In previous articles I’ve referred to my love of the River Hodder in Lancashire.  Recently I came across some photographs taken one very snowy Saturday morning in, I think, 1991 (or it may have been 1992). It was a splendidly crisp day, and great to walk where no man had gone before, as it were.  I started by the Hodder itself, and then decided to drive into the Trough of Bowland and walk up by the Langden Brook, one of the smaller streams that feeds the Hodder.  I’d lost the photographs for many years, but have never lost the memory.

The Hodder near Dunsop Bridge (1991?)

Got here before the gritters

Looking down on the Waterworks, Langden Valley, Bowland

I’m the first here – apart from the sheep

The snow is thinner here – but desolate for miles now

As I’ve said before, the Hodder with its villages, and the Trough of Bowland deserve to be much better known – but don’t come in droves will you; I’d like to see it stay peaceful.

As I looked around this morning for something that illustrated the challenges faced by people during this period of unfamiliarly heavy and protracted snowfall in England I came across the following.  It gives a down-to-earth description of the situation for many of the people who produce our food.  The rest of us should be grateful.

From the Lancashire Telegraph

East Lancashire snow: How farmers are coping

Monday, 11th January 2010, By Emma Cruces »

“THE big freeze has left East Lancashire farmers working around the clock to keep their animals fed and watered. ……….”

[And I liked the pragmatic get-on-and-do-it attitude of the closing sentences:] 
” You couldn’t prepare for it, even if you knew, and you couldn’t do anything more. At the end of the day it’s the same for lots of people. You still have to make a shilling, so you get on with it.”

Full article »

When looking through the December 2009 issue of Country Walking Magazine I was rather surprised to find Burnley, Lancashire, listed among the month’s twenty-six recommended walking routes.  Now before anyone jumps to the conclusion that this is a southerner talking out of the top of his hat about the industrial north and “dark satanic mills”, let me point out that I grew up in Burnley, went to school there, and only left on getting married and moving fifteen miles down the road to Darwen.

The photograph above is copied from the 1909 official guide to Towneley Hall which, along with other publications, has been in my Burnley local history collection for many years – actually I have a 1911 reprint, not the 1909 first printing.

Having grown up in Burnley I think I can claim the right to be balanced and fair about it, without indulging in dishonest flettery.  There are some grotty parts.  I recently went back to the Burnley Wood part of the town and was seriously unimpressed with the condition of the area.  On the other hand there are some wonderful places, and Towneley Hall with its open fields and woodland park stands out among them.  So I should not really have been surprised; it’s just that it’s relatively unusual for the message to have got home to people outside the area.

I had the enormous privilege between the ages of twelve and twenty-one of living on Woodgrove Road  overlooking Towneley Holmes.  It was from this base that in my teens I learned the joy of walking in the countryside, across the valley, up and over the hill to Worsthorne and Hurstwood; along the valley to Walk Mill, Holme and  Cliviger Gorge.  Earlier this year, due to the illness and death of a close relative, I had to spend considerable time in the area and was reintroduced to exploring this wonderful landscape – wonderful, and yet so close to the legacy of 19th century industrialisation and 20th century urban sprawl.

The Country Walking route starts in front of Towneley Hall, takes you high above the town on the moors at Crown Point (where as a 10-year-old in the early 50s I was often to be found with the family Alsatian), down past Dyneley to Walk Mill and back along the valley close to the Calder to the Towneley Hall car park – or more likely the Stables Cafe.

This really is a inspired example of how people living in so many of Lancashire’s industrial towns have always been able to get out quickly into splendid countryside.  Towneley Hall itself warrants a future article of its own.

When I launched this blog just over eighteen months ago my plan was to start with the Lake District. I was also at the time developing a ‘non-blog’ site about the Lake District so that made logical sense, quite apart from the fact that along with Lancashire it’s the part of the country with which I have the closest personal connections.  Another piece of the plan right from the beginning, however, was to spread out more widely into the rest of England.

That time has now come. Although there have been occasional posts about other areas you should now begin to see a steady broadening. We’ll look at places in Lancashire and Yorkshire, with initially an emphasis on East Lancashire and West Yorkshire – the Pennine country.  From time to time we’ll look at my current home county of Nottinghamshire and cross the Trent at Newark Castle to explore parts of Lincolnshire. Places in Cheshire will get an occasional visit, and of course we’ll not forget those areas of Cumbria outside the National Park such as the Furness Peninsula.

This does not mean that the rest of the country will be completely ignored, but I don’t want to be overambitious. Let’s take the extension a stage at a time.  The North-East will get some attention, but anything comprehensive will have to come later.

In addition to expanded geographical coverage there will be a greater variety of posts. The descriptive articles will continue, as will occasional travel diary entries. There will be more items about books, and especially those that we have found unusually interesting, and not only new books but also older volumes now available only on the secondhand market.

We’ll link to newspaper sites when there are particularly interesting things happening, and also to official bodies such as the tourism agencies and national park authorities. The site has to pay its way, so there will be commercial components as well. For example, our own hotel booking service will continue to be available through the site, under the banner, Hotels.InBritain.biz; as its name implies this will extend beyond England to the whole of Britain – and actually far beyond our own islands.

To support all of this we’ll shortly be changing the layout and will be introducing a new indexing system to help people find their way around. During 2010 our target is to become one of the most popular sources of information about places to visit in our wonderful country, especially the northern counties.

So, watch this space.