I wonder who is liable if I am kicked in the head by one.

Then it’s by the Yarrow, the light fading of a sudden, though it’s only just past two. The clouds are thickening, the weather changing, now. We sink into the car for a restorative brew from the Thermos, plug in the phone, ask it to plot a course for home. The iron brain obliges, and her voice is sweet. In another eighty years, we’ll be needing robots to tie our shoelaces, because we’ll have forgotten how.

She gives me a route, not the one I would normally take. So, we’ll go home the way we normally do, see how well she keeps up. It’ll drive her mad, but her voice is better company than the radio.

Just four miles and five hundred feet or so, give or take eighty years.

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Out and about – High noon on Noon Hill, with John Wick

A light fall of snow overnight clears to a frosty dawn. The forecast is too good to be skulking about indoors, so we muster our gear, then set out for Rivington, and the Hall Avenue.

Mid-week, mid-morning, and it’s busy with cars, kids and dogs. These are school age kids, and they are with working age parents. Again, I wonder to what they owe their premature attainment of escape velocity. There’s a sprinkling of snow here, and the ground feels mushy where the sun touches it, but it’ll most likely be frozen, higher up, so we pack the spikes – just in case – and off we go. Check: camera on aperture auto, shooting RAW, and set to bracket, polariser on the 18-140mm lens.

I’m a bit pie-eyed this morning, and feeling gormless. I used to be a night bird, but no longer seem able to burn the midnight oil without consequences. I’d stayed up watching a movie that had been recommended, called John Wick. Personally, I found it mindlessly violent, almost like a video game. There was one brutal set piece after the other, and then the embarrassing festishisation of ever more elaborately phallic firearms. And there was a veneer of glamour whose thrust had me wincing more than the oft-wielded knife blades. Okay, so it wasn’t my preferred genre.

I didn’t make it to the end, but fell asleep, frankly, bored. That said, John Wick’s brooding, funereal presence is still following me around this morning. I hope he’s wearing a decent pair of boots, or he’ll be grumbling later.

Unlike John’s violent and nihilistic universe, the world of Rivington is peaceful, and beautiful. We take a meandering approach to the terraced gardens – no particular route in mind, as seems usual with me these days, when on home territory. The snow cover thickens as we climb, and the low sun paints buttery highlights. There’s just enough whispy cloud to add interest to the sky without it tipping the atmosphere into something gloomy. John would prefer it gloomy, he says, while checking for the firearms secreted about his person. But this is England, and we don’t allow that sort of thing here. He’s puzzled by this. I mean, what if someone insults you?

On the great lawn, there are two summerhouses, now wonderfully restored and architecturally fascinating. I’ve just worked out one faces the morning sun, the other the evening. Mi’lord Leverhulme would have taken breakfast on fine summer mornings at one, and sipped his sundowners at the other. And me, sitting down on the steps of his morning summerhouse, basking in this buttery light, would have been seen off with dogs, and John, no doubt in Mi’lord’s employ. A century later, I have my revenge, and sit with impunity, for Time is the great leveller.

I never tire of the gardens. They’re certainly a royal way to approach the Pike, and the moors beyond. A vague plan is beginning to form. We’ll do the Pike, then chance the moor, across to Noon Hill.

The café that has recently popped up in the ruins of the old public lavatories, below the Pike, is open, and John is gasping for a coffee. It has recently installed a diesel generator, and we are treated to its noxious exhaust as we approach from downwind. I am not tempted, but John grabs a quick one, then crushes, and discards his cup in the bushes. I fish it out and put it in my bag, decide against giving him a lecture on it. He seems at times on the verge of becoming a reformed character, but a moment’s thoughtlessness, and he reverts to type.

There’s quite the procession going up the Pike, they’re also struggling, avoiding the steps, which are thick with ice. So we put the spikes on and make a traverse, spiralling round to get at the top from behind. It’s cold and blowy, people taking selfies. They’re looking at John like they know him from somewhere. Again, there are many here I would have thought of an age to be either in college or working. I wonder if they are on strike today.

