The Forest of Bowland

Tuesday 28th August 2012

This time of the year I like to do some walking in moorland to take advantage of the heather that blooms at this time of the year and makes the moor look at its best. The area of moorland that I had selected this year no one had seemingly ever heard of, but actually the Forest of Bowland is an area of high moor in Lancashire, and not of trees as the name may suggest. In Britain, historically the name forest referred to a Royal hunting ground and has nothing to do with trees. Some existing Royal Forests do have trees (like the Forest of Dean and the New Forest), but others like the Forest of Bowland do not. Until recently access to the high moors was severely restricted to a couple of footpaths that cross the moor, but with the introduction of Right-to-Roam legislation you can now walk wherever you like across the vast moor, assuming anyone would want to. The lack of established footpaths across the moors mean that as soon as you venture off the few good paths you are into a thick, muddy mess of bogs and heather. The tops are broad and flat and soak without releasing any of the rain that falls onto them and this summer has seen an awful lot of rainfall in Britain. It is advisable to wait until after a period of drought before walking in the Forest of Bowland, which has not happened this year.

After a particularly wet Bank Holiday weekend I drove up the M6 and reached the tiny village of Dunsop Bridge first thing in the morning. I had good weather for this walk with glorious sunshine all day, but the ground was still saturated with water. My hours and hours spent studying the OS map of the Forest of Bowland had determined that the best area to walk in was the steep sided valleys to the south of the high moors, and north of Dunsop Bridge. I therefore started the walk by setting off up the Dunsop Valley but was soon disappointed with what I found. The track marked on the map is a tarmacked road that runs all the way up the valley and so ruins the unspoilt feel.  This was not what I had come to see and became a tedious trudge up a conifer-lined valley that has been set aside for water-catchment to serve the industrial towns of Lancashire. Eventually I reached Brennand Farm where I turned off the tarmacked road and up the steep grassy slopes of the valley climbing Ouster Rake on a brilliant path that slowly climbs past the Brennand Stones and steep ground to reach the moorland top at Whin Fell.

Once on the moor I was hit by strong winds, bogs and vast, bleak vistas, but this was only a taste of what was to come. The path soon dropped back down into the valley on the other side with stunning views up towards the Trough of Bowland, a steep sided scar in the hillside that would have been a fabulous route to walk up if there hadn’t been a road at the bottom of it. On reaching the road, I turned away from the Trough and descended past Sykes Farm towards an avenue of trees that leads into the stunning Langden Brook valley. I had a great walk through this valley along a wide stony track with heather-clad slopes of a gorgeous shade of purple under blue skies. This relaxing walk took me to Langden Castle (which appeared to be nothing more than an old barn!) where I had lunch before continuing along the path as the Langden Brook valley fractured into many narrow cloughs while the path I was on turned off the Langden Brook into a clough beside the Fiendsdale Water. I was walking along an excellent path through the narrowing Fiendsdale and climbing up onto the moorland with steep drops down to the tiny stream at the bottom and heather in-bloom at my feet.

Eventually I reached the top of the moor as I followed a good, established footpath across the moors to Fiendsdale Head and then I turned south off the flag-stoned path onto the deep morass to climb Fair Snape Fell. I was now following a very boggy path beside the fence and struggled to find anything solid under my feet as I tried to make my way up to the cairn at the top of the fell. This was such a frustrating climb in such boggy conditions that it put me off continuing to walk along the top of the moors. After visiting the trig point at the edge of Fair Snape Fell I crossed the moor above Wolf Fell and joined a clear track that took me down Saddle Fell and off the moors. My plan had been to walk along the ridge eastwards gradually descending past the trig point at Totridge and slowly head back to Dunsop Bridge. Instead I dropped down to Burnslack where I took a succession of tracks and paths through the farmland below the moors all the way to Mellor Knoll near Totridge. With hindsight it might have been easier to have stayed on the moors. I didn’t enjoy walking through the fields any more than I would have done on top of the moors.

The signposting was sketchy at best (it was pathetic compared with the clear signposts used in Leicestershire) and the ground was at times as muddy as it had been on the moor. On the low hill of Mellor Knoll I found perhaps worse conditions than had been on the moors with the ground churned up by cows, but this was not far from the road beside Langden Brook and a short walk along the road took me back to Dunsop Bridge. This was a very tiring walk especially when battling the deep bogs on the moor and in the fields. Conditions like this put you off walking in the Forest of Bowland, but the highlight of the walk was the Langden Brook valley, which was a pleasure to walk along from start to finish and showed me just what I had been missing all these years by not going to the Forest of Bowland.