If you would like to take some exercise after feasting, Nick Burton has just the route for you

There is no more perfect festive walk than taking in the conifers festooned with decorations and seasonal messages on the shoreline of Entwistle Reservoir.

This route also takes in a section of the Witton Weavers Way, a 32 mile walk that weaves its way through the valleys and moors of the West Pennine Moors between Blackburn and Bolton. ‘Twistle’ is a name that often pops up in this part of Lancashire - Entwistle, Extwistle, Oswaldtwistle, for example. It is a geographical feature meaning ‘a tongue of land between two streams or rivers’.

Turn right out of the car park entrance and follow the reservoir dam road. Continue straight ahead beyond the reservoir, the road climbs uphill and leads past houses to reach the Strawbury Duck Inn.

With the pub car park on the left go straight ahead along Edge Lane with a big house on the right. The country lane leads straight ahead past houses. It is now followed for the next 1 ½ miles and is waymarked as part of the Witton Weavers Way. Ignore footpaths on either side but keep left to pass through gates with Edge Fold Farm on the left. The road climbs gradually uphill from here.

Ignore the first two waymarked footpaths on the left beyond Edge Fold but just keep to the farm road which climbs uphill. Eventually you will reach a footpath junction with a stile/gate on the left waymarked as the Witton Weavers Way. Turn left here following the grassy track downhill towards the conifers of Entwistle Reservoir.

The track passes through stone gateposts.

When two ruined walls running parallel to each other are reached take a sharp right turn The field path heads diagonally downhill towards the trees to reach a stile in the woodland corner.

Cross the stile but do not cross the footbridge over the stream.

Instead turn left facing the footbridge and follow the path keeping the stream on the right. This soon becomes the shorelin path of Entwistle Reservoir and passes the heron sculpture. Simply keep the reservoir on the right and follow it around its northern side. You will soon pass the conifers festooned with Xmas decorations on the left. Eventually a gate on the dam road is reached. Turn right here and retrace your steps to the car park.

Nick Burton’s ‘Wainwright’s Way’, an exploration on foot of Alfred Wainwright’s life from Blackburn to Buttermere is now available from all good bookshops (published by Frances Lincoln, £13.99)