The various strike actions are deepening across the country now, and the usual yapping dog presses seem to be failing in their attempts to demonise the Union officials. The government is also looking crass and incompetent, in its refusal to negotiate. The political Zeitgeist is swinging to the centre and would swing further, but the left no longer has meaningful representation. The powerful have not grasped these are not the nineteen seventies. The discontent is different, born of an inequality our parents never knew, one that has been a decade in the manufacture, at the hands of those who, by contrast, have profited handsomely by it. John confides in me, he’s been approached by several kingpins with a view to taking out ringleaders of discontent. He’s told them he’s retired and doesn’t do that sort of thing any more.

Anyway, in the summer months the route across the moor from the Pike to Noon Hill can be difficult to trace, and intermittently boggy. But today it’s plainly picked out by a dusting of snow, a thin white line squiggled over an undulating expanse of pale straw, and the ground is hard. The trick is knowing where the snow is covering bog, and how thick the underlying ice is. Will it take your weight, or will you burst through over your boots? As we get going, we look back and take a few shots of the pike in retrospect. There’s a lone man making his way up, and with a tight crop, the scene is dramatic.

Noon Hill is an unimpressive summit from this angle, just a small spur off the Winter Hill ridge. It’s more interesting when viewed from the west, where it forms a meridian with Great Hill, and I’ve often wondered if there’s any significance in the fact that, whatever the time of year, when viewed from Anglezarke, the sun will always be directly above Noon Hill, at noon. What do you think, John? John shrugs, couldn’t care less, checks instead for the knife in his sock. I’d told him to lose that, because it’s a one way ticket to chokey, if he’s caught. He looks at me like I’ve lost my mind. What kind of dumb-ass country is this where a man can’t carry a knife or a gun? Clearly, we’ve a way to go before we can restore his faith in humanity.

Noon Hill is the site of a Bronze Age saucer burial. It was first excavated in 1958 by John Winstanley who was then curator of the Hall in th’Wood Museum. It was an eventful dig, and his diary makes for interesting reading. Further information can be had at the excellent Lancashire Past website, here. There are also some fascinating period photographs of the dig here.

The ground becomes more treacherous the nearer we get to the top, and the light turns bleak as thicker clouds begin to gather from the south. The view looking back to the Pike takes on the appearance of a revelation now, as the sun fans down though whatever heavenly apertures it can find. But it is the view northwards that is the most stunning, across Anglezarke moor. Then there’s the land falling away to the plain, and finally the glittering line of the sea, to the west. And to the east, we have the stacked ranks of increasingly snowy hills, marching out towards Rossendale.

But there’s little time to settle and enjoy it, greeted as we are by a face numbing wind, so it’s a quick shot of the snowy cairn with Winter Hill in the background, then turn tail and make our way down. The time for Noon Hill is a clear summer’s day, with a pair of binoculars.

We take the short route down to the old turnpike, then the unofficial path that drops us steeply to the bend on Sheephouse lane, and finally, a very boggy return to Rivington. It’s a walk that always feels longer than it is – just over four miles, and seven hundred and fifty feet of ascent, but a pleasantly varied route, and far enough given what looks like a bit of weather moving in.

Time for a brew, now. John’s smiling a bit. You know what? I think we’ve mellowed him out. He says he’s sorry about that coffee cup, earlier on. I just hope no one picks a fight with him in the tearoom, or we’re all in trouble.

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Spikes on the Pike

^{Stubai 4 point instep crampons}

The cold snap continues, with temperatures down to minus four this morning. There’s been a light fall of snow since we were last out, and it’s become frozen like hammered glass, under a light powdery coating. A clear, dry day today means conditions are too good to be indoors, but we need to find the instep crampons first. I don’t want to end up like the poor old guy who broke his shoulder, and ended up strapped to a plank and driven to A+E by his granddaughter in the back of a van, because there were no ambulances.

Our health service has been running on fumes and the good will of its staff for too long now, and looks finally to have been pushed over the edge everyone, at least on the left of politics, knew was coming. Like Kinnock said in 1987: in the future don’t be young, don’t get old, or ill. He could easily have added: don’t have an accident. He was speaking of the consequences of a win for Thatcher’s conservatism at that year’s election, but our current administration makes hers seem positively benign. They are the most brazenly right-wing we’ve seen since the eighteenth century, and ideologically opposed to the very concept of socialised medicine. And the sharks who keep them in power clearly want it gone.

