The views from Longridge Fell are widely acclaimed. It is the most southerly fell in England, lying at the southern end of the Forest of Bowland and from the summit, the Fylde coast can be seen to the west and the Yorkshire Dales to the north-east; Pendle Hill can be clearly seen to the east, and on a very clear day, The Lake District, Isle of Man and even Snowdonia can be spotted - or so I have read.
The night before our walk, the weather promised to be dry and clear and we had high hopes of seeing some of those views. However, when we opened the curtains, the mist had descended in the Sabden Valley and we were faced with a decision, to go anyway or reschedule.
We decided to go anyway: we are enjoying living through our first year in the countryside and want to experience all four seasons with all of the weather that brings, and as I have said before 'There is no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes'.
Longridge Fell is one of 'The Marilyns' a group of hills in Britain, not quite mountains, but having an ascent of 150metres on all sides. How to ascend is a personal decision as there are many routes, but we descided to walk from Hurst Green, the route promising varied terrain and a gradual ascent on a circular route of 13.5km.
We set off on a footpath opposite the Bayley Arms and almost immediately we were immersed in ancient woodland, walking along a muddy path beside one of the most picturesque streams I have ever seen, its rocky bed worn smooth by centuries of water cascading down small waterfalls leaving small caverns and broad shallow gullies in its wake.
The path ran uphill, under the damp canopy of mossy winter boughs, emerging to take us alongside a drystone wall and fields of sheep until we reached a small road and turned right. After a few hundred metres, we passed Greengore Farm, an impressive buttressed farmhouse with stone mullioned windows whose history dates back to the 16th century when it started life as a private shooting lodge for the Shireburn Family.
Continuing past the farm, ignoring a turning to the left, we eventually veered left to cross a boggy field and crossed a stile between two patches of woodland. Continuing, we walked across fields with hedges of Broom, their bright yellow flowers cheering up the damp January afternoon, and then alongside a gurgling brook to meet the road, turning right towards Clitheroe. Almost immediately, we turned left onto a tarmacked private road which led past several small houses until it petered out into a muddy path.
This began our true ascent to the Fell, and to mark the point the mist descended - or maybe we were just climbing into the cloud. The narrow path, which completely disappeared in places, ran steadily uphill through a small fir plantation and across wild moorland, the mist allowing us only limited visibility of the path ahead and completely shrouding what were undoubtably beatuiful views.
The final uphill stretch, through pine woodland, brought us out at the ridge where we should have had spectacular views across to the Trough of Bowland. Not today though; the mist stretched out in front of us in a milky abyss, stealing any views we had hoped to see.
We walked along the ridge anyway and the path took us to a thickly wooded area, rows upon rows of mature pine trees stretching up to the sky and blocking the light, leaving us with a gloomy and quite an eerie passage through. This feeling was compounded by the huge number of trees that had fallen, meaning that we had to deviate from the path into the misty, boggy undergrowth, making our way around the mossy trunks of uprooted trees and tangle of fallen branches.
Emerging from the gloom, the mossy giants were replaced by a strange landscape of tiny trees, a newly planted area of the plantation, interspersed with strange ghostly skeletons of winter deciduous trees, rminding me of the ancient Til forests of Fanal in Madeira.
We continued along the loggers track for a short while, before turning to follow a rocky track downhill, passing through a forest of small pine trees which in turn deposited us back onto moorland. Back on the lower fells, we navigated the muddy bog and grasses, passing an old quarry until we arrived back at a road.
From there the descent was across grazing land, where the expected sheep and not so expected field of alpacas watched as we passed, the wet grass cleaning our boots. After a short, but tricky, route around a farm and through a gully we were back on the road, making our way back to Hurst Green through the impresssive grounds of Stoneyhurst College.
This proved to be a really pleasant walk, only enhanced by the shifting mists. A variety of terrain added interest and the gradient was very manageable, we just need to return on a clear day to see the views from the top of Longridge Fell.
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