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Walk 13 – Tockholes and Darwen Tower

Start/Finish Slipper Lowe Car Park, Roddlesworth (SD664203)

Distance 8.5km (5.3 miles)

Height gain 281m (929ft)

Terrain Moorland tracks, woodland trails, reservoirs

The time-worn cliché: ‘No walking guidebook to the West Pennine Moors would be complete without a visit to Darwen Tower’ is perfectly valid here, cliché or no cliché. Darwen Tower, like the Peel Monument on Holcombe Moor to the east, is a conspicuous landmark, and it commands a splendid panorama across the urban sprawl of Lancashire to more distant hazy hills in Yorkshire and Cumbria. The moorland setting is an especial delight, particularly in spring and summer, when the air is laden with the call of curlew and the trilling sound of skylark. The walk concludes with a delightful stroll through the Roddlesworth woodlands.

Leave the car park and head out to the road, but immediately turn right, through a gate, to follow a path by a wall and parallel with the road. After about 100m you reach a through-stile on the left, giving on to the road. Cross both, and go through the gate opposite to enter a low pasture across which a broad track leads to another gate on the edge of Darwen Moor.

Stay with the main track onto the moor, ignoring diversions, and after a short climb the track winds round to another gate in a moorland fence. Continue with the on-going track as it curves out onto the moor and around the incised clough of Stepback Brook, now with Darwen Tower in view.

Just after passing through another gate high on the moor, the track forks. Bear left, heading for the tower, with the track now descending for a short while before climbing to a fence corner. Follow the path beside the fence as it curves around the moor and then heads more directly for the tower. When the track forks, with the fence diving left towards the valley, keep to the right on a level, stony path that takes you to Darwen Tower. Walk right up to the trig pillar at its base.

Darwen Tower

Darwen Tower is a remarkable structure. From one point of view it signified loyalty to a monarch celebrating her 60th year on the throne, but another perspective sees it as a demonstration against the essence of that monarchy, namely the ownership of land and the power and privileges that accompanied it. In 1878 five men were served with writs by the local squire following a provocative Sunday afternoon stroll on the moor. The squire, the Rev. William Arthur Duckworth, who lived in Somerset, argued that the men were trespassing on private property and frightening game. The men fought the case and won, so enabling the moors to be opened for public enjoyment.

Serving a dual celebration, the octagonal tower was built in 1897. It is late medieval in style, and 26m (86 feet) high, incorporating a spiral staircase leading to observation levels. Around its base the tower is buttressed by an open arcade, which today conveniently serves as a fine place for a mid-walk snack.

It is an interesting aside that the campaign to win freedom to roam across the moors of northern Britain began here, both in 1878 and in 1896 on Winter Hill, and not with the rather more loudly proclaimed mass trespass on Kinder in the Peak District, in April 1932.

From the trig pillar, head down a conspicuous gravel track, soon bringing into view the town of Darwen and the tall chimney of India Mill. Beyond Darwen, the view embraces Greystone Hill, the moors above Haslingden Grane, and in the far distance, Holcombe Moor, pinned in place by the Peel Monument.

The 90m (300 foot) India Mill chimney was modelled on the style of a Venetian campanile. It was built between 1859 and 1867 at a cost of £14,000, and finally opened in 1868. Today, this Grade II listed building is an important Lancashire landmark, like Darwen Tower (see above).

When the track forks, bear left, with the route now descending quite rapidly. Continue down to reach a metal gate, beyond which the track branches again. Now bear left, descending for just 25m before leaving the track for a path on the left between gritstone walls. The walled path soon emerges into a rough pasture. Cross this on a narrow trod to intercept a concrete-laid service road. Turn right, down the road, and pass through a gate to a T-junction. 

Turn left and pass Water House, then immediately bear right on the lower of two broad tracks. This track leads down to feed onto the embankment of Earnsdale Reservoir. Cross the dam, and on the far side bear left up a narrower path for Tockholes. The path climbs steeply for a while, becoming cobbled. When the cobbles end, go forward along a gravel path between walls, with a fine view, left, back over the reservoir to Darwen Tower.

The path leads out to meet the Tockholes road. Turn left and cross the road, following it for a little over 200m before leaving it by passing right onto a concessionary bridleway and through a bridlegate. Follow a clear path now, which weaves through light woodland of beech, sycamore, ash and holly. 

The descending path eventually merges with another that appears lower down. Keep on in the same direction, and presently pass through a stream dip. Having climbed out of the dip, leave the prominent on-going path by branching right and following a narrower path towards Upper Roddlesworth Reservoir. Go as far as a fence at the reservoir edge, and there turn left, walking beside a fence and then a low wall, with the River Roddlesworth just a short distance away on your right.

Cross an in-flowing stream, and keep on in the same direction to reach and cross a footbridge. On the other side, keep left beside the river. The path later ascends a short flight of steps, and further on, forks. Take the lower path, returning to the riverside. This is an especially delightful stretch, and the path finally ends at a metal kissing-gate beside a bridge spanning the river.

Cross the bridge, and immediately turn right onto a rising track for the Slipper Lowe car park. The track steadily climbs above the river, with the ascent continuing for some distance until, just on reaching a wooden gate beside a wall, the gradient levels. Here, turn left along a broad gravel track that takes you back to the car park.