Building a bridleway: a Trainee's story

Dom Hartley is currently employed by the landscape partnership as a graduate trainee. Joining us with a Masters degree in Conservation and land Management, Dom is working closely with our Access officer on a number of sites to learn about path construction techniques as well as gaining experience in contract and project management. Here is his blog:

The new Chatburn-Downham Concessionary Bridleway

As many of you will have noticed, either through following our social media channels or from travelling along the Chatburn Road to/from Downham in the last 6 months, work has been on-going to create a new bridleway connecting the two villages. Previously walkers, cyclists and horse-riders had no choice but to use the road if they wished to travel from Chatburn to Downham, which was a somewhat unsettling prospect given that vehicles are permitted to travel up to 60mph there.

The Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership, with the support of the Heritage Fund, the Forest of Bowland AONB and the Downham Estate, are happy to announce the opening of the Chatburn-Downham bridleway which will provide the public with a safe and scenic route between the villages.

Early stages

Those of you familiar with the Chatburn and Downham areas will also be familiar with the prevalence of Roman history in the area. An old Roman road is speculated to exist, buried, in the vicinity of Downham/Rimington, a small section of which could potentially have overlapped with the proposed line for the new bridleway. Therefore, before any work could begin, we asked Greenlane Archaeology Ltd to survey the site to prevent any damage to any valuable archaeological evidence from Roman times. The survey took place in early February 2020; as many of you will no doubt remember the weather that month left a lot to be desired.

A top layer of turf and soil is carefully removed in order for the survey to begin

During a break in the hail, which was detrimental to visibility, archaeologists begin to examine the earth for signs of the old Roman road

After an extensive investigation on site, the archaeologists determined that the proposed depth of the bridleway works would not cause any damage to the old Roman surface, which likely lies just outside of the new track or deep enough beneath it that the work would not cause any damage.

The new route also runs close to a number of trees. Where ground works are located close to trees, protection of the roots must be considered. Forester and Tree Surgeon Richard Davis was retained to survey the area and calculate 'Root Protection Areas', which are used to determine the amount of protective material required to lay over tree roots to prevent subsequent ground works from damaging them. Terram and Geocell were used which ensures the continuation of essential air and water flow to roots and helps to distribute the weight of stone evenly, and this was installed below all sections of the bridleway where tree root protection had been identified as necessary.

Terram Geocell is visible in this picture. The roots of the tree on the left-hand side of the picture extend underneath the line of the new bridleway, and are therefore protected by use of the geotextile. Track material is then spread on top of it, ensuring both tree root well-being and a secure, comfortable surface to walk on

Construction Begins

Following the laying of geotextile in the relevant areas, ground works began in earnest. An area of ground was identified to ensure that enough space was afforded for a 3m wide track, comfortable for two-way traffic, with a further 2m of area suitable to support a hedgerow. A fence has been installed down the entire length of the new bridleway in order to protect and isolate the livestock in the adjacent field.

Initial work was slowed by the huge amount of rainfall we experienced in February; the machines needed for construction could not safely navigate such waterlogged ground without risking lasting damage to turf and soil. However, after the ground had dried in early March fast progress was made by Charlie Yirrell and his company CPY Excavations, beginning first on the 500m stretch from Chatburn to Greendale View Kitchen. The line of the bridleway, previously decided in consultation with the landowner, was excavated and a solid stony foundation was laid. Further aggregate was spread on top of the foundations then rolled flat. Subsequent good weather has baked the new track, creating a sturdy surface for foot, bike and hoof traffic.

Working carefully around standing trees, contractors lay a surface to create the bridleway

Heavy and sustained rainfall makes life difficult for machine operators; in addition to concerns about causing damage to the surface, the waterlogged ground makes driving machines difficult and unsafe

The extended good weather through April and May allowed for the making up of time lost in February. Then another curveball, the Covid-19 lockdown (from late March 2020), threatened to further slow construction. However, CPY Excavations quickly adapted safe, socially-distant work plans and risk assessments, and good progress was made regardless. By April, bridleway construction moved well into the second 500m stretch, from Greendale View Kitchen towards Downham.

Meticulous work on behalf of the contractors transformed a previously waterlogged field into a neat and even track. The verges were carefully left untouched, so that spring and summer growth will quickly cover any indication of recent works and help the bridleway to blend into the area 

By mid-May, track-work was complete and a new hedge, planted and watered through the drought by Ralph Assheton, is in position along the vast majority of the bridleway. Finishing touches were applied along the route, such as mounting blocks for horses, the installation of boulders for seating and a water-trough for thirsty horses. 

The final works required to make the bridleway a fully legal and safe was the installation of a series of gates along the bridleway where the track nears an exit to the road. You may spot the gates and at first be surprised by their spatial situation; they do not, after all, meet and form a barrier as normal gates would. In addition to prevent any attempted vehicular use of the bridleway, the main purpose of the gates is to create a holding area a safe distance from the road, where horse riders can see passing cars easily (and vice versa) before deciding to proceed from the bridleway onto the road. Additionally, when viewed head-on, the two separate gates will appear to a horse to be a single closed barrier, which will prevent any spooked animal from bolting into the road.

