The Ribble Way - A Walker's Guidebook

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Chapter 2 - Penwortham Bridge to Ribchester

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Distance: 11.9 miles (19.2km)
Height gain: 830 feet (253m)
Route assessment: Quiet roads and lanes; riverside and field paths may be muddy after rain; beyond Preston the countryside is undulating with some short but steep climbs and descents
Time: 5¼ hours
Public transport: A bus service between Preston and Clitheroe stops at Ribchester
Parking: Car parks in Ribchester and Preston (pay-and-display)
Refreshments: A variety of pubs and cafés in Preston, with three riverside pubs between Penwortham and Walton Bridges; then there is nothing along the route until you reach Ribchester, where the village offers a choice of pubs and a café
Toilets: At Preston bus station and beside the car park in Ribchester
Maps: OS Explorer 286, Blackpool & Preston, and OS Explorer 287, West Pennine Moors

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The route around Preston is a surprising haven of calm compared to the frenetic activity of the nearby city centre. It follows quiet streets and passes through pleasant parks along the banks of the river, and also heralds a change in the character of the Ribble valley, for it marks the point at which the river breaks free from the surrounding hills. Upstream, the watercourse snakes within a wide plain, batted from one side to the other by steep bluffs of dun-coloured sandstone. The formal geometry of the efficient drainage system, outlined by ditches, that could be seen in the field patterns of the estuary is replaced by more natural boundaries that follow the lie of the land. Ragged copses of gnarled woodland and stretches of old lane and hedged track give the countryside a more ancient appearance. The hand of man is in evidence in old manors and farmstead buildings, some of which date from the 15th century. More distant views hint at the wilder landscape to be encountered later in the walk, while closer to hand there is great variety in the plants and woodland trees lining the way.

Despite the construction of the A59 bypass, Penwortham New Bridge remains busy and is best crossed on its northern side at the traffic lights. From the Ribbleside pub the onward way hugs the riverbank along Broadgate and Riverside, and then successively at the edge of a sports field, Miller Park and Avenham Park. Beyond that is a playing field, after which the Boulevard takes you past the outflow of the River Darwen, on the river's opposite bank, to another of Preston's main arteries, the A6 at Walton Bridge.

Preston
Historically, Preston was the lowest point at which the Ribble could be bridged, and certainly it has no shortage of crossing points today. Upriver of Penwortham New Bridge is the graceful five-arched Penwortham Old Bridge, still standing but closed to traffic, while just beyond it stand the gaunt piers festooned with a jumble of service pipes and cables that once carried the West Lancashire Railway from Southport. Further on, the high and much-widened bridge overshadowing the Continental pub carries the West Coast main railway line into Preston Station, which lies just a few hundred yards up the hill to the north. The next bridge also served a railway, this time from Blackburn and the east, but trains are now routed round by the main line and the bridge is left for pedestrians, as is the next one at the far side of Avenham Park. In a way this last bridge is the most interesting, for it was built to carry the tramway that connected the two halves of the Lancaster Canal, and which ran from a basin in Aqueduct Street, northwest of the city centre, to Johnson's Hillock beyond Whittle-le-Woods, a distance of some 8 miles (12.9km). The trucks were horse-drawn for most of its length, but stationary steam engines were employed at either side of the river to haul and lower trucks along straight inclines to the bridge. The present metal structure dates from 1860 and replaces a wooden one erected in 1802.

Some 40 yards before Walton Bridge, where you meet the main road, is the site of Old Ribble Bridge, which on 17 August 1648 was contested in the struggle for control of Preston during the Civil War. After a three-day battle Charles I's forces were finally defeated by the Roundheads, and tradition has it that afterwards Cromwell retired to the Unicorn Inn by Darwen Bridge to plan his subsequent strategy.

Preston claims Saxon foundation in the seventh century, and with charters later granted under Henry I and Henry II, was undoubtedly a medieval town of some importance. It sent a representative to Parliament from as early as 1295, but sadly no buildings from those early beginnings have survived. The only memorial to Preston's several ancient gates is in street names such as Fishergate, Friargate, Bishopgate and Stoneygate.

