This slideshow requires JavaScript.

14 of us set off this morning from the Butlers Arms in Pleasington, a picturesque village on the outskirts of Blackburn, to walk the 6 miles of the Beamers Trail, part of the 32 mile walk known as the Witton Weavers Way. Pleasington was the manorial home of families such as the Ainsworths and Butler-Bowdens and still has a row of handloom weavers cottages  within the village. We joined the path at Pleasington Priory, which is a fine example of a Gothic Roman Catholic Church.
Despite a few showers we travelled the path down into Witton Country Park fairly speedily as this is the most unassuming part of the walk, and followed the River Darwen into the park, past the information centre and then joined one of the start points of the Beamers trail. Heading upwards we turned into Big Cover wood, passing through the kissing gate to enter open fields and then into Billinge Wood. This was the second of our very steep inclines, the first being a set of uneven wooden steps  from the park into the wood. There was an abundance of beautiful bluebells to be seen in the dappled shade as the sun had finally come out, and we enjoyed the warmth until we mounted the hills above Butler’s Delph Quarry, where we stopped for a quick coffee break. As often happens on these rambles, the sun disappeared and a fierce wind blew on us at this point. However this did not stop us admiring the view from the Alfred Wainwright memorial stone. From the vantage point we were able to see Darwen Tower, Winter Hill, Blackpool Tower, Parbold Hill, Pen-Y-Ghent, and Southport coastline, and would have been able to see Snowdon if the cloud base had been slightly higher. So in spite of the wind it was the ideal place to see a 360 degree view of the surrounding counties. From here we dropped down the valley with the Yellow hills on our left. These are named because of the covering of gorse bushes on the slopes. Crossing the fields we had a near encounter with a herd of frisky bullocks, who seemed intent on taking out some of the walkers!  With some nimble footwork, everyone managed to climb the stile to safety, but then encountered a sign saying “bull in field”. Thankfully it was not in sight today. Skirting around Close Farm, we dropped into the River Darwen valley again and followed the track of the river of back through woodland, along the edge of Pleasington Golf course climbing back out of the valley on our last hard climb to the shady country lane leading back to our start point at the Butler’s Arms. Whilst the walk was just 6 miles in length, the steep ascents and descents, not to mention 12 stiles of varying heights and structure, made for  a moderately challenging walk, which certainly got the heart rate higher. A lovely meal was then enjoyed at the pub and we made plans for our next ramble. This will be to Malham Cove in Yorkshire and will be on Thursday 6th June. Full details to follow. Thanks to everyone who came on the ramble today and special thanks to Ken for doing the recce with me a couple of weeks ago.