This has got to be one of the best titles for a walk ever; it sounds more like the title of a Secret Seven adventure story than an afternoon walk in Lancashire.
I had never heard of the Singing Ringing Tree until recently, when it was the answer to a question on a TV quiz show I was watching. Having piqued my interest, I googled it and was pleasantly surprised to find that it is located just outside Burnley and only half an hour from where we live. After spending an hour looking into walking routes in the area, we devised a 12km circular route from Holme Chapel, Cliviger, also taking in the intriguingly named Thieveley Scout and Pike.
We left the car in a lay-by just outside the village and walked back to join a footpath heading towards the railway line. Approaching the tracks, it was unclear where the path continued until we noticed a dark tunnel, almost hidden behind the ferns and brambles. Through the tunnel, we then crossed an old stone bridge before eventually following a path that looped back underneath to follow beside the railway line (not well signed).
The path then ascended gently uphill away from the tracks and past several smallholdings, as we gained increasingly impressive views over the valley and beyond Burnley towards Pendle Hill.
After following the Burnley Way for a couple of kilometers, we turned sharply west to scramble up a steep boggy hill towards the Singing Ringing Tree.
The Singing Ringing Tree is a Panopticon - the name given to a sculpture constructed in a place with a comprehensive view. It was commissioned by the East Lancashire Environmental Arts Network as part of an arts and regeneration project and is one of four in East Lancashire, the others being placed in Blackburn, Pendle, and Rossendale, as symbols of the renaissance of the areas.
The Singing Ringing Tree is the Panopticon for the Burnley district, and is a musical sculpture made from pipes of galvanised steel that harness the energy of the wind in order to produce its sound. The sculpture is around three metres tall and is designed to resemble a tree, and on a breezy day, as it was today, produces an eerie discordant sound.
We descended to Crown Point and followed the path over White Hill, through plantations and crossing the main roads, which lead from Burnley across the moors to Rawtenstall and Bacup, eventually making the long trek over Deerplay Moor to reach the trig point at Thieveley Pike, the highest point on the Burnley Way and the site of an ancient warning beacon that would once be lit during national emergencies. Here we were rewarded with splendid views, past Burnley and Pendle Hill towards the Yorkshire Dales and over the south pennines towards Manchester.
The return journey to Holme Chapel, one of the Cliviger collective villages, was steep and slippery in the wet grass, and difficult on the knees and ankles. The path veered steeply downwards, towards and around Dean Scout, before entering the Cliviger Gorge, with the exposed Namurian rocks flanking it on the right on Thieveley Scout.
Also around us were the remains of Thieveley Farm, and evidence of the mining activity back in the 1700’s in the form of bell pits and spoil heaps, whilst slightly higher up was the prominent sandstone Beacon Rock.
We followed the path through Fish Pond Plantation, and for the first time struggled to find the path down to the road. We had ignored an early path, as the map showed that there was another direct path down. However, the plantation appears to have grown over the path we were looking for and the route we then took extended our route, winding down beneath Earl's Bower over boggy farmland and through another tunnel under the railway line. We made our way through what looked like a disused commercial site and were dragging our feet as we made our way back along the main road.
This was a varied route with steep scrambles along muddy paths and over boggy fields, more level paths over the moors, meandering paths through new woodland plantations and a steep descent from Thieveley Pike. There were great views from both the Singing Ringing Tree and Thieveley Pike, and the views down from Dean Scout along Cliviger Gorge were also lovely in the late afternoon sunshine.
Back in Holme Chapel, The Ram Inn provided a welcome resting point and refreshment to mark the end of a great afternoon.
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