Traces of the past

We drove north today, for a trip that combined both work and leisure. We broke our journey with a walk in the Forest of Bowland, a wild heathery upland which was a Medieval hunting forest; indeed large parts are still owned by the landed gentry who take peculiar pleasure in shooting grouse. But now the biggest landowner is United Utilities, who protect this important upland that supplies many north-western towns with water. Land in their ownership supports the largest breeding concentration of hen harriers in the country. 

Although most of the area is Open Access land, there are few car-parks or trails, so our walk involved wading through bogs and across tussocky moorland. We found ourselves heading towards a craggy area, the site of a former quarry, which still had the rusting relics of some steam-powered machinery within it. And the easiest route proved to be that of the former railway line, constructed to remove the rock, now marked merely by the occasional wooden sleeper protruding from the peat, some metal fixings and a pair of rails crossing a stream.