You know that feeling when you’ve come down off the fells, and you’re looking to pay for coffee, but can’t find your wallet? I would have been embarrassingly short, but I’d found a pound on the trail which, when added to the change in my pocket, just came to the price of the coffee. It was good coffee, but I didn’t enjoy it because I thought I’d lost my wallet. It summed up the day, a mixture of good and bad, and a feeling I’d not got the best out of it, possibly due to my own gormlessness, or possibly not.
We’re in the pretty little village of Dunsop Bridge today, central hub of the Bowland fells, also the geographical centre of the British Isles, or near enough, at least by some calculations. I have a Christmas card a friend sent me, from the post office here, in December 1992, and which he describes in his book “A Journey Through Lancashire”. It was journey’s end for the book, and he describes in his closing paragraph the bleak view of Mellor Knoll and Totridge fell that day. Here I am now, getting on for thirty years later, and my friend has since departed for a different sort of journey, though, knowing him, he’s already written several guidebooks about it. The fells have an altogether brighter look about them today. There’s a cold wind blowing, but it’s driving the clouds, so the hills are great canvasses for fast moving patches of shadow and light. The freshness is exhilirating.
The plan was for a circuit of Mellor Knoll, a prominent cone-shaped hill, following the route described by fellow blogger and guide to Bowland, BC, here , though I decided to go the other way around and get the steep bit out of the way first. Viewed from Dunsop Bridge, it’s an obvious objective for any hill walker with blood in his veins, but, though a right of way runs by it, the summit itself is technically a trespass.
With a few exceptions, the paths in Bowland generally aren’t as well walked as in other areas, and sometimes the exact line of a marked right of way on the map is more of a general idea than a dead certainty, so you need your wits about you. Options for circular walks tend also to be longer, and over rougher ground. And although access is much better than it was, post CROW 2000, there’s a sense one still has to be careful, especially now trespass has been uplifted into a criminal offence.
The early part of the route was straightforward, though not heavily walked, so it wasn’t always clear what line to take across open ground. But from Langden Brook, you’re basically aiming for the coll on the shoulder of Mellor Knoll. Totridge fell impressed with altitude, and an attitude of austere bleakness, and we needed little by way of persuasion to save that one for another day. I found shelter from the wind behind the wall on the coll, and watched the farmers gathering sheep in the valley below. Of resident flowering flora, I found only a lone mayflower, flowering more in hope than expectation, amid an otherwise bleak expanse.
The summit of Mellor Knoll is just a short, tantalising detour from here, but if pressed I shall claim my meandering over to the summit was strictly the result of navigational error, therefore unintentional, and, moreover, that I did not intend taking up residence. That said, the views were 360 degrees of stunning. Bowland is, at times, the jewel in Lancashire’s north. At other times, it can be deeply irritating. Speaking of which,…
The way from Mellor Knoll continues plainly enough, but I lost it when entering a patch of woodland to the west of New Hay Barn. I’m still not sure what happened here. A gate led me confidently into the wood, and waymarkers reassured me I was on track. Next thing there were flying motorcycles everywhere, and the line of the route had vanished in a confusion of rutted scars cut by bikes, and the waymarkers had given up on me. There were motorbikes growling everywhere, and first aid boxes perched on poles, suggestive of danger to life and limb.
After a couple of aborted attempts to muddle my way through, I approached a motorcyclist, who had dismounted, and asked him where the path went. Either he misunderstood my meaning, or he hadn’t a clue, or both, but he seemed confident and friendly enough, and he pointed me in a certain direction, so I followed. He meant well, but this turned out to be down the trail used by the leaping bikes, and not the right direction at all.
I was in deep doo-dah now, well off my route, and fearing to carry on, or to go back up the fell to my last known good position. Indeed, I felt like a sitting duck, this lone twit on foot amid a melee of armoured bikers at play, that it was only a matter of time before I’d be needing the contents of one of those first aid boxes. So, I bailed out into a meadow, in some haste, climbing a gate and, putting myself into unknown, and pathless territory. To whom it may concern, apologies for this particular trespass, which was indeed intentional, but I really was in fear of injury. I was lucky in finding just the one electric wire, which I had to duck under, and then I was on a private track down to the road, by Hodder Bank farm, all of which cut a couple of miles from my intended route, and rather soured my mood.
A little road walking brought me to Burnholm Bridge, on the Hodder, where I picked up the remains of the day. From there onwards, it was a very pleasant return to Dunsop Bridge, by the river, which did much to calm my curses. All I needed now was coffee from Puddlducks Cafe, a nice drive home, and all would be well,…
Which brings us back to the beginning of my story, also the end of today’s adventure in the Forest of Bowland. But it was fine. The good luck fairy was looking after me, stumping up change for my coffee, and then arranging it so as I’d left my wallet at home. If I’d lost it on the fell, now, that would really have spoiled my day.
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