Lancashire's poster-place for the access revolution
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Version 0 of 1. Find a big map and you’ll see there’s a monstrous, heart-shaped blank in the middle of north-west England. You’ve passed it probably, but the big roads skirt it with such circuitous subtlety you don’t notice you’re orbiting something. For years, unless you paid to shoot things, it might well have remained more a brooding feeling than a sight, its extent out of view beyond this brow or that. But then wildest Bowland became the poster-place for the second access revolution. The first was Kinder Scout, for its trespass in 1932,which legitimised the case for national parks. Bowland epitomised the unfinished business: the Countryside Rights of Way Act. Before, most of Bowland was forbidding and forbidden, ring-fenced and cowed for shooting. Among 4m acres of similarly private land, it fell open to sanctioned right to roam on 19 September 2004. Mysterious features with attention-trapping names – Wolfhole Crag, Gallows Hill – drifted like galleons amid sea-swells of moorland. One such, Whitendale Hanging Stones, is Britain’s geographical centre. Re-drawn with these new freedoms stamped in gold, the possibilities of this place walked back on to the map. Two places illustrate Bowland’s scale, and the magnitude of the act that unlocked it. From its centre, looking out; and from a natural watchtower on its edge, looking in. The latter today. A sign welcomes me on to access land just before I pass a stile pointlessly astride the path, the fences either side long gone, like some ramblers’ Brandenburg Gate. Varicose tree roots vein the path. Soon branches are above, thick and abuzz with spring. Onwards, the trees separate, gnarl, clench against the exposed brow. The glottal-gabble of a grouse. Then I meet a massive, broken-down silver-stone wall. Barbed wire is drawn back from its face, falling slackly in red-rusted, rustling curls. Beyond, Clougha Pike’s roughened prow leads eyes and feet upwards. A trig point crowns a turret-like top, which reveals Bowland’s great keep. To my back: fields, villages, Lancaster, sea. To my gaze: spurs and troughs layering back into a gilded haze. Kept by geography, released by history, still a secret, silent place. Follow Country diary on Twitter: @gdncountrydiary |