Tuesday 12th November 2025
At this time of year weather windows are less frequent and have to be seized when the friendly forecast on North West Tonight gives the green light At my age the thrill of deliberately setting off in wind, sleet, rain and temperature threatening hypothermia within the first half mile are over. I do have an overriding joy in exploring the outdoors but being dictated to by the whims of the English climate can be unwelcome. My wont is to set off early, have a good walk and return in time for some sybaritic indulgence for the remainder of the day. However, setting off early means arising early, attending to the eccentric feeding requirements of son's cat, and extending the mormal tedious breakfast routine by preparing a flask and a sandwich, and above all having to put on my boots. That last exertion is hailed by many as a pleasurable preliminary, supposedly as the herald of a good day to come, but not for me - it is just a chore.
Once on the way in the car I am happy and anticipating new discoveries. That is unless I have the further faff of stopping to fuel up, or through my laziness, stopping somewhere to buy an overpriced sandwich which at that time of the morning will be a left over from the previous day.
North West Tonight had only set the green light for the first half of the day with rain to come later, so an early start was even more necessary today.
Burton in Kendal is hardly big enough to have suburbs, but I found something akin and parked up. Tannery Lane suggested something interesting and halfway along there was the Tannery building. Research has no mention of tanning in this village, and the obviously old building seems to be used for local authority health and social care, strange? One would have expected somethng relating to the history of this so named building.
A pull uphill on tarmac took me to the start of Slape Lane, an ancient two kilometre bridleway leading towards Hutton Roof hills behind Burton. Slape is a dialect word for slippery. The lane was sunken, not particularly slippery, just the occasional muddy patches, but with distant views of the Lake District fells through intermittent windows in the bordering hedge. That was s joy and a new significant path fairly close to home for me to discover, and without the need for repeated stops for route checking as is often the case on more convoluted country walking.
From the other end of Slape Lane it was downhill on tarmac then off on paths through the green parkland of the Curwen Estate. In the middle of this extent of green I saw a black fenced off area which at a distance looked like a small sewage treatment plant, but whatever it may have been it was incongruous in this setting. All was revealed as I came closer: a tennis court for hire. How odd. But later I found that Curwen Estate now runs the old hall as a holiday residential centre and this is one of the attractions.
A short stretch of tarmac and a trip down Sheernest Lane
"...has a history connected to religious buildings, with a Wesleyan Methodist chapel built in 1833, a Roman Catholic chapel established in 1848, and the nearby Holy Trinity Church built in 1839."
took me onto the Lancaster Canal, and pleasant walking back to Burton. I stopped on a welcome bench for my diligently prepared home made sandwich and coffee from my revered flask that has been everywhere with me including its role as a companion on most of the Munros. I opened up my birdsong identifying app and was informed of the nearby presence of a kingfisher, but no matter, despite no sighting, .it was good to know of its presence.
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| Tanpit building |
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| The start of Slape Lane and... |
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| ...its viewfinder |
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| Ok. I know it's for horse riders, but it didn't work. I had to grapple through and manipulate the catch at the risk of finger amputation. What's wrong with a six inch nail and an iron hook? This is something that didn't need to be invented, and at what cost? Happy days for the horse riders having to likely dismount anyway for this one. |
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| Exiting Slape Lane, across the field to the road |
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| The hill on the horizon is Warton Crag - zoom below |
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| An unusual stile, and below from the other side |
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| The green parkland of the Curwen Estate |
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| Entrance to Holme village. sponsored by the WI and the local quarry owners. The date is 2010, not sure if that was some anniversary? |
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| Lancaster Canal |