A safe distance from the road, the gates create a chicane which affords horse riders and drivers more chance to see each other before a crossing is attempted. Photograph by Graham Cooper.

From a distance, a horse will perceive the gates as a single obstruction across the track, preventing any bolting which may lead to a road traffic accident. Photograph by Graham Cooper.

As of mid-June 2020, the Chatburn-Downham bridleway is officially open to the public. We would like to encourage the safe and considerate use of the new route. Please stick to the track to protect the young hedgerow, pick up after your dog and take any litter home with you.  Please enjoy the bridleway safely!

Images by Graham Cooper

Discovering Pendle Hill through Sustainable Tourism

The Discover Pendle Hill Project is about working with tourism businesses located around the hill and providing new opportunities for visitors with an emphasis on sustainable tourism.  So when we talk about sustainable what do we actually mean? And why is it so important that we engage with the tourism businesses themselves?

Assheton Arms - Foodie Foray Event

  

Sustainable tourism is about developing opportunities that will have minimal impact on the landscape and communities. It's about promoting and attracting visitors to an area, and encouraging them to experience and enjoy the place, whilst not spoiling it for other visitors or local people. We often refer to sustainable tourism being about encouraging quiet enjoyment, and re investing in the economy and communities which support that landscape, and also ensuring it stays special for many years to come!

So while we, as a partnership, can promote this ideology and those opportunities that focus on quiet enjoyment, this only goes half way to minimising the impact of tourism.  What is also key is getting the businesses themselves on-board working towards that common goal.

Sustainable tourism isn't a new approach for us, the Forest of Bowland AONB has been supporting a programme of work for last 13 years. The key to its success has been the engagement with businesses. Because foremost, as a partnership we have limited access or interaction with visitors to pass on this vital information and secondly, conversations with businesses enables us to encourage them to develop their own business in a way that respects the landscape and supports the community in which they are located. 

Gisburn Forest by Jon Sparks

Those initial conversations with businesses are just the start of the process, and sustainable tourism at a destination level, or even a smaller scale (as it is for the Pendle Hill Scheme) needs time and patience. Businesses will engage with initiatives that resonate most with them, not everything is a perfect fit, so for us as an organisation it's about providing many opportunities that businesses can link with.  Having said that, developing a sustainable tourism network for all businesses wishing to be involved is vital, to provide those networking opportunities and exchange of information and ideas.  The Forest of Bowland sustainable tourism network has been active for the last 12 years in the AONB, and we'll be encouraging more businesses within the Pendle Hill LP area to be part of this in the next few years. 

Forest of Bowland Sustainable Tourism Network

One of the key projects which has been a big success within wider Bowland, is the Sense of Place project.  Sense of Place has helped businesses over the years to gain a better understanding of what makes Bowland so special, what makes it locally distinctive, and how to use these messages in the marketing of their own businesses.  Sense of Place refers to the elements that make a place special, such as memories of past visits, views, sounds, people, tastes, even the smell of the place!  During 2019 we'll be developing a sense of place toolkit for Pendle Hill, to increase awareness and understanding of this beautiful part of the AONB drawing on its own distinctiveness, but also applying elements from the existing wider Bowland toolkit.

Another key initiative that has enabled businesses to address their own approaches and day to day business operations has been to support them through green accreditation.  Over 40 businesses have achieved green awards over the last 10 years in Bowland, and while they may have joined and left various schemes, the framework and practices they have adopted for their businesses – to operate in an environmentally friendly way – have remained.  The reason we support individual businesses through this process is because of how rigorous these schemes can be, and how they address every aspect of 'being green' – from water use, waste and energy to the provision of information on walking, cycling and wildlife watching as well as their commitments to supporting the local community.  Over the next three years we'd love to hear from businesses in the Pendle Hill area who want to adopt this approach, either formally through an accreditation scheme, or informally to develop new ideas amongst their staff.  This a great way for businesses to begin to understand what being a sustainable tourism business is all about.

Lancashire Green Tourism Project

Pendle Star Trails by Robert Ince

Sustainable tourism also incorporates our dark skies work in developing the quiet enjoyment of the area at night!  And while the landscapes of the Forest of Bowland are captivating by day, after the sun sets there’s a whole new world to discover in the dark skies over Bowland.  Businesses in the Pendle Hill area will have the opportunity to become 'Dark Sky Friendly' and gear themselves up for providing the best opportunities for staying visitors wishing to venture out into the night. 

