MONDAY 12th AUGUST 2019
Monthly Short Walk: Greenmount, Redisher, Pilgrims Cross and Stubbins
The last of the rain
Once again the weather forecast was for showers as ten walkers left Greenmount Old School expecting the worst. We headed across the golf course in the direction of Hol House Farm and on to Bolton Road. After crossing the road, we turned left and walked for a short distance before turning right onto a footpath that took us through the fields to Hollingrove Farm, on Redisher Lane. Turning left we past the farm and climbed over a stile on our right joining a path that dropped steeply into Redisher Wood, crossing an attractive footbridge before joining the main path through the wood.
Once in the wood we turned left and after a short distance we joined a path on our right which climbed up onto The Ridge. By this time the sun had started shining and it was a pleasant walk along the ridge past High Ridge Farm and on up to Moorbottom Road where we turned left and took the footpath leading up to Pilgrims Cross enjoying the views looking across Holcombe Valley below.
As usual we stopped for a coffee break at the cross before dropping down to Buckden Wood, where we noted that the gate, that we reported broken on a previous walk had been secured. At the bottom of the first section of the wood we could see one of the reasons why Helmshore Road was closed to traffic as large concrete pipes where being laid under the road.
Due to the heavy rain in recent days the stream flowing through the wood made an attractive sight as it cascaded over the waterfalls. Turning right at the bottom of the wood we headed towards Stubbins and into Carr Wood passing behind the paper mill. This land was formerly owned by Colonel Austin Townsend Porritt who gifted part of it to the National Trust in 1947. Following the path past Ox Hey Wood and Top Wood we stopped to look at the remains of a Tentering Tower originally part of Porritt’s Stubbins Vale Mill (1866). The tower was a cloth store in associated with tentering fields where tenter frames where used in the process of stretching and drying cloth.
Further along the path we past the Old Mill Hotel before joining Carr Street, Ramsbottom, where we turned right and headed for a footpath that took us through Tagg Wood and onto Lumb Carr Road and back to Greenmount having covered 7.5 mostly sunny miles