The walk of Sunday February 27th

Even though my last walk had covered a lot of this route I felt the need to revisit the lovely villages of Affetside, Hawkshaw and Turton Bottoms once more.

Section One: Bradshaw to Hawkshaw

I arrived at around five to nine and as is usual for me these days headed towards the Bradshaw Fisheries along a muddy path – although the mud here would pale into insignificance compared to what I would face later.

Next up it was across the A676 and up Slack Lane to Affetside. Most of the going is fairly easy, when it stops being a hill is when you have to transcend a couple of stiles and walk through the Pylon Paddock, which is usually quite soft, some might say soggy – a “Pissed-through-Pylon-Paddock”. And then I arrived at Affetside – easy! The view across to Holcombe (I’m going to refer to this as a moor even though the O/S maps don’t) was still good but my breath had been well and truly taken the last time I was here and today was a slightly less clear-sky day.

Now for what is certainly a good-bad section of this stretch dropping from Affetside to Turton Road. This is a really slippery path – every so often so it kind of catches you off guard. I had my walking pole with me today as I had anticipated slippiness! I wasn’t wrong and nearly went over twice on the 640 metres (according to Bing Maps) descent.  Now I went passed the cattery / pet food shop at Hawkshaw and once more into the verdant depths of Two Brooks Valley. The initial drop was not as bad as I had predicted, I never fell over. If anything the path through the woods was markedly drier than that fall from Affetside! I had decided to deviate from my last expedition across this mini forest and go right instead of left – this actually paid off as I didn’t have to cross a large section of mud, unlike last time and before hardly any time at all I had stumbled onto the Two Brooks road – not really very well endowed in tarmac but a road all the same. Around ten to fifteen uphill minutes later and I was on the main A676 once again, this time in Hawkshaw proper.

Section Two: Hawkshaw to Edgworth

Now comes the real journey! I took the right-hand turn-off from the A-road and onto the majestic bridal path which conveys a walker up onto an unnamed moor – which I refer to as Holcombe Moor – in truth, going off my estimations this moor would be enormous, more like Dartmoor – perhaps not quite as large! I was conscious that my previous endeavour had seen me all sorts of lost and I only managed to fluff my way onwards when all technology seemed to disappoint, in some cases fail altogether. I was pretty ominous about taking the first turning as I wasn’t sure that was even a real turning as referred to on Bing and OS maps, the next turn-off well it looked a bit rough, to say the least but I did remember passing it last time so opted to surmount the horrid stile – I think there was a stile! The incline got quite sharp, quite quickly and quite soggy too! All the same it did eventually plateau and gave me a lovely distant view towards Turton Bottoms / Edgworth so I was happy with that. I passed an enormous wind turbine which was generating far less noise than I had assumed they would and then began to drop, quite rapidly. On the way I did recognise the bovine-affected field which I stumbled onto last time, sheep by their million seemed to be taking lunch somewhere else today but the gigantic stone wall assured me that I was heading in the right direction. Truth be known this was a case of having turned off earlier than planned but as I had extensively studied the terrain I had a fairly good idea where I was – Birches Road.

Soon enough water appeared in the guise of the northern reaches of the Walves reservoir. I had passed more of this but it had been denied to my vision by its large slopes, at this edge there was a man angling. All this meant that once again the road in front of me was Bury Road – which wanders in to Edgworth – it’s all good. I crossed Bury Road and carried on the continuation of Birches Road, I conceded my right of way to a farmer driving a Massey something or other which in all honesty would not take much converting to become a weapon of war! Birches road changes its appearance many times in its passing from Hawkshaw to Edgworth, at first a stony ground then a leafy track and finally a bit of an unkempt wildlife free for all with all manner of squelchy obstacles, I stumbled once more – possibly for the fourth time now!

And soon enough I was in Turton Bottoms – I think, I’m not sure where the boundary lies in between this district(?) and Edgworth, and the OS maps don’t make it any easier. I wandered on the road to a newish looking estate with Country Living type houses, eye candy for some, to me they seemed a bit on the characterless side. And lo at the point where I should have merged with my intended path – lay the remnants of a giant Beech tree which had been toppled by the various storms of the last few months. In a nutshell if I had stuck with my original plan I would now not be able to exit my path as this tree was pretty much blocking the entire path’s width. Phew, dodged a bullet there!  The path I had to take in order to get around the next item on my agenda appeared in the form of a set of fairly steep steps. It took a little time climbing them and then out of the greeney to my left appeared said item: The Old Russia Reservoir, topical huh?

Most of the reservoirs around these parts had familiar, if rather odd-sounding (Jumbles, Wayoh, Delph) names growing up Bolton. This one was (to me) steeped in mystery. In truth though it was only a few weeks ago that I saw it referenced on a web site and thought ‘oh really, I must go there’.  The name originates from the century before last when a worker at Clark’s mill on Birches Road likened his time pulling cloth through water as like being in ‘Owd Russia’ – the translation / simile – it was bloody cold there and the name stuck! At one time there were lots of mills in these parts.  I crossed a robust but somewhat unnerving bridge and took a photo or two of the stonework – admittedly not something to which I would give much attention, but going off the directive of “think when will you be here again” I am taking more notice of things these days!