In his Tour of the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–6) Daniel Defoe remarked that it 'has a great many gentlemen', but it was the industrialisation of the later 18th century that moulded the town we see today. Richard Arkwright invented his water frame for spinning cotton in Stoneygate, paving the way for a textile industry that helped Britain dominate world trade throughout the Victorian era.

Despite the considerable redevelopment of recent decades, Preston retains many of the fine Georgian and Victorian buildings that arose as a result of the burgeoning prosperity brought about by the factory system. Imposing crescents of terraced mansions and gardened squares overlook the river, while around the market square are civic buildings as fine as any in the country.

Many of Preston's greatest buildings are due to the generosity of a single man, Edmund R Harris, who bequeathed his family wealth for the provision of a public library, museum, orphanage, institute and schools.

If you have not already begun the day in the city, the best way to visit from the Ribble Way is to follow the path up from the head of the old tramway bridge.

From that same period date Preston's several parks. The parks were places of recreation for both the wealthy and the ordinary folk, whose dreary factory labour maintained the entrepreneurs and gentry in their comfortable state. Moor Park at the northern end of the city was one of the first public parks in the country, and was laid out on common land that had been granted from the Royal Forest of Fulwood by Henry III in 1235.Those by the riverside are fine examples of Victorian Romantic landscaping, and form natural amphitheatres overlooking formal walks and gardens by the water's edge. Avenham Park was the setting for the first Mormon baptisms conducted in Britain, which took place on 30 July 1837, establishing a link that is perpetuated today in the splendid Mormon temple built on the outskirts of nearby Chorley, and dedicated in June 1998. The imposing brick building above Miller Park was built as the Railway Hotel, and once provided a meal for Queen Victoria as she passed through Lancashire on her way to holiday at Balmoral. The queen ate 'take away' style in the privacy and luxury of her own railway carriage, while the more adventurous Prince Albert apparently took his refreshment in the station buffet.

During the second half of the 20th century Preston's traditional industries of cotton and heavy engineering began to decline, and for a time, at least, economic prosperity was uncertain. More lately, however, an influx of commerce and diverse light industries has heralded a revival, and there has been a rapid expansion of housing and other new buildings. Already famous for its Guild celebrations, held every 20 years (hence the saying 'once every Preston Guild'), recently Preston has firmly established itself as the cultural and economic focus of central Lancashire. In 2002, on the occasion of the Queen's golden jubilee, the town of Preston was awarded city status – the Jubilee City – and the parish church of St John the Evangelist was elevated to a minster.

Over the dual carriageway, follow a track beside the Shawes Arms to a fork where a stile on the right returns you to the riverbank. Progressing upstream past the tidal limit a new face of the Ribble valley is revealed, a wide, flat-bottomed alluvial plain bordered by scarps and hills on either side, drawing your gaze towards the as-yet distant bulk of Pendle Hill. Eventually joining a track from a farm, Mete House, continue at the edge of Melling's Wood. Initially a concreted pipeline screens the view of the river, but that soon becomes less obtrusive and the profuse spread of trees and plants is an appetiser for things to come, with beech, birch, ash and other trees shading a flowery carpet that in spring bursts with colour. Beyond the wood, the path skirts a golf course and ultimately leads out to another main road, the A59.

Buried Treasure
On the opposite bank, where the river sweeps in curves across an old flood plain below the road and motorway bridges, workmen digging drains in 1840 found a cache of silver treasure buried in the silt of the riverbank. It contained around 10,000 Scandinavian coins as well as a number of ingots, all stamped with dates before 928. It is unlikely that a single individual could have amassed such wealth, and it is thought that the hoard belonged to an army, and was perhaps lost in an attempt to ford the river.

Cross the A59 to the track opposite (alternatively, you can walk beneath the flood arch of the bridge and duck below a barrier at the far side) and go right as you then approach farm buildings. Continue between fields to rejoin the riverbank opposite the Tickled Trout Hotel, standing on the far bank. After passing beneath the M6 motorway and slip road bridges, the Ribble Way meets the access road for Brockhole Quarry and offers a choice of routes. You can remain with the riverbank along a permissive path that leaves over a stile to the right of the quarry entrance, or follow Ribble Way signs left beside the motorway slip road, and then turn right on a grassy path between saplings and earthen banks screening the quarry workings. Keep ahead between flooding pits from which sand and gravel, washed from melting glaciers at the end of the last ice age, have been excavated, eventually emerging at the far side into open pasture. Here the two paths rejoin and you should bear left to the top corner of the field where a ladder stile leads into Boilton Wood.

