Village-Link walk


10 people, 7 from the group and 3 guests, plus 2 dogs gathered at Holcombe car park for the start of this ‘village link’ walk and led by Jean Bobker. Holcombe village itself is very old with houses dating back to the 17th and 18th centuries.

Descending steeply through woods we emerged in Ramsbottom, passing the oldest pub here, the Rose and Crown dated 1797 and then Devils Hole lodge where the ducks and geese have their own bank account and are looked after by the local community. After going through Nuttall Park we climbed the steep flight of steps known locally as Jacob’s Ladder and continued on to Grant’s Tower, now a ruin, and which was built in 1828 by brothers William and David Grant who also built Square Mill, a calico bleaching and finishing works.

After a coffee stop in the sunshine we went on through Mount Pleasant, a one-time factory village in the Nangreaves area. The mill, which only closed in the 1980’s,provided employment for 1300 weavers and spinners. Stone from the mill was used to build new cottages and the village became a residential community.Passing Falshaws  ice cream parlour we then skirted Lower and Higher Summerseat  to arrive at Greenmount a place that owes its existence to the building of a Sunday School in 1848 which was named Green Mount Independent Sunday School and shortened to Green Mount by the local people. This former Sunday school is now the local community centre.

We now proceeded through Tower Court, with its crenallated water tower,  and originally built in 1840 but is now used as up-market apartments. This led us to the Kirkless Valley, a pleasant wooded area and we followed Kirkless brook and a former railway to Walshaw where we had a very pleasant lunch stop on the banks of the Middle Whitehead reservoir. The 3 Whitehead reservoirs are sites of biological importance and many species of bird have been sighted here.

Our next village was Ainsworth, another old place first mentioned in the early 13th century. Moving on again,our next scheduled visit should have been the Pack Horse at Affetside but  because the path from there was in such a terrible state due to the amount of undergrowth making it almost impossible to get through, Jean took us on a diversion through nearby Mum’s Harris farm. What a state it was in! The building was in a sorry state of repair, filthy,dangling cutains and the yard was full of old, rusty broken down machinery. The three fellows outside looked like the Beverly Hillbillies and the father also had a pit-bull terrier type of dog which fortunately was on a lead. Walking quickly through the mucky yard we were just glad they hadn’t invited us in for a cuppa as we would have had to politely decline!

Descending through Two Brooks valley, we reached our final village, Hawkshaw, an attractive place of stone built cottages, 2 pubs and a church where we sat down for our afternoon stop with 4 miles left to go. Two options are mentioned in the route description and we took option 2, a scenic and off-road route.

Passing down Coal Pit Lane we wound our way through pleasant woodland  before crossing fields to go round the perimeter of the army camp, the assault course of which was used by the TV programme the Krypton Factor. Walking through Saplin Wood, one of the oldest areas of woodland in Bury, we arrived at the open area known as ‘the ridge’. This is a delightful path with extensive views all around.

Reaching Moorbottom Road the route again had 2 options. Two of our group opted for the more direct way back to Holcombe whilst the rest of us climbed up, passing the Millenium bench, to Peel Tower. This is 128 feet high and is one of the great landmarks in East Lancashire. It was opened in 1852 as a memorial to Sir Robert Peel, the founder of the modern police force. From here it was downhill all the way to reach the 18th century Shoulder of Mutton pub and a short section of road back to the cars. The GPS's gave a distance between 18 and 18.7 miles.

The walk, which is very well way-marked, was altogether surprisingly good, going through a wide variety of scenery, woodland, rivers, moorland and reservoirs and probably never too far from Bury although you would never have thought so. To find out more about the interesting and fascinating history of this region visit the website at www.village-link.com

Thanks to Jean for ably leading the walk which, despite being waymarked, would have needed quite a bit of recce’ing.

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