Friday 21 September 2007

Wycoller

 

Last saturday Bill and I decided to go out for the day. I had last seen Wycoller when it was a ruined ghost village in the early 70's, since then it has been restored and inhabited again, in fact Penelope Keith bought a house there for a while.

We caught the Burnley to Trawden bus, then walked up past the field where I camped for the Pendle Witchcamp 2 years ago, then on the public footpath to Wycoller. Its actually a tarmacked road, so there was no concern over hubby getting his pants mucky, or shoes even if he minded horse droppings. Once we were appraoching the country park, we left the raod and went on a parallel footpath, which is a good idea as the road is so narrow. Its just over a miles walk from Trawden, so it didnt take very long. On entering the village on the left was a tourist information place cum cafe, cum art gallery. We decided to eat first then explore later. After we had had an excellent lunch at reasonable prices, we set off to see the village. The sky was darkening though it wasnt too cold and at least it was fine. Soon we came upon the old hall, sadly now a ruin, there was a show place where we could see old pics of the hall in the late 1890's. Some old vicar had sold all the roof tiles and a lot of the timbers and much of the stone work for a mill in Trawden. He should have got an ASBO for that!!!! An old barn dating back to the middle ages has been restored and many artifacts kept in it such as a key to the old hall. In the village itself are 2 ancient bridges, one an old clapper bridge, then further up the valley is an even more ancient bridge.Near to the duck pond an archealogical dig was going on, they had found an old wall, then more walls, so up till now there is no info on what exactly they were digging up. As I dont have a camera, I will update more photos from the net soon.

Panopticons have built one of there sculptures on a hillside nearby, so off we went over the fields. Luckily it was dry underfoot, yet still hubby complained about not having a road to walk over. I cannot understand fellas, grass is so much softer to walk over. G

oing up the hillside was well marked with eye posts, ancient way markings with holes in them, till we came to an old drovers track, backed with an old vaccary wall on each side. These date vack to the middle ages. Eventually we got to the top of the hill and the Atom was there. You can go inside the sculpture. Actually I think it is quite ugly, but it has these holes in it you can view the landscape from, so in a way it is inkeeping with the eye posts.An official guy asked us about our visit, think I was the first person to mention a connection tween the old and the new. After a rest there, a cup of tea from our flask we back tracked down to the village, then walked back to Trawden.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

How lovely to see an entry from you Cathy. <smile>
Your walk sounded lovely to me.  I was able to copy and paste your pictures so that I could see them a bit larger and enjoy them better. (They distorted a bit but hey!)
I dreamt once of a bridge which had a building just like that one on the left of your montage   I was in a red sports car in my dream and the building behind was being renovated using cedar wood for the beams.  This view weirdly was exactly as in my dream.  The river bed was dryer and I parked beside it after I came over the bridge.  Wasn't that strange?  Deja vu.
I liked the idea of the windowed sculpture.  That would have been interesting for me to see the whole view from different angles.  I wasn't too happy with its shape but hope that moss soon grows on it for it to blend in with the landscape.
Lovely to read about your walks again.
Stay well.  I hope to read more soon.

Hugs
Jeanie xxx

Anonymous said...

Hi Jeannie,

Many thanks for your comment.

How weird about the dram you had. Maybe you were astral travelling!!! I've no idea what kind of wood was used to restore the old barn, though the main sections are original. Yes, I too think the Atom will look better once it gets moss and lichens growing over it.

Love,  Cathy.  xx

Anonymous said...

This sounds like a lovely walk and the pictures are great, if small! There are so many lovely places that I ned to visit!
http://journals.aol.co.uk/irisclyde/LaDolceVita