So, anyway, instep crampons. I bought them after a nightmarish descent from the Old Man of Coniston, one winter, many years ago. I’d gone up the south side which was clear and sunny, then came down the shadow-locked north side, which turned out to be treacherous with rime ice. Fortunately, I haven’t needed them for anything but fun since, and then only rarely do we get the conditions in lowland UK when they’re handy. Not all walking boots are suitable for your full-blown, mountaineering crampon, but with insteps you’re fine. Any old boots will do, and they take up hardly any room in the sack. Mine are old Stubai 4 points, probably considered antique now, but they still work.

The roads are clear as far as Rivington, though no further. Sheephouse Lane has been abandoned to the elements, and is closed to traffic. The first job is to remember how to put the crampons on. People are slithering about all over the place, so it looks like I’m justified in taking the precautions. We’ll do the Pike, up by the Ravine and the Great Lawn, then circle back by Wilcock’s and Dean Wood. A shorter walk than last week’s, then. About five miles and a thousand feet. The light is stunning – crisp and bright – and we should get some good shots.

The way becomes scrunchy and Christmas card-ish very quickly. I recall the insteps require a conscious effort to hit the ice with the rear spikes first, feel them bite, then roll into the front ones, but once we’ve got into the rhythm, it’s like engaging four-wheel drive. What is it about snow that gets us excited? It’s sufficiently rare here, I suppose, but it also adds another dimension to the landscape, turns the familiar into an adventure, and there’s the lovely way it paints blown-out highlights on bare trees. Then there’s the cold, and the feeling of aliveness as we warm up through our exertions in the sharp air.

^{The Ravine, Rivington Terraced Gardens}

During the summer, the terraced garden volunteers had been working on clearing more of the Ravine, and it’s astonishing, the details they’ve uncovered – pools and runnels that have lain hidden for a century. We try a few shots here, but nothing really grabs us. It needs lots of tumbling water, so, we’ll be back after heavy rains. What we’re really anticipating as we climb, is a picture of the Pike, under snow. Along the way we note the old building that was once a public lavatory (abandoned for years as a vandalised abomination) is now re-purposed as a café, which explains the trail of discarded paper cups I’ve been following on the way up.

A glorious day, yes, and one to be enjoyed, but now and then I can’t help fretting over the various trials of my offspring, as they attempt to gain a foothold in the world. Number one son, recently moved out, has been awaiting an Internet connection for a month, and is no nearer a resolution even though he’s already paid for a month’s service – that he’s required to work from home is impacting his job, so he commutes to my place and occupies my study. And number two son, mortgaged to the eyeballs in a two bed starter home, has just found out he needs a new roof, though the survey said everything was just fine. I’m realising parenthood is for life. You never stop worrying, be they five or twenty-five. Indeed, the older they get, the worse it is, because you know you have to close your eyes, let them go, and get on with it.

There are other young men having a fine old time, here, sledging down the Pike. I wonder why they are not at work, or if the world has changed so much, I was a fool to keep going until the age of sixty, that for all those years, there were people half my age having a Beano on the Pike. I don’t know what the secret is, but do not begrudge their obvious fun. I’m only puzzled as to why it took me so long to wise up.

^{Rivington Pike, Winter 2022}

The snow is deeper here as we reach the high point of the walk, at around 1200 ft. The crampons loosen as the boots warm up. A shake of the foot reveals the problem. Tighten the strap and on we go. We walk a little way along the path to Noon Hill, so we can shoot the Pike under snow with a starburst of sun. I wonder briefly then about carrying on to Noon Hill, across the open moor, but that’s a tougher walk than I fancy today, so we stick to plan A, come back to the Pigeon Tower, then down through the terraced gardens.

^{Pigeon Tower, Rivington, Winter 2022}

There are mega-buck four-wheel drives – kings for a day – on the Higher House carpark, which suggests they ignored the road-closed signs on Sheephouse Lane. The road here is like glass, and nearly as hard, but the spikes keep us upright and enable steady progress to Wilcocks, along what resembles, in places, a river of ice. Then we cut for home, along the top of Dean Wood. There’s nothing like the feel of those spikes biting, and they keep you firm in places where you’d ordinairly not be able to stand up! No, now is not the time for a broken leg and A+E.

