Cuerden Valley - Tuesday 13th. October 2015

The pictures:-

To see who was on the walk, click on the following picture:-

To view all the pictures taken on the walk click Here then click 'Slideshow'.

The Walk:-

Walk Leader - Shirley Bradshaw

Starting in glorious Autumn sunshine, from the small car park at the bottom of Back Lane in Cuerden Valley, our group of 14 plus two dogs, crossed the B5256 and entered Cuerden Valley Park. After crossing the River Lostock, then a little further downstream re-crossing it again by stepping stones, we headed up towards Clayton Green and out of the Park. We then went through the Clayton Brook estate and from there under the M61 via a subway. Now in open country we continued up a farm track to Thorpe Green and, once we had crossed Sandy Lane, made our way across a couple of fields to the farm at Holt. Having been climbing steadily, we were now elevated from the plains of West Lancashire and able to enjoy the open views as we crossed through fields to the attractive little village of Brindle with it's fine old church. Here in the churchyard John T. tried out an ancient stone coffin for size, but as it was uncomfortably small, decided to carry on with the walk rather than make it his final resting place! Gladly all together, we crossed more fields to Marsh Lane and more of the same, albeit one of them recently ploughed and re-seeded, to our lunch stop at Ollerton Bridge on the Leeds/Liverpool Canal.

The second half of our walk began by following the canal towpath, beyond Withnell Fold, to the bridge below Lower Simpson Fold. There we left the canal and headed up to Top o' t' Lane, where we paused to read the plaque that marks the location of the infamous workhouse. Moving on again to the trig point on Hough Hill (better known as Denham Hill) we called a halt to take in the fine views, which stretched from North Wales in one direction all the way to the Lake District hills in the other direction. The remainder of the walk went down through Whittle le Woods and then through Cuerden Valley Park to our cars.

Thanks Shirley for a very pleasant 10.5 mile walk, very much on our own stamping ground, but nevertheless seemingly enjoyed by all who took part.

Stan.