Christ Church, Longridge - Methodist/URC

This month, our Bolton division told us that they could organize a scenic, (fairly), mud free walk, so we decided to take them up on their generous offer. The walk was centred on what is locally known as the Lancashire Lake District, in the area between Bolton, Horwich and Chorley. The lakes concerned are the three reservoirs, Lower and Upper Rivington and Anglezarke. Our meeting place was the Lower Rivington Barn. From here, our group, (A good turnout of ten), started walking northwards. The weather was bitterly cold with slight rain. In a short time, we arrived at the road across the dam that separates the two Rivington reservoirs, which we crossed and then entered a path that followed the western shore of the lake. The views were excellent, looking across to Rivington Pike and the paths were good until Read more…

There is now a tradition for the first walk of the year to be a promenade stroll and this year we decided to walk along the Merseyside coast from Hightown to Crosby and have a look at the now famous Gormley statues. Antony Gormley produced one hundred of these metal reproductions of himself and have been exhibited in Germany, Norway and Belgium, before being sited in the sands at Crosby over an area of 3 Kilometers along the beach and 1 Kilometer out to sea. We parked our cars at the end of a housing estate and started walking along a good path that later joined the Sefton Coastal Pathway a paved route between the sand dunes and the sea. Later, at Blundellsands, this pathway gave way to a proper promenade and a leisurely stroll down to Crosby, enjoying the Read more…

Longridge, unlike many other parts of the country, doesn’t suffer from serious flooding simply because it isn’t associated with a river. However, we do have a brook that starts in Longridge and flows through the North of Preston and down to the River Ribble. This walk, devised by Jim some time ago, follows this watercourse from Longridge to Haslam Park in Preston. The walk started from Grange Towers at the bottom of Hacking Drive and should have followed the brook, through the fields to Grimsargh. However, some of the fields are in a poor state due to the wet weather, so we started by walking along the railway to Suddels Farm and then continuing by road. Once through Grimsargh, we turned into the long straight lane of Cow Hill and down to Londonderry Bridge. Here we joined a narrow path Read more…