Next task was to try and find a route off to Edgworth proper, not that this was a complicated ordeal requiring great ordination skills, just a case of there being three paths: one seemed to be going away from where I want, one looking like it becomes quite indistinct quite rapidly and the other one goes up some steps – it’s always the steps isn’t it! I did go with the steps, a bit of a wander around a rather picturesque stretch of woodland and lo and behold I’d stumbled into Edgworth – result!

Section Three: Wayoh to Cheetham Close

I’d remembered my briefing with regards to finding my way around Edgworth and onto the Warpers Trail around the Wayoh reservoir – aim for the Black Bull pub, this is found by going downhill from the woods, even I managed to find that!  I turned right off the street which seems to change its name rather often (regular readers will testify this irks me) and the Wayoh and its water treatment works were pretty much slap bang in front of me. It’s a poorly kept secret that I like the Wayoh reservoir, it’s up there with the likes of the Lower Ogden and Thirlmere in terms of my appreciation of it. Not that the Jumbles and Turton & Entwistle aren’t also as attractive, but the Wayoh just has that extra bit more, the non qualifiable and unquantifiable. That being said, owing to the speed (or apparent lack thereof) of other walkers circumnavigating the mighty reservoir was enough to deter me from doing the full loop and turner off left onto the road up towards the SD in order to get away from the crowds. For ‘crowds’ they were, the steep sloping street from the reservoir leading to the pub was chock-a-block with parked cars.  As  (eventually, did I mention this street is very steep?) I rounded the corner to the Strawbury Duck the mass became more visible, they were everywhere! Walking back down Edge Lane to the Turton and Entwistle reservoir brought me into increasingly more and more contact with the masses with their noisy dogs and even noisier (and more entitled and unpredictable)  children! Going outside sure has changed over the length of this damn pandemic!

In time I limped up the path and road to Green Arms Road and from here I headed on to the next part of the overall “Witton Weavers Way” which I believe is still the “Warpers Trail” and headed along increasingly wetter, green paths to eventually rise to the lonely summit of the Turton Heights massif: Cheetham Close with its ordnance survey column. I didn’t really give myself the time to have a good old look around as the wind had picked up by now and oh did I mention, the terrain was a bit on the slippery side. I followed a couple of walkers downhill for a bit but with an eye to the left keeping a lookout for The Jumbles, soon enough it came into view. The ground underfoot then became more grassy again but this was not to last – soon enough the ability to walk was severely curtailed by the super abundance of mud. This had become a horrible field. Progress was slow, too slow, frustratingly slow, it was really slow, you get what I mean? I couldn’t get on to the last leg of the Warpers trail too quickly. This was the better part of the third section of the route, no doubt. Before long I had passed the castellation of the bridge adjacent (ish) to Turton Tower and headed down Chapeltown Road hoping to find the road to Horrobin Lodge and avoid having to walk further along this b-road which feels more like an a-road. I had to pass a number of ‘Ramblers’ from which association I don’t know, I do know that most did not seem happy to give way although I can’t be sure just how broad they seemed to think this standard size pavement is – five abreadth / six? Hmm! Thankfully, I did spot the turn-off, crossed over Chapeltown Road and made my way in an almost drunken-haphazard, fashion, passing yet more pedestrians out for a walk…as opposed to us real walkers with bright coats and clumsy boots! I managed to grab a couple of photos of the cliffs at the Jumbles, in-between yes you guessed it – even more pedestrians and finally, at last, euphorically – I made it back to the car at 14:40 (or thereabouts – someone asked me if I was leaving soon which always distracts me from sundry details such as the time). Yayy back at last.

Summary

I can’t deny this is a very good , varied route. The terrain tends to be somewhat wetter and stickier than my usual haunts at Rivington and Pendle – not to say that those two can’t take a deluge as good as anywhere else with something in the region of twenty reservoirs between them! Turton, and I believe it is right to describe the entirety of this walk as Turton is a different kettle of fish. Maybe that’s because it doesn’t have the notoriety or fame as well as the financial infrastructure as Rivington, in layman’s terms, it doesn’t draw the same amount of visitors resulting in drier, neater, funded paths. All year I have felt the need to steer away from my favourite Rivington and Anglezarke routes – purely because they are my favourites and I don’t want to become bored with them. Turton presents new challenges whilst essentially making a new friend- even if that friend was a little bit hostile upon first introduction more years ago than I would want to recall. I can envision people asking ‘why did you take-in Cheetham Close?’  and my answer ahead of this walk would have been ‘because it’s a little belter’ I’m not really that signed-on to such an opinion any more, I fear the damage done to the paths is a direct result of an increase in its popularity, when I first climbed this hill in 2012 I’d scarcely heard of it and the “Witton Weavers Way” now the latter is suggested as a leisure activity on the Southport Visitor website – talk about popularity – even if they did get the stats wrong by citing the Warpers Trail as 89 miles long and requiring 35 hours to complete!:

I was so happy to not get at all lost on the entire route, that can be really irritating. Maybe if I had stayed on the bridal track as long as I did last time then I might have run into the same problem with farmers locking gates…if there’s an autumn we can try that out this year, here’s hoping. I think this would be a good route to share with a walking companion as the second half of the Birches Road section was a bit tedious and I now feel confident enough to try this in reverse, there’s something oh so tempting about not falling over half a dozen times going up to Affetside and coming back down to Bradshaw Road. And I did not like the fact that for the best side of 5.75 hours I had Sting’s “Russians” going through my head!