Then I’m thinking back ten years, to a night in Preston Royal. The ward was like a war zone, the staff clearly knackered, yet kind, and the surgeon with a face that betrayed the weight of the world on his shoulders, and my mother discharged into the dead of night, to die of inoperable cancer. I’d hoped they might let her rest until morning, but they needed that bed for someone they’d a chance of saving. And so it goes.

It’s fine if you’re fit and healthy, but at some point we all need care, even if it’s only for the final few weeks, to see us out. So, for pity’s sake, fellow Brits, wake up. Don’t let’s go the way where a health emergency costs us our house and our life’s savings, and our children their house, and their life savings too, and all so an already rich man, lacking in self consciousness and shame, can indulge his whim for an ocean going yacht, or a doomsday bunker in New Zealand. Don’t let me carry that one into my next novel. I’m looking for the off-ramp into the bliss of Zen, not back into the mire of class warfare.

^{Dean Wood Avenue}

A little after two now, and the sun is creeping low. It’s dead ahead as we walk this avenue of ancient chestnuts, now – such a beautiful stretch, filled with memories of hunting conkers with my children. Pockets full, and still plenty left for all comers, and the squirrels too. I wonder at how quickly the time has flown, and how little of it we have to enjoy the company of our children – though I also recall it doesn’t always feel like that when you’re in the thick of it. Though my boys have left home now, I still collect a few conkers in passing, come the season, just for the sentiment. Anyway, the light is dreamy now, so we chance a shot – late day, winter ambiance – and then again as we walk the brookside path towards Church Meadows.

^{Towards the Church Meadows, Rivington}

Then we’re back to Rivington, and the car, and peeling off the boots. This is such a small beat, and I’ve known it all my life, but it keeps on giving. Whatever bit of green is your part of the world, you will never know any other so well, and so intimately. And that’s a gift.

Now the temperature’s falling, and we’re looking at another sub-zero night, but the Met office says rain and ten degrees come weekend. We have to enjoy these things while we can.

Keep safe.

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Out and about – on the West Pennine Classic

Winter Hill, from the climb to Spitler’s Edge – West Pennine Moors

The delivery lady came sooner than expected, but also just in time. She’s a familiar face now, and a cheery soul. With the decline of the high street, our delivery drivers have become the engines of the nation, indeed the saviours of it during Covid lockdowns, yet are still treated appallingly by profit-driven employers who deny even their status as employees. Anyway, she took my picture holding my package as proof of delivery. Job done and she’s on her way.

She’s brought me a new walking jacket, or rather a mid-layer fleece, which was rather thicker than I’d been expecting. But then again, I wasn’t expecting temperatures of minus five this morning when I set out for the West Pennines. I’d worried I might boil in the jacket, but as fate would have it, that wasn’t a problem at all.

Everyone who regularly wanders the Western Pennines will have their own definition of what constitutes the classic route. Mine starts from Rivington, takes in the Pike, and Winter hill, then across Spitler’s Edge to Great Hill, down to White Coppice, then back to Rivington via the Anglezarke reservoir. It’s a longer walk than I’m used to, just under 12 miles, and a couple of thousand feet of ascent – a broad circuit that takes in the higher moorland summits and shows off the very best of the scenery.

The day had warmed to a few degrees below freezing at Rivington, which, at 9:00 a.m, was still in the shadow of the moors. There were golden frosted leaves under foot, and wreaths of mist snaking through the trees. But then we climbed into sunrise through the terraced gardens, and into the calm, clear light of what was suddenly looking like a beautiful winter’s day.

Then we tackled the Pike. The lack of wind was a blessing. It would have been arctic otherwise, and the walk curtailed to something shorter and less exposed. It’s odd, but when the Pike is the main objective of the day, it can have you puffing and halting to admire the view, but when the mind is thinking beyond it, you seem to make the top with half the effort.

Rivington Pike from Rivington Moor

Beyond the Pike lies the morass of Rivington moor, and a steady climb to the masts on Winter hill. But crisp days make the going easier, the bog being mostly frozen. Alpine sticks help probe the way, and keep you steady on the ice. At 1496 ft, Winter Hill is the highest point of the walk, and lots of ice here. One can hardly describe it as an attractive summit, among the transmitters, but with your back to them, the immediate view of the moor, and the northern hill country beyond it is breathtaking.