To the left a path climbs away through the trees and shortly meets open ground. Follow the perimeter around to the right, slipping back into the woodland fringe at the far end above Red Scar, a high bluff of sandstone that turns the river in an abrupt bend below. Later emerging into fields, bear right and remain parallel to the trees over successive stiles. In the fourth enclosure veer right to find a stile into Tun Brook Wood, from which a path falls steeply to a footbridge at the bottom. After climbing to emerge in fields once more, strike out to a gate in the far-right corner, there joining Elston Lane.

Tun Brook Wood
For the next few miles the river runs within a relatively wide and straight valley, although its course is deflected from side to side by the abruptly rising scarps on either side. Where the ground is too steep for cultivation, either overlooking the river or beside the stream gullies that drop from the surrounding hills, copses remain from the ancient woodland that invaded the valley after the last ice age. None is more extensive than Tun Brook Wood, which cloaks a deep side-ravine for over 1½ miles (2.4km). Native species such as oak, ash, hazel, alder and holly have been allowed to regenerate naturally over the centuries, and the damp, fertile soil nurtures a splendid assortment of wildflowers, with snowdrops, ransoms, bluebells, arum, wood anemones and orchids among those most easily identified, each in their appropriate season.

Follow Elston Lane away to the left, going left again when you reach a junction. After some ¾ mile (1.2km), and approaching the high point of the rise, look for a waymarked farm track leaving through a gate on the right. Stay ahead past the buildings of Marsh House farm, continuing through a gate along a hedged green track. Around a bend at its end go over a stone stile adjacent to a gate on the right and walk away beside the left-hand hedge. Carry on in the next field, passing a pond and aiming for a house that becomes visible at the far side. Leave over a stile behind the house and walk out to Alston Lane. Regaining the fields over another stile directly opposite, keep walking forward, later descending to cross a brook running at the base of a shady dell. Maintain your direction across subsequent fields and ditches, passing left of an oak in the third pasture to drop beside a hedge into another wooded gully. Climb away beyond, following the edge of successive fields and eventually joining a track beside a cottage. Follow it out to Hothersall Lane.

Darwen Tower
The previous couple of miles have roughly followed the line of a Roman road, and the elevated, open aspect gives a splendid panorama across the broad valley. In the distance to the southeast are the Pennine moors, distinguished by Darwen Tower and the forest of transmitter masts adorning Winter Hill. Darwen Tower was built to commemorate Queen Victoria's diamond jubilee in 1897, but more poignantly symbolises the success of local people in winning free access onto the surrounding moors in the previous year.

Follow the lane to the right as it drops back into the valley, curving at the bottom past the Hothersall Lodge Field Studies Centre. As the lane ends, keep going forward past Hothersall Hall, passing through a couple of gates to climb away along a fenced track. Where that bends, cross a ladder stile on the right and make for the top of a wooded bank above the river. Skirting the trees, Ribchester comes into view beyond the crest, the way falling to a gate near the bottom right-hand field corner. Progress from field to field, eventually joining a hedged track that cuts off a bold sweep of the river to reach a farm, and then continues past St Wilfrid's Church and the Roman museum to a junction at the lower end of the village. The centre of the village and its amenities lie up the street to the left, while the onward route rejoins the riverbank beside the primary school opposite.

Day Walkers
If you follow the Ribble Way just a little further on to Ribchester Bridge, there is a meandering return on the opposite bank. This adopts lanes and field paths through Osbaldeston, Balderstone and Samlesbury, and thence continues largely beside the river into Preston. However, this would create an unreasonably long walk of some 25½ miles (41km). A much better strategy if arriving by car is to park in the morning at Ribchester and catch the bus to Preston. From the bus station it is then a 1 mile (1.6km) walk past the museum, market square and along Fishergate to the beginning of this section at Penwortham Bridge.