START: Vaughn’s Cafe, Roddlesworth Woods car park, Tockholes Road

DISTANCE: 4½ miles (allow 2-3 hours)

MAP: OS Explorer 287 West Pennine Moors

OYSTERCATCHERS have been heard calling overhead this week and my first curlew of the year was spotted over East Lancashire. This is a sure sign that spring is coming as these distinctive birds head in from coastal estuaries to summer in the northern dales.

Spring is a great time to revisit the stony brooks and wooded ravines of the West Pennine Moors and enjoy the grand open spaces of Darwen Moor. This walk returns to the ruins of Hollinshead Hall, the old manor house of Tockholes, where you can peep through the windows of the haunted Well House.

This is a place where pilgrims to Whalley Abbey used to rest and take the waters, which were reputedly a cure for ailments of the eye.

The walk follows the upper valley of the infant River Roddlesworth, more commonly known as Rocky Brook and reaches a fine viewpoint on the flanks of Cartridge Hill, the highest point on Darwen Moor.

1. Opposite the bus stop layby cross Tockholes Road and enter the woods via the gate. Follow the main track straight ahead downhill through the woods for about half a mile.

It soon enters a glade and drops more steeply to soon reach another woodland track running left to right. Turn left along this to go around a metal gate and reach a packhorse bridge on the right over Rocky Brook.

2. Do not cross the bridge but instead continue straight ahead to ford a stream. Keep to this track which is a steady climb uphill through the woods for three-quarters of a mile.

When you reach a track junction with a metal gate straight ahead go through this gate and the track drops down to the ruins of Hollinshead Hall. Climb some steps in a wall corner to visit the haunted well house.

3. To continue the walk from here retrace your steps for a very short distance only as far as either of the sets of stone gateposts on the right. Turn right between the gateposts and pick up a distinct footpath leading very gradually uphill through the woods.

This will soon lead you to a gate at the woodland boundary adjacent to Tockholes Road. Go through this gate, turn left along the road and then almost immediately first right up the farm track signed as a footpath to Lyon’s Den.

4. Follow the track straight ahead all the way up onto the moor. It becomes steep and zig-zags right up to a bench near the top with a fine view in all directions including Great Hill, the Ribble Estuary and Lakeland on a clear day.

Go through the field gate on the top of the hill and continue along the track only as far as the junction where another track comes in from the left. Turn left here and a gradual descent of the moor begins by trees with a brook on the left.

The track swings right with the little steep-sided valley of Stepback Brook on your left. It eventually meets another gate by the signs for Darwen Moor.

5. Go through the gate and walk straight ahead along the track through trees. Go straight ahead through the next wooden gate and a stone track leads gradually downhill with fine views looking north.

Go through the gate at the bottom of the hill next to a terraced row and turn left and right to reach the cafe car park on Tockholes Road.