First walk of 2022 – Rivington and Anglezarke

You have to make the most of any good weather during the winter months and last week, Tuesday promised to be a fine, if cold day, so I decided to get out for a walk on the moors. I had considered travelling further afield but the hours of daylight are short in January and I wasn’t up early enough to travel up to the Lakes or Dales.

I drove over to Rivington and parked up near the barns. I hadn’t decided on an exact route, but had in mind several options, taking into account how bad it was underfoot. The moors are notoriously boggy after wet weather and we’d had plenty of that recently. But it had been cold with a hard frost for a couple of nights and I had hopes that would reduce the risk of sinking into the mire, which is how it largely, at least, worked out.

I’d decided to start by climbing up to the top of the Pike through the Terraced Gardens, knowing that would be dry underfoot on the paved paths.

I branched off the main haul, which was quite busy, opting to follow a path I’d never been down before, which led tot he South Lodge

Carrying on I reached the rather stunning Ravine. I know these slopes pretty well after many years of wandering through the gardens, but I’d never seen it before. Looking at the information board I could see that it was an “enhanced” natural feature, part of the original design by Mawson, that had fallen badly into disrepair, but had been restored during the major renovation of the gardens in recent years. The restoration team had certainly done an excellent job.

I crossed the ravine part way up and snapped photographs looking up

and down!

I carreied on and climbed the hill up to the Japenese gardens with its lake, that acts as a reservoir feeding the waters of the ravine.

I carried on and took the old road, walking round the top of the Pike

and climbed up to the summit from the south – an unusual route for me.

On a sunny, if cold day, there were quite a few people on the summit. I stopped for a while for a brew and a bite to eat taking in the views. Long range visibility wasn’t so good but there were good views over the moors towards Winter Hill

and towards Noon Hill and Anglezarke.

The moors looked tempting but in winter tend to be something of a morass of wet, boggy peat. However, it was cold and the ground was partially frozen, especially on northern facing slopes shaded from the sun, which gave some support and minimised the risk of sinking too deep into the bog, so I chanced it, taking the path over the moor towards Noon Hill.

As I expected, there were some significant stretches of bog but with them partially frozen, my boots didn’t get too wet and muddy.

The summit of Noon Hill is crowned by a cairn on top of a prehistoric burial mound which is a Scheduled Monument.

I stopped for a while sitting on a convenient rock to drink a hot coffee from my flask and admire the views over the moors.

I took the path down to the old Belmont road and walked a short distance along the rough track back towards the Pike before descending down a steep path towards the new road.

The road is a favourite run for motorcyclists, particularly at weekends when they zoom along at speeds well above the legal limit, but on this ocassion ti was quiet with very little traffic. I walked a short distance along the road before taking the path across the moor and headed towards the ruined farm known as Old Rachels.

Old Rachel’s

View over the moors from Old Rachel’s

After a brief rest I carried on westwards turning off down another path across the peat towards Simms, where there’s the remains of another two farms.

Path across the moor towards Simms

Carrying on along the path the Simms

Looking back across the moor towards Winter Hill from Simms

From there I joined the track towards Lead Mine Clough

Lonely trees

Lead mine clough

Then down the valley besides the river and then on to Yarrow Reservoir.

The view across Yarrow Reservoir over to Winter Hill and Rivington Pike

along the reservoir and descended beside the overflow down to Anglezarke Reservoir. I crossed the dam and then took the track along Higher Rivington Reservoir then made my way to Rivington Village. It’s a small collection of dwellings with a couple of churches, and more of a hamlet really, but quite attractive

Rivington hamlet

The village stocks

Rivington Congregational church

I finished off my coffee sitting in the sunshine in the Congrational Church graveyard. It was then only a short distance back to the car.

It had been a grand walk on a sunny winter’s day, and I’d explored a few paths I’ve never been down before despite my long aquaintance with these moors. The weather turned the next day and since then it’s been mainly wet, grey and miserable. But the sun pops out now and again and I’ll be off out again, work permitting – you’ve gt to make the most of it in the winter.