Читать книгу Walking in the Forest of Bowland and Pendle. 40 walks in Lancashire's Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty онлайн

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Hodder landscape, north of Whitewell (Walk 19)

The forest is, of course, a former hunting forest, not a woodland. The name ‘Bowland’ probably derives from ‘bu’-land, the land of cattle, and has nothing to do with bows and arrows. In times gone by, wild boar, deer and wolves roamed here, making the area a much-prized hunting ground for kings and nobility.

The central core of the area contrasts gritstone fells with steep-sided valleys and peaty moorland expanses, and for many years access to this excellent walking country was a vexed subject. But with the introduction of Access Land under the provisions of the Countryside and Rights-of-way Act, 2000, much of this land became legally walkable.

Pendle Hill across Black Moss Reservoir (Walk 38)

The Bowland Fells consist of an upland area of heather moorland with deep wooded river valleys, and together with the Bowland Fringe and outlying Pendle Hill they have considerable conservation interest. Dominated by blanket bog and heather moorland, there are also upland pastures here. The fells are incised by rapid-flowing rivers, giving rise to steep cloughs (steep-sided ravines or gullies) with occasional trees and lush wooded valleys on lower slopes. The valleys and cloughs provide a transition between the exposed moorland fells and the rural lowlands, and include an attractive mosaic of woodland, unimproved meadows, rush-dominated pasture and flushed grassland slopes, with marshes and streams at lower levels.