Wednesday 28th October 2020 - around Nicky Nook (SD 519 485)
After yesterday's exertions in the rain I was just fresh out of my hot bath when the phone rang. Bowland Climber was suggesting a walk around Nicky Nook tomorrow. He said afterwards I hesitated before accepting. That is probably correct - I was still in recovery mode, and also I have walked around Nicky Nook on several occasions over the last few years. Before that it was a favourite outing to drag my unwilling family up to the summit when we lived in Preston.
Back in 2004 a local brewery were naming a new ale as Nicky Nook and tried to find the origin of the name. From the Lancashire Telegraph:
"...but despite talking to villagers in Scorton and scouring the internet Bowland Brewery is still none the wiser. Julie Collinson, proprietor of The Priory Hotel, in Scorton, is so keen to solve the mystery she has offered dinner for two and samples of the new beer.
"We'd love to hear from anyone who knows how Nicky Nook was named and the prize will go to the most interesting and amusing story, not necessarily the most credible..."
BC had warned me about crowds in Scorton; he had identified parking in a lane just to the south beneath the M6. Rain showers were forecast but we avoided them all except for a brief five minute spattering as we sat on some large culvert pipes for our mid walk munchies.
We were away at 9:30. Practically all of the walk was, much to my surprise and enjoyment, new to me allaying my thoughts that we may just be covering old ground. By now I had thankfully found my boots in the garage from yesterday, and after some attractive autumn lane walking we were squelching through muddy fields complete with more serious quagmires at the gate entrances. We were then back onto other lanes and we seemed to have been climbing forever until we came out onto the road skirting the base of the Bowland hills giving us views and reminiscences of various treks through that terrain.
We had seen only the odd person, but now looking down to the road there were many cars at the popular parking spot which gives access to climb Nicky Nook. From hereon there were continuously more people. about.
Despite the waterlogged fields this was an attractive and enjoyable walk, the first since 16th of September with BC.
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For Paul - a front on view of BC.
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| We obeyed and walked through the "straigts" |
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Out to the edge of the Bowland hills
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Cars parked for the ascent of Nicky Nook
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Nicky Nook trig
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Zoom to Lancaster University (I think)
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BC told me this was a sculpture - mmm!
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28th October! We were not tempted
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You will have seen this many times if you drive north up the M6 - it coincides with a slanting upwards bridge over the motorway
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Thanks for sharing these landscapes. And now I have a new word to place alongside “beck” — “trig.”
ReplyDeleteMichael Leddy - I suppose you know how trigs were used (triangulation points.) Map makers work from a carefully measured base line, then establish two distant trig points to form a triangle measuring the angles and elevations, and then progress adding more triangles to the adjacent sides. I think it is all done by aerial photography and things much more sophisticated these days so trig points have become redundant. If it grabs your interest I can recommend John Keay's The Great Arc which describes the mapping survey of India in the 1800s giving a fascinating insight to the difficulties involved, the larger than life personalties and the scale of the over all achievement. I am now going to add the map to my post which forgot about and hopefully I will forestall other commenters who may clamour.
ReplyDeleteIn truth, Hugh, I had no idea what trigs are or how they’re used. I’ll look for that book in the library — it sounds incredibly interesting
ReplyDeleteThe concrete pillars have a bronze mounting bracket embedded in the top to provide a fixing for the theodolite to take bearings and measurements of neighbouring trig pillars which can be miles away. That means pillars are nearly always situated on high with the best viewpoint within its surroundings. Each pillar has to be able to view two more. Our Ordnance Survey (a sort of quango started by the army) was formed to map our country. That is another fascinating history - there are books on the subject. They created a grid system which is shown on the maps enabling one to pinpoint a location to an accuracy of a few feet. The country is divided into 50 kilometre squares using the grid to provide individual manageable maps at two scales: 1:25000 and 1:50000. So my present campaign is based on one of these 1:50000 maps that contains 67 triangulation pillars. The detail and design of our OS maps is legendary and considered by many to rival any others globally.
ReplyDeleteLooking back we were lucky with the weather, seems to have rained ever since.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult to keep finding local paths we haven't walked although map of the route differs from yours.I'm sure we both did the same.
BC - I was not certain about my route on the map but I don't think there is much difference. Perhaps I was in a parallel universe?
ReplyDeleteYou did go missing in action for awhile.
ReplyDelete