Friday 26th May 2023

Friday 26^th May 2023

Come Walking Series, Jumbles, Turton Tower, Chapeltown

On the third of our Friday night walks, twenty-seven walkers set out from Jumbles Reservoir car park and headed down the steep slope, at the back of the car park that leads into Kingfisher Valley. After crossing the bridge over Bradshaw Brook, we climbed through Ousel Nest Woods and turned right when we reached Grange Road.

At the end of the road, we joined a footpath that took us along the side of Jumbles Reservoir, which we followed to the sailing club. Once over the bridge we turned left into Horrobin Lane and headed up to Blackburn Road, which we crossed and made our way to Turton Tower, where we were given a short history of the tower. It was built in the Middle Ages as a two storey pele tower and later extended by adding two further builds in the 16^th century. In 1628 the tower was sold to Humphrey Chetham, founder of the Chetham’s School of Music and Chetham’s Library, Manchester.

Continuing along the footpath, past the tower we walked through the woods to Station Road, in Chapeltown, where we turned right along the very picturesque, cobbled road. Once in the village we selected one of our walkers to be photographed in the old stocks. The stock and market cross, were thought to have been moved from Turton Tower in 1845.

After walking a short distance along Green Arms Road we turned left to visit the football field. Turton FC started playing football on the field in 1870 and it is thought to be the oldest football ground, still in use in the world. From here it was just a short walk to St Anne’s Church where we joined a footpath down to Blackburn Road.

Once across the road we headed down to Vale Street where we turned right, and after a short distance we joined a footpath on our right that took us through the beautiful valley which follows the Bradshaw Brook down to the Jumbles Reservoir, where we made our way back to the car park, having covered 4.5 historic miles.