RIVINGTON CIRCULAR
Walk 7 of the Friday Night Walks
Friday 23rd June 2017
Rivington Pike
We were joined on the walk by three members of the Rivington Heritage Trust, Bob, Malcom, Chris and his dog Bob. The Trust have recently received funding to help with the daunting task of restoring the gardens so that they become more accessible to the public. They were able to tell us about this restoration work and give us an insight into how the gardens would have looked when they were created by the entrepreneur and philanthropist William Hesketh Lever in the early part of the twentieth century. Twenty five walkers left Rivington Hall Barn on a warm and dry evening to climb through the gardens to the Pike. On the way we stopped to look at the Dell Cascade, Japanese Gardens and the Bothys where the Trust members showed us old photographs of how the features would have looked and described the restoration work that was intended. The views from the Pike were good but the clouds obscured some of the more distant countryside. After descending from the Pike we made our way to the Pigeon Tower passing the site of the remains of The Bungalow and the Orchestra Lawn, which is now very overgrown. Two other notable features that we passed on our way back to the Barn were the Italian Gardens, with it’s ornamental pond and the seven arch bridge which the architects of the day said that it could not be built. We had only covered about four miles but some of the paths were steep andthe pleasure of learning about the site made up for the lack of distance.
Pigeon Tower