Northern Rambler

  Whitworth to Wright’s Folly: A Circular Walk   History Thomas Wright (1711-1786) is topical at the moment with the recent unveiling of a commemorative plaque in his name in his birthplace of the small village of Byers Green, near Spennymoor. I am yet to visit the plaque and the walk featured here does not pass through Byers Green. An earlier post on the North East leg of the Camino de Santiago covers this area if you are interested. The main feature of this walk lies a little closer to my childhood home of Middlestone Moor, in the nearby hilltop village of Westerton, where Wright designed an observatory tower (or “folly”) which remains fairly well intact to this day. Below I provide some historical details about Wright and his folly as well as more general information about the area covered. At the bottom, I describe the route in detail should you be interested in following it.   Wright and his Folly Thomas Wright was something of a polymath. He is best know...

It's the first of December and what better to mark the occasion than with a ramble. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go. I have been walking Lancaster canal in sections, soon to reach the northern-most point near Kendal, but I thought I'd leave this till the end of the week. I have a few other long distance walks on the go, which I am doing in stages. The one I decided to add to today was the Wyre Way. The river Wyre runs from the grassy slopes of Hawthornthwaite Fell in the Forest of Bowland to its estuary between Knott End and Fleetwood. I walked a couple of sections last year. I found the river's source (or should I say one of its sources) on Hawthornthwaite and followed it to nearby Abbeystead. And around this time last year I walked a section from Scorton Picnic Site to Garstang, which was a very pleasant section. Today I started from the opposite end of the river, at its mouth at Knott End. The walk follows a circular route, taking in a short section of the Wyre Wa...

Winter Hill 125 On the 5th of September, I found myself in Bolton enjoying the commemoration of the 125 years' anniversary of the mass trespass of Winter Hill. This is the mass trespass you probably haven't heard of. Everyone has heard of the trespass at Kinder Scout in the Peak district in 1932. Why Kinder was unique in the way it captured the public imagination I am not sure. Undoubtedly, the hill itself is far superior to Winter Hill, both in terms of size, topography and views. It also took place in what became the first national park and almost marks the starting point of the first long distance walking route: the Pennine Way . Nonetheless, the near complete obscurity of this important chapter in the history of the battle for access rights is unwarranted. This commemoration, with over 1000 in attendance, and notable guest speakers such as Guy Shrubsole, the author of the wonderful Who Owns England, will hopefully go some way toward ushering in a resurgence of interest. In ...

The north east leg of the Camino de Santiago starts at Finchale Priory just north of Durham and finishes at the ancient Anglo-Saxon church - one of the oldest in the Britain - in the village of Escomb. The route is roughly 22 miles long and takes in several pilgrim places, such as the church and priory mentioned above and the highlight: the Majestic Durham Cathedral (a UNESCO world heritage site). The terrain meanders through woodland, riverside, meadows and occasionally, housing estates. I am not going to provide a detailed route here. Instead I will provide a general outline along with some information on some of the key spots along the way. I walked the Camino with my friend Alex during the summer, when the lockdown restrictions had eased. It was my first one-day "long distance" walk and my first Pilgrimage Trail (it gets a brief mention in The Pilgrimage Trust's 2020 Britain's Pilgrimage Places ). It was a great experience. Never before have I walked such a distan...

Scorton picnic area sits alongside the river Wyre on the outskirts of the Forest of Bowland, just north of Scorton Village. It is owned and maintained by Lancashire Council. Before the council reclaimed it, it was a former sand and gravel extraction site. Now it flourishes with wildlife and offers a peaceful day's outing. There is a decent sized car park on site, which I used once before to walk a stretch of the Wyre Way south to Garstang. To the north, the Wyre Way leads to the small village of Dolphinholme. On this outing, Abigail and I walked the circular route from the car park. The gravel path makes the walk easy on the foot. The first half runs alongside the river Wyre and there are several ideal spots to sit and pass the time away. On the right there is a small lake and a platform from which to view the birds. The total route is just shy of a mile, making it ideal for a quick excursion. But if you are left wanting more, you could join onto the Wyre Way or make the short trip...

  The Durham coalfields defined a way of life for generations. Once a hub of industrial activity, the towering and intimidating heavy machinery was visible for miles around. Not anymore. Mining has, unquestionably, left its mark on the landscape. The scars are still visible to those who look. Many former railway lines which serviced the mines are now in use as walking and cycling paths. Many towns and villages only came into existence to house the miners and their families. But the mines themselves have all but disappeared, save for those preserved as museums, such as Killhope; and those which, though disused, have been left exposed to time.   This walk takes in several former Co Durham mines: Merrington Colliery (Spennymoor Pit), an old shaft in Burton Woods and Tudhoe Mill Drift Mine. Merrington Colliery has been replaced by Burton Woods housing estate, which is passed by at (2). The nearby shaft in Burton Woods (the actual wood), needs some finding. It is off the main tra...

  I have been reading about the Brass family murders which took place in 1683 in Kirk Merrington. Andrew Mills, a servant to the Brass family who occupied a nearby farm, killed the Brass family children when their parents were on vacation. They met their ends brutally; their parents returning home to find their lifeless bodies mutilated by Mills’ axe. Mills claimed that the devil had possessed him to carry out the act; a defence which bought him little sympathy. Even if Mills was instructed by the devil, so the prevailing thinking went, he must have let the devil into his heart in the first place. Mills was convicted of murder and placed in a cage on top of a gibbet, near to what is now a Costa Coffee takeaway (until recently the Thinford Inn), on the A688. There are conflicting reports about how he died. He was hanged, that’s for sure. But it has been claimed that he was already dead by this point. The children’s grave, old and battered, still stands in the churchyard at St. John’...