Sunday, January 1, 2012

A quick round of Pendle Hill..

My mate just wanted to do a short local walk today so I suggested pendle Hill as I knew he had never been there..We set off quite early and the weather was cold and rainy and the prospect of our first snow looked promising..
Getting to Barley where we set off from is quite difficult as it is the sort of place you would only stumble upon if you were lost..Considering it is surrounded by some large Lancashire mill towns itis actually quite remote, being on the lee side of Pendle Hill itself..
There is a fine carpark with cafe and toilets right in the centre of the village.


  A GPX route can be downloaded here if you are not sure of the way..."http://www.everytrail.com/view_trip.php?trip_id=1379405"
 There are some queer looking houses in Barley.
The little white house is not for people with inferiority  complexes...


My mates boots are falling apart and we had a long conversation on the merits of resoling versus new boots.. I had a pair resoled once and it wasn't a success so my feet are firmly planted in new boots. As is often the case our decisions come down to our shortage of ready brass so he decided to delay the decision..
The area round here is nice on a fine day but today I found the photographry a bit challenging.



These reservoirs feed the mill towns of Burnley,Padiham and Nelson I think.



When the victorians built these places they had a sense of fun and  didn't let a bit of uneven ground put them off.


You can start the climb up the hill by following the path or you can have a bit of fun going up
Whinberry Clough.
A friend of mine was killed when he went canyoning in Switzerland many moons ago. His group got caught out in a flash flood and all twelve drowned.. I didn't mention this to my mate as he made his way up.




By now the famous Pendle mist had set in and the wind got up real strong so we were glad when we got to the trig point and could shelter in the lee of the wind just of the to the side a bit.

  This is me..............
and this is my mate..


  The top of Pendle hill is famous for two things that happened in the 16 hundreds, firstly..........
In 1652, George Fox claimed to have had a vision while on top of Pendle, during the early years of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers)

And secondly  Richard Townely  developed what became known as Boyle's law which is to do with pressure and stuff like that,anyway what ever it is he did it on Pendle hill a long time ago..  I hope he had better weather than us because now it started snowing..


The way down Pendle is made easy because some kind person has laid a stairway all the way down, and you can laugh at people who are huffing and puffing coming up...Like we did!


There are some fancy converted barns round here, although why anyone would live up here escapes me.







 We usually stop in at the local pub after our walk but today we were a bit early so no pint for my mate.



No trip to Pendle would be complete without a trip to Newchurch in Pendle to see the witches so when we got back to the car we set off to see them..


This shop is run by a witch and when we visited it with my wifes aunt she got all scared and wanted to come out...


Sound advice!!!

 The guy who founded the Greenich Observatory " Jonas Moore" was born here in 1618 although you would'nt know it as we could find no plaques to mark his birth place...

The New Church in Pendle  is called St Marys and it is the last resting place of Alice Nutter the famous witch...Here is her grave, carved with a skull and crossbone.....





The Little church is open to visitors and is well worth a look...










Ghostly window phenonemum  caused by misted up lens




So there we have it... A sort walk with some interesting things to see....Enjoy..

1 comment:

  1. Nice post. Wish I could visit there some day.

    Kim in the US

    ReplyDelete