Great Hill & The West Pennines

A lovely return to walking as we depart from the old railway village of Brinscall, once a stopping point on the now discontinued line from Chorley to Blackburn. Nothing remains of the line other than some nice walking spots in deep cuttings and through tunnels, though sadly we wont see any.  Maybe on another walk in the area soon...

We follow The Goit out of Brinscall. What is a Goit you say?  Its a covered artificial waterway in the local lingo. This Goit connects Roddlesworth Reservoir above Abbey Village to the much larger Rivington Reservoir (via Anglezarke Reservoir) which is the outlet for the treatment works, bringing water to homes in the region.

We soon begin our climb up to Great HIll, the first half a KM is the steepest and is over very quickly as we then level out, traversing moorland and then the last little jaunt up to Great Hill with its stone shelter where we can take a break to enjoy some stunning views of Winter Hill, the TV transmission station for the majority of the region.  We may also get a view of the spectacular Mormon Temple at Chorley, a prominent feature as you drive past Chorley on the M61.  We then head across towards Rivington where we may get some views of the Pigeon Tower and Rivington Terraced Gardens, descending through moorland valleys to the shores of  Yarrow and Anglezarke Reservoir where I suspect we will see the effects of a dry spring (at time of typing that is).  

We then pick up some well trodden paths as we amble through farmland with a few little (I promise) ups and downs back to Brinscall.  

Photo Permissions

Photo of Rivington Gardens Pigeon Tower -Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0, attributable to Mark Sanderson

Photo of The Goit - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en, attributable to Pop up Pirate at English Language Wikipedia

Photo of Knowle Hill - Copyright Richard Webb and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Photo of Mormon Temple - Copyright Rude Health and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.

Photo of White Coppice -Margaret Clough / White Coppice - Brookside Cottages / CC BY-SA 2.0

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