After the trig point, it’s a sharp drop, into the chilly shadow of the hill, to the pass of Hordern Stoops, where we once again emerge into sunshine, and another long climb to around 1300 feet, on Spitler’s Edge. I was last up this way in the spring a warm, early evening, with the cotton grass bobbing about. Winter presents a much bleaker aspect, of course, and it’s not a day to linger for long, but thus far the new jacket is proving to be something of a miracle, and a very fortuitous delivery.

This long stretch between Winter and Great Hill used to be more of an adventure, along vague paths and peat hags, but it’s increasing popularity over the decades has resulted in it being paved from end to end with gritstone flags recycled from old mills. They once rang to the strike of clog irons, now it’s the hiking boots and the scratching of Alpine sticks. It makes the going much easier and preserves the precious habitat. We brave the surface of the land by day, when the sun shines, but scurry back to our beds to pass these cold nights, nights that embalm the moorland grasses in layers of hoar frost, and render the lonely ways thick with ice. This would be a bad place to be after dark, the cold finding its way into the layers of even the warmest coat. But by day, on days like this, the images will enter our dreams and our memory, to rise in flashes of warm reminiscence in the years to come.

So, Great Hill now for lunch, and views across a pale inversion to the mountains of Cumbria and the Dales. Bowland and Pendle seem so close, we feel we could include them in our day’s loop. Then it’s down to Drinkwaters, and Coppice Stile, where we were only last week, up from Brinscall, and on a completely different kind of day. We take a shot of the thorn tree which we photographed last week, and which is today looking very wintery.

The sun is slipping low, now. Such short days, and I’m conscious of the time. We’ve been on the move for about four hours, and another two to go. At the back of my mind is the self-imposed curfew of not being on the road after lighting up time. We’ll probably have to forgo that one this evening, and run the gauntlet of the SUVs burning the paint off our car and my retinas, with their headlights.

White Coppice

Down to White Coppice, and a chance to photograph the tree I spotted from afar, last week, holding onto its leaves. I had thought it was an oak, but closer inspection reveals it to be a beech, its leaves all coppery, while around it, its neighbours stand bare, fingering sunbeams and casting long shadows. Photographers usually define the golden hour as the last hour before sunset, but in these northern winter months, we can enjoy it for much longer.

Anglezarke Reservoir

Like now, for example, and this mellow light over the Anglezarke Reservoir as we rest before the final push. There’s a bank of cloud coming up, snow forecast for overnight. We grab what we can of it with the camera, drink it down to memory before a gloomy stillness comes on, then it’s a long twilight back to Rivington, frost already settling at the wayside. The day is fading out, but I’m loath to paste it back home, and the Barn looks so inviting, lit up and jolly. Table service now. It’s three years, pre-pandemic, since I last enjoyed its hospitality. The young lady comes to take my order. Six hours of a perfect winter round on the moors, finished off with a hot chocolate, and a toasted tea cake.

Classic! Though I’ll probably be a bit stiff tomorrow.

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Third sycamore from the left

_{Drinkwater’s Farm – December 2022}

Lunch today is chicken and mushroom soup, and a seeded roll. Our venue is the ruin of Drinkwater’s farm, third sycamore from the left. It is my favourite table, shared, no doubt, with many others, but not today. Today we have the ruins, indeed, so far, the moor all to ourselves.

We’ve come up from Brinscall’s Lodge Bank, which is a long-winded way of doing it, but it makes for a more attractive walk along the Goit valley than the direct ascent from White Coppice. The wooded section, along the Goit, is mostly winter-bare now, just the occasional beech aflame in red and orange, against a background of misty, mysterious gloom.

On the way up, I spied turkeys under makeshift cover, as protection from avian flu, which is hitting Lancashire pretty hard at the moment. There will be a shortage of the birds come Christmas, just as there is already a shortage of eggs. More worrying, though, is the ongoing devastation to the wild bird population. Although naturally occurring among birds, the severity of this outbreak is pointing to our abuse of the natural world, in particular the factory farming of birds, and a wider breakdown of our ecosystems.

