Dean Clough 05-04-2026

Great Harwood is a number of little villages/hamlets that merged into one. People from Great Harwood are known to themselves as ‘Arroders’ , and one famous Arroder was John Mercer, whose name crops up a lot in the town . John Mercer was born in 1791 to a poor family, and spent his early years on a farm near Dean Clough. He had no schooling, but was very interested in dyeing…….as a result of this interest we now have mercerised cotton! Anyway, no doubt John was a Snuffy Arroder as we were when we stood in the beautiful Memorial Park awaiting our start photo. The beautiful park is a Centenary Field part of a programme launched in 2014 and concluding in 2020. In partnership with The Royal British Legion, the programme protected parks and green spaces in perpetuity to honour the memory of the millions who gave their lives in World War I, and now, almost 1.37 million people live within a ten-minute walk of a space protected forever as a Centenary Field.

To the walk!

We left the park accompanied by a sharp hail shower and headed past the children’s play area and Lowerfold (one of the aforementioned little hamlets) and into a newer housing estate. Eschewing the probably muddy field, we stuck to the steep track up to Edge Side Farm where we sheltered behind a wall while another hail shower went through. Eventually crossing the road into the wood off Blackburn Road we stopped again, fairly sheltered from the hail, while one or two put on additional clothing.

Dropping alongside the wood, then through it, we came upon the beautiful Dean Clough Reservoir, built in 1869 to serve the mills of Great Harwood, and watched a couple of dogs chasing balls in the water. They weren’t bothered about the 4^th hail shower. Nor were we when the skies cleared, the sun came out and we got the most wonderful view of Pendle as we crossed the res and walked along the other side. We joined the Hyndburn Clog Trail and walked my favourite section through the beautiful yellow gorse. After this the path wasn’t quite as obvious, and we had a dodgy stile to negotiate, but we made it to Lower White Carr and eventually to Berry’s Lane which some of the group had walked last Wednesday. There were mutterings about lunch – but it was only 1215! I was strict! No lunch yet!

We followed the old packhorse route, part of the old limers way from Clitheroe to Yorkshire. Wool went one way, and lime the other and the lime gals used to carry the lime on their backs – not the gals you would assume. This is a packhorse route, remember. The gals were Galloway ponies. There’s a bit of a stinger after Dean Bridge, as the path is quite steep but at the top of it we had lunch. Seating arranged, toilet available – courtesy of Bowley Scout Camp.

After lunch, it was nearly downhill all the way past Dean Farm towards Squires Farm (no apostrophe) and back to the cars.

Summary: Great company, lovely views, pesky hail, one awkward stile, one deer, one buzzard and a clearish view of Pen y Ghent.

6 miles dead on and we were slightly later than planned to the cars as we’d enjoyed our lunch stop for a while longer than usual.

Thank you to Alyson for taking the cracking photos and uploading them for me.  

Slideshow below but if you wish to see a static view of the pics all in one go, click here