Walking on the West Pennine Moors. Terry Marsh
winter-wise – if snow lies across or near your intended route, take an ice axe (and know how to use it properly).
Have some idea of emergency procedures. As a minimum, from any point in your walk, you should know the quickest way to a telephone. You should also know something of the causes and treatment of, and ways of avoiding, hypothermia.
Respect the moorland environment – be conservation minded.
Using this Guide
Each walk description begins with a short introduction, and provides start and finish points, as well as a calculation of the distance and ascent. The walks are grouped largely within the traditional areas of the moors.
Distances
Distances are given in kilometres (and miles), and represent the total distance for the described walk, that is, from the starting point to the finishing point.
High Bullough Reservoir (Walk 9)
Ascent
The figures given for ascent represent the total height gain for the complete walk. They are given in metres (and feet, rounded up or down).
This combination of distance and ascent should permit each walker to calculate roughly how long each walk will take, using whatever method – Naismith’s Rule (see below) or another that you find works for you. On the West Pennine Moors, however, allowance must be made for the ruggedness of the terrain.
Naismith’s Rule
The ‘time allowance’ given in a guidebook provides a useful approximation, but it does no harm to work things out for yourself. ‘Naismith’s Rule’ is a useful method of working out an individual estimate:
allow 1 hour for every 5km (3 miles) of distance
add half an hour for each 300m (1000ft) of height gain.
Note ‘Height gain’ and ‘ascent’ are potentially confusing. Height gain is the amount of height you have to climb on a walk, and is the sum total of all the up sections, not just the difference between the starting point and the top of the mountain.
The diagram illustrates the point. Height gain is the sum of the height difference at each of the three points A, B and C.
Naismith’s Rule has been in use for years and is a good guide, but it is a worth keeping notes over a period of a few months and assessing the time your walks actually took against Naismith’s calculation. You may find that you are 10 per cent faster than Naismith, or 15 per cent slower. The value of this is that you can then apply Naismith’s Rule to your walks, and make an adjustment for your personal abilities.
Maps
1:50000 – all the walks in this book can be found on Ordnance Survey Landranger Sheets 103 (Blackburn and Burnley), and 109 (Manchester).
1:25000 – of greater use to walkers on the West Pennine Moors is the Ordnance Survey Explorer Sheet 287 (www.ordnancesurvey.co.uk), which covers all the walks in this book.
Paths
Not all the paths described in the text appear on maps, and where they do there is no guarantee that they still exist, or remain continuous or well defined. With only a small number of exceptions, paths are signposted, but not always waymarked.
RIVINGTON AND ANGLEZARKE
Old boundary line above yarrow Reservoir (Walk 8)
WALK 1
Around Anglezarke Reservoir
| Start/Finish | Rivington (SD628140) |
| Distance | 11km (7 miles) |
| Height gain | 185m (605ft) |
| Terrain | Field paths, good tracks, some road walking |
This circuit of the Anglezarke Reservoir (constructed in 1857) uses parts of a number of paths used in other walks, and is typical of the scope for invention that the area around Rivington allows. A pair of binoculars would be useful, as you spend a deal of time close by the water, with the prospect of spotting birdlife. There is ample parking in the many side lanes that branch from the main road through Rivington, if the Great House Barn car park is full.
Wherever you park, head for the small green at Rivington village, taking a moment first to inspect the stocks that held the miscreants of yesteryear.
The Unitarian Chapel in Rivington is interesting; it was founded in 1662, and the chapel built in 1703. In its grounds, on either side of the path, there are some interesting date-stones from the 17th and 18th centuries. Here and in the chapel house beyond, the followers of American poet Walt Whitman (1819–91), known as the ‘Eagle Street College’, celebrated his life and works.
Pass the stocks, keeping them on your left in order to locate and descend a brief flight of steps in a retaining wall, and cross the road to a kissing-gate. Beyond the gate lies a wide, sloping meadow with a grassy path keeping close by the right-hand fence to reach a longer set of steps. These lead down across a stream to a path going right between fences and along the line of Dean Brook. Stay with this path to its end, at a junction with a broader trail.
Go sharp left here, crossing Dean Brook, and ascending gently for a short distance to reach the end of a broad track, on the right, running arrow-straight to the embankment of Yarrow Reservoir. Turn right and follow this track, strolling pleasantly along a walled lane with good views to the left and right. Ignore a branching track descending left, but keep on to cross an overflow that links Yarrow with Anglezarke Reservoir below.
Anglezarke Reservoir
Just before the overflow bridge, one of the capping stones in the wall on the right has been carved, by a reservoir construction worker, into the likeness of a face, allegedly the works foreman. It is not easy to find because over the years it has been rather defaced.
Beyond the bridge, the track continues beside gorse-bearing embankments to give a fine view, right, over Yarrow Reservoir to the distant pincushion of Winter Hill and its clutter of masts. Eventually, the track runs out to a road, and here you turn left, descending the road with care to a junction. Turn right, still following a road, until, at the first opportunity, you can leave it, left, to pursue the Anglezarke Woodland Trail.
There are a number of possibilities for circular tours along the trail, but for our purposes, begin by keeping left, through a gate near the entrance to the car park. This takes you down a surfaced track at the edge of Anglezarke Reservoir, and past side paths that lead, for the curious, into Leicester Mill Quarry. Leicester Mill Quarry provided stone for building and road construction throughout the northwest. Indeed, many of the streets of Manchester are paved with stone from the Anglezarke quarries.
Further on, the track changes direction to move round a small inlet below High Bullough Reservoir. As the road climbs on the other side, leave it, as it swings to the right, by branching left on the apex, to follow a delightful woodland path around the edges of Brook House Plantation.
High Bullough Reservoir was the first reservoir to be constructed in the area, in 1850, to supply drinking water to Chorley. The link with the main reservoir system is no longer used, and the reservoir is given over to visiting wildfowl, notably goldeneye and grebe.
Brook House Plantation was planted in the 1870s, and contains many beech and oak trees that date from that time. The beech provides food for