Anyway, we’re looking for winter colour today, looking for compositions along routes I must have scoured with the camera countless times. But there’s always something new – a different light, a different angle, a different mood. The bright-eyed holly is in berry now, and the gorse – somewhat confused – is half asleep for winter, yet also half flowering for spring. The bracken, sometimes reaching seven feet high in summer, has now died back to piles of rusty straw, and the mosses, and lichens are a lively green. But it’s mostly the shapes of trees that fascinate at this time of year. Shorn of foliage, their limbs twist and twine, gesturing like dancers in expressive pose.

From the Brinscall woods, we came up by way of the track from the ruins of Goose Green farm, a place that used to double as the Green Goose, being licensed in olden times to sell ale to farmers. What yarns must have been shared in that place, now just an outline of stones in the swelling earth. This sinewy path runs south, is modestly elevated along the line of the Brinscall fault and punctuated by gnarled trees, some of which have now fallen. One of the last before White Coppice took our eye as its limbs, coiled and bent, indicated the way.

_{Goit Valley – White Coppice}

Then it was the moor, more shades of rust, and silent under a uniform blue grey sky. Out across the plain, to the west, there was the dense line of an atmospheric inversion, but the plain itself was mostly clear. It’s a grey day, rather cold, a fine rain blowing in from the east. At the ruins of Coppice Stile house, just a featureless tumulus of rubble, now, we tried to do justice to the wizened old thorn tree. A shy sun peeped through momentarily and helped lend some contrast. I seem to be visiting familiar trees more often than I do summits these days.

_{Thorn Tree, Coppice Stile}

Then it was on to Drinkwaters, to the sycamores, and lunch. Great Hill is tempting, and it feels wrong to skip it, but we’ll leave that for another time. The days are short now, time pressing, and I am sticking to my resolve not to be on the road after lighting up time. The higher set LED headlights on SUV’s have long been painful and blinding to me, and to many others, according to reports. And most cars these days seem to be of the SUV variety. The only solution, I suppose, is to get an SUV myself.

“Excuse me. Is that the Round loaf, over there?”

A passing walker. We hill types are none of us really strangers to one another, and gel at once when in our natural environment. The Round Loaf – a huge Bronze Age burial, is prominent on the skyline. The guy is interested in routes, is not familiar with the Western Pennines, but is keen to find his way around its antiquities. There are routes from this side, but vague, and prone to bog. We discuss options. He will try from the Rivington side, another time, from where the going is easier. We discover a shared interest in the lost farms, as named on the early OS maps. Then he’s on his way, up Great Hill, most likely never to be met again.

_{Great Hill}

I take photographs, wide angle to soak up what little light there is, now. I never know what the camera has got, and can spend many a pleasant hour, afterwards, post-processing in the digital darkroom, teasing out what I thought I saw, or revelling in what the camera saw, and I did not. Drinkwater’s is effortlessly photogenic whatever the season, or the weather.

We begin our return to Brinscall along the track by Brown Hill, noting the line of shooting butts as we go, these having been cobbled together from the remains of drystone walls. There were dubious claims from the shooting fraternity, earlier in the year, that avian flu had not been detected in game birds, so there was no need, they said, to curtail their usual post Glorious 12th jamboree. But the situation overtook them and, with a little unexpected help from BREXIT many shoots were indeed called off.

_{Shooting butt, Brinscall Moor}

We pick up the terminus of Well Lane, a short but steep drive up from Brinscall. There are always a few cars here, people mostly emptying their dogs on the moor. A short detour brings us to Ratten Clough, which has the distinction of being the best preserved of the lost farms, and a moody place at the best of times. But, unlike Drinkwater’s, I always struggle to get a good composition here. We prowl around for a bit, try some shots, but nothing has a definite tingle to it. It doesn’t matter, it’s just good to be out, and feeling warm, even on a cold day like this. It also saves on heating the house.

_{Ratten Clough, Brinscall Moor}

December 2022, and coming up on two years retired, now. I remember what it was I used to do for a living, but haven’t a clue how I did it any more. It was remarkably easy to let it all go. Writing, reading, walking, photography – these are much better ways to spend one’s time.

So now it’s down through the Brinscall woods again, to connect with the Lodge Bank, and the car. Boots off, and a cup of tea before we make the drive home. There’s an ancient duck comes to say hello, a long time resident, scrounging for seed. I hope it avoids the flu.

Five miles round, and around 650 feet of ascent.

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