Similarly, the celebration and promotion of local food is very much linked to our sustainable tourism work – delicious local food and drink is one of the AONB's sense of place themes.  This theme acknowledges that farming methods have shaped our land – creating field patterns with dry stone-walls and hedgerows; farmsteads and barns. Without food production our countryside would look very different!  Our Foodie Foray was launched in the autumn to begin some early engagement with the food businesses in the Pendle Hill area – it was a celebration of the local food producers and the distinctive local dishes found at the foot of our landmark hill. The five-day programme included walks, talks, foraging and feasting, linking with local eateries and producers on both sides of the hill.  Overall it was a great success and hopefully got visitors and businesses thinking more about food provenance and the importance of supporting local food producers and our local economy.

Foodie Foray Herbal Medicine Walk

Foodie Foray Foraging Walk

If you're a tourism business reading this and want to find out more about how you can link with our sustainable tourism work and the opportunities coming up over the next few years, then we'd love to hear from you – email hetty.byrne@lancashire.govuk Or if you’re a visitor or local person, hopefully it's given you an insight into why and how we approach the development of tourism in a sustainable way, and maybe you'll be able to experience first-hand how collectively these kind of developments can have a positive and lasting impact.

Wishing you all a very Happy Christmas – enjoy buying local this festive period and if you're venturing out for a walk or cycle ride maybe combine it with a visit to a café, pub or shop and help support your local communities and economy!

Barley Car Park for Pendle Hill... by Jayne Ashe, Community Engagement Officer

If you look on Google Maps it refers to the main car park in Barley as 'Barley Car Park for Pendle Hill'. And I don’t really think that it should. Yes, Barley Car Park is a very popular starting point for walking to the top of Pendle Hill, but that doesn't mean it’s the only car park for the Hill. Due to our recent Pendle Summit project, myself and colleagues have been making many trips up the hill from Barley, to check the works restoring the path and the construction of the dry stone wall shelter – but most walkers know there is so much more to the hill than just the popular route up from Barley.

My favourite route up to the summit starts in Downham – just as steep in places but more varied in landscape, and you can circle along the plateau, past the Shelter Cairn and Scout Cairn and back down the sometimes waterlogged paths on the aptly named Burst Clough.  I wouldn't park in Barley to do that route. If you have never reached the summit from Downham I highly recommend giving it a go. If you are coming along to our Meet You At The Top event on Saturday 6^th October, we have the perfect opportunity because we will have volunteer marshals walking all the way up this route so you can become familiar with it.

On some days you can be walking above the clouds!

Beyond that the hill offers so much more than just a route to the trig point. The Pendle Hill Landscape Partnership area covers 122sqkm of Ribble Valley, Pendle and Burnley landscape –with the summit the focus in the middle, but with so much more around it. Over the past two years working for the AONB, I have been lucky enough to walk through woodlands, across valleys and along becks, discovering public footpaths which see very little footfall, some hidden local secrets but most with the hill as a back drop.

We are so lucky to have such a choice of walking routes in our area – and I love them even more when they are associated with local folklore and stories, or features which have colloquial names. Have you heard about the boggarts and treacle mines of Sabden? Or the fairy bridge over Swanside Beck (actually an old packhorse bridge but somewhere along the way I have picked up the name fairy bridge). Other routes are more embedded in our history – the coffin trail over towards Whalley from the Nick o' Pendle or the archaeological mysteries and popular walks and picnic sites at Watermeetings.

The beautiful 'fairy bridge' near Downham. Photo taken by Graham Cooper
(he can take much better photos than me!)

I have met lots of local people - and hope to continue to meet many more – some who have lived in the area for many years or others who have a passion for the history of the area. I have always been very appreciative of my opportunity to trek across the landscape with these individuals: learning new things every day. And I hope that through our work within the Landscape Partnership, we can show others these routes and tell more of these stories.

Through some of our projects, such as 'Volunteering and Learning' and 'People Enjoying Nature', we do get the opportunity to take people to areas of the landscape where they may never have been before, or may not have even considered exploring. By having the support and guidance at certain sites or on routes, the aim is that people will make return visits or have the confidence to explore new walks – even if it may just be a new route to the summit!

Volunteers and staff enjoying a different route earlier this year

So hopefully you may agree with me that Barley Car Park for Pendle Hill isn't necessarily correct – instead it could just be Barley Car Park? Don’t get me wrong, that trip up to the summit is an important one – something that we may first do as a small child, and do again and again either at Easter or on Boxing Day, with family and old friends – but there is also so much more out there that doesn’t necessarily include the steep climb up the steps, but with views and in a landscape that is just as rewarding. I encourage you to go out exploring!

We have a few of these great stone markers across the area

Please always remember to follow the Countryside Code and keep dogs under close control, preferably on a lead. Only ever stick to Public Rights of Way or Bridleways when not in an Open Access area, and please always park safely and considerately to home owners and land owners. There are a number of car parks, some smaller than others, some free and other pay and display in places like Sabden and Rimington, Barrowford and Whalley – all great places to start walking.