Lancashire Witches Way


Ian and Neil's reccy of part of the Lancashire Witches Way

On Friday March 20th, Ian and Neil, having arranged to meet some days before, and before the increased isolation measures introduced by the government, completed a short 11 mile walk in the Bowland Fells with the purpose of understanding part of the route of Lancashire Witches Way. This was scheduled to be walked by the Group in April 2020 but with our current restrictions this has been postponed. We will, of course, now rearrange this at a latter date.

The beginning of the third leg of the walk follows Langden Brook from near Sykes Farm just north of Dunsop Bridge to the summit of Hawthornthwaite Fell Top. The fells around here have few distinct paths so it was important to understand this part of the route in advance. Also in the route there is an intriguing instruction from the summit of just "follow a bearing of 320 degrees to the road". The initial climb up the valley as you probably know is a good track but before long this ends and then it is "freestyling" across the typical Bowland moorland. From the end of the track we headed north until we reached the fence that runs along the ridge and then we followed this west to the summit, which is marked by a trig point that has fallen over exposing its large concrete foundations.

The weather on the day, as you can see from the photos, was really good and the views from the top west across to the sea were excellent. And now to the descent! No path, just follow the bearing through the heather over the side of the fell and then across a flat area to the road near Abbeystead. Fortunately, with the recent decent weather it was actually not too wet under foot! From here the Witches Way continues west to Lancaster but we turned back and followed the road up to the top of the Trough of Bowland and the Grey Stone of Trough, which marks the old boundary between Lancashire and Yorkshire. It was then all down hill back to the car to end of what was a great little walk.

Unfortunately, we can all no longer just go off and find a great walk. The current advise is that we restrict our exercise and walks to those that we can undertake direct from our house and practice safe distancing whilst out. I for one am extremely lucky with some lovely short walks around Parbold and I hope to put some photos on line soon.

So please do send any news and some of your photos of your local walks and we will feature them here on the website under the Latest News menu - please e mail to westlancsldwa@gmail.com.

For photos please click here!