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

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Walk 30 Irwell Valley

APPENDIX 1 Route Summary Table

APPENDIX 2 Further Reading

Above Anglezarke Reservoir (Walk 9)

INTRODUCTION

The West Pennine Moors, located between the towns of Chorley, Bolton, Horwich, Ramsbottom, Haslingden, Oswaldtwistle and Darwen, comprise 233km2 (90 square miles) of moorland and reservoir scenery. The area has been a place of recreation for many generations of Lancashire folk; indeed, long before the much-vaunted mass trespass on Kinder Scout, there were organised trespasses in the late 1800s (small and large: around 10,000 people in 1896) and court proceedings on both Winter Hill and Darwen Moor in an attempt to keep rights of way across the moors open. The West Pennine Moors were very much in the vanguard of the campaign for access to our countryside, not that you’ll find many so-called authoritative texts on the matter admitting as much. But the facts speak for themselves; it happened here first.

Dissected by wooded cloughs and characterised by skyline features like Rivington Pike, the Peel Monument on Holcombe Moor and Jubilee Tower (also known as Darwen Tower) on Darwen Moor, the moors are a highly valued and much-appreciated region for recreation and study. Almost the entire area is water catchment, and the successor to the North West Water Authority, United Utilities, owns around 40 per cent of the land, and operates four information centres – at Rivington, Jumbles Country Park, Roddlesworth and Clough Head, Haslingden Grane, which also offer refreshment facilities.