Читать книгу Walking on the West Pennine Moors. 30 walks around moorland Lancashire онлайн

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Turn left, now following a broad, stony track, and running along the easterly edge of Wilderswood. Beyond the woodland, the track continues and eventually reaches the base of Rivington Pike. On the way you pass isolated Pike Cottage, and about 200m further on, once again cross the infant River Douglas.

As you reach the base of Rivington Pike, branch right on another broad, stony track that leads through gates and up to the pike. It soon becomes clear that there is an obvious direct route to the top, and a less obvious, circling route that goes off to the right and comes back onto the summit from the north side. Take your pick.

RIVINGTON PIKE

Another beacon, similar to Rivington’s, was Ashurst’s Beacon, southwest of Rivington. This chain of signals was set up around 1139 by Ranulph de Blundeville, the Earl of Chester. The Rivington beacon is known to have been fired on 19 July 1588, when the Spanish Armada was first engaged in the English Channel. There is an interesting entry in a 19th-century directory, which explains: ‘In the reign of Queen Elizabeth, when England was threatened with invasion by the “Invincible Armada” of Spain, the beacon upon Rivington Pike, standing at an elevation of 1,543 feet from the level of the sea, was kept for several months in a state of readiness, to apprise the inhabitants of the approach of the invaders. During the Napoleon dynasty, on the alarm of invasion by the French, the beacon was replaced, but in the 19th as in the 16th century, it has never yet been required to spread alarm within the breasts of England’s matrons, or its illumination over a peaceful country.’