A Witch? Guide to Pendle Hill

Not so many people do Pendle Hill midweek. Still fewer do it when its midweek and a drab day. And here I was on the lonely, rain-polished streets of Barley with the local innkeeper looking through the curtains, wondering whether or not I was going to spend some of my money on his beer. I walked on; the curtains closed, and the little lane signposted to Barley Green took me out of the village, past the Ogden reservoirs, then up towards the hill.
Something moved. There were frogs....thousands of 'em, all getting under my feet, all about an inch long, but all perfectly formed. So this was Pendle, hill of the witches. Today, the witches brew was frogs.
I continued on tiptoes up the track. Finally, the frogs gave up their mass suicide attempts, leaving me to the peace and quiet of Ogden Clough's inner sanctum. Today the hillslopes were dark and sunless. Gradually, they closed in to form a tight ravine, shutting out the rest of the world. Now it was just Pendle and me.
A Pendle Way sign (a witch and broomstick - surprise, surprise) across Boar Clough, highlights the place where the collar work on this route begins. The path clambers through the bilberry and bracken of Pendle Hill’s concave southern slopes. Halfway up it recrosses the little stream before climbing to the summit trig point.
The wind howled across the rocky edge. I could see it sifting the dark waters of the Black Moss Reservoirs, so that little white lines appeared on the surface. The low hills that surrounded Barley had been stripped of their usual bright green. They too reflected the gloomy spell that had been cast upon them. In turn the low hills cast their shadow across little Barley, now a diminutive toy village for the gods to play with.
My route aimed north from the summit and over the ladder stile in a tall cross-wall. It’s just a short way along a grassy track to the northern rim of the hill where views encompass the Ribble Valley and the Three Peaks of Yorkshire.
The lofty northern edge is a delight to walk, and today was no different, for I could see for miles and miles across Morecambe Bay to the rugged pyramids of the Lake District.
On the OS Outdoor Leisure Map they call Scout Cairn a pile of stones. That’s certainly no way to describe this impressive 9ft/3m high monument that commemorates seventy-five years of scouting. It’s also the best viewpoint on the hill, looking across Clitheroe and a velvet drape of chequered pasture, rolling hills and small coppices. Today the velvet had turned to sackcloth, but, beyond pastures and the hills of Bowland, was that not a glint of gold on the skyline?
Beyond the cairn, a faint path rounds the head of Mearley Clough, a tight ravine overlooking the little village of Worston.
The secret of getting to Nick of Pendle without first being confronted by the deep chasm of Ashdean Clough is to turn left on meeting the collapsed drystone wall at GR785407. As the depression of Ogden's upper clough comes into view ahead, so does the unmistakable path from the Nick.
The witches struck again, and I was forced to take cover. Dense black skies that had been drifting in from the south-west smothered the hill with darkness. As raucous thunder resounded round my ears and the light show started. Pendle was the centre of the storm. I found a place to lie low, halfway down the slopes of Ogden Clough.
'Could I outrun the storm? ..... Hmm..... I need a new waterproofs,' I thought as I dragged the dog-eared soggy map from my inside pocket to look for a quick way down. There were none.
Half an hour later the storm had drifted further west, both to put the fear of God into sailors on the Irish Sea, and to extinguish that glint of sunlight I had hoped would flourish. Never mind, black things may have been, but dull, they were not. Was this not the mysterious essence of Pendle?
I regained composure I’ve always been a bit scared of thunder and soon I regained the Nick of Pendle track, which took me southwards to the high road between Pendleton and Sabden. Somewhere down there in Sabden were the treacle mines, but, looking down at my boots, I thought, "Who needs to mine the stuff when you’ve been walking in it all day.".
I dismissed the idea of a pie and a pint at the Well Springs and toddled down the road to the lower roadside car park above Sabden. From here a cart track heads east towards Churn Clough Reservoir, a small lake in a nest of spruce and pine. Near Calf Hill, the sunken track crosses Badger Well Water (GR779386) and climbs north-east above the reservoir. It degenerates into a narrow footpath that enters an enchanting area dotted with oak and rowan.
Shafts of sunlight fired up the bracken, and played with the crags of Deerstones, my next objective. A new colour, blue, coyly introduced itself to the skies, and all my thoughts of frogs, princes and witches were expunged.
After tracing the top end of the woods I forged though the thick bracken on a narrow path aiming for the rocks. The bracken relented, and the path swings right on sheep shorn grass to trace the top rim of Deerstones, a wild place strewn with boulders.
I suppose I'd spent a little too long scouring Pendle's hidden corners to get that perfect photograph, and maybe cowering from the elements, but now time decreed that I should hurry down while there was still sunlight.
The path across Spence Moor is absent on the ground until the ladder stile in the ridge wall east of Deerstones. Thereafter it sets a well-defined course, descending along the southern slopes. In fading light I dunked my foot in a marshy rush-filled hollow before finding firmer terrain on rounding the south and west sides of Fell Wood.
I’m sure I saw something move as I entered the gloom of the woods on the way down to the Lower Ogden Reservoir, but I needed to keep moving as well. Back into the twilight, I followed this afternoon’s route on the lane back to the village.
There were no frogs: funny, that! 

Fact File:
Distance:  11 miles/18 km
Height gain: 1900ft/580m
Walking time: 6 hours
Terrain: Typical Pennine moorland, with good paths and tracks in most places.
Map: OS Outdoor Leisure No 41 'Forest of Bowland' or Landranger 103 Blackburn and Burnley
Start: Barley car park. GR823403
This article first appeared in Peak and Pennine