Crosby Ravensworth, Coalpit Hill

 Wednesday 3rd August 2022

 Crosby Ravensworth, Coalpit Hill circular - 7 miles - ascent 766ft.

I had not planned to walk to day.  At 6:00am, my normal arising time for a day walk, I turned over, but at 6:30  glorious sunshine prevailed from my window. I couldn't decline the opportunity of wasting a good weather day.  Breakfast was hustled through and off I went. Driving in this less populated northern region early in the morning is a pleasure, I had the roads to myself and landed at Crosby Ravensworth to start walking at 8:35. I parked in a rough lay-by opposite a row of cottages in the village and within a minute a resident was approaching from one of the cottages. I anticipated some objection to my parking but she very politely explained that she had contractors coming to surface her frontage, that is driveway, not part of her person, with heavy machinery, but she just asked me to back up a few yards so they would have no access problem. and she then wished me well for a good walk -  all quite pleasant.

A short stretch through the village lead to a tarmac track branching off south-west. The tarmac gave way to a grassy track which climbed non-stop at a gentle gradient for about three and a half kilometres to reach the cairn and trig on Coalpit Hill.

Along the way a line of grouse butts appeared. By now I was walking through heather moorland, but still on the good grassy track, and heather was blooming, a little early I reckon. The first of these bird murdering locations was substantial, enclosed by four walls and its floor laid with gravel to prevent squelching about in mud, (a virtual palace?)A couple of hundred yards further on the next butt was just a single barricade with no facilities (social housing?). All this set me wondering about the allocation of butts to those paying lots  for the pleasure of killing animals. To be graced with the "palace" does one have to pay more or does it go to a particular buddy of Lord Killagrouse? In which case being allocated the "social housing"would amount to almost social downgrading, perhaps for those not being quite "in" with the social milieu of the Laird, probably having  arrived in a Kia Sportage rather than a Wange Wover (Autobiography model).  How the other half live eh?

Views from Coalpit Hill across to the M6 corridor were extensive. Even at three or so kilometres  from the motorway its noise was audible for most of the walk. A short stretch from the summit across tussocky ground connected me back to another track and then eventually to the cul-de-sac end of a very minor tarmac road and pleasant walking back ito Crosby R.

As I arrived back at the car I half expected, with my record of unsolicited cups of tea and the like*, to be offered such by my pleasant neighbour from this morning, but the newly laid frontage was complete, looking pristine, but my hopes were mot realised. 

That was a good walk on easy going and my time was much faster than recent walks over more demanding terrain. All sheer pleasure, snd recommended for anybody looking for a quick seven miler.

* See Bowland Climber's last blog post: CLICK

A short walk out of the village leading to pleasant wilderness

My departure from the village  branching right is just beyond this cottage - 1759

Tarmac track gave way to gravel which gave way to...

...pleasant green track

Coalpit Hill is the pimple a bit in from the right on the horizon

The Palace and...

...Social Housing

Cairn on Coalpit Hill

Coalpit Hill trig looking across to the M6 corridor

Back into the village past the Butcher's Arms.

Start finish, Crosby Ravensworth, top right, clockwise.