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CARTWORTH MOOR

A pleasant walk with field paths, tracks, woodland, reservoir and offering excellent views. Approx. 5 miles

Directions to walk: From the centre of HoImfirth take the steep road climbing left off Hollowgate. at the next fork keep right along Cemetery Road. At a T-junction turn left, and as you approach the second group of houses take a very sharp left turn and climb to a crossroads. Turn left into the lane and park on the verge.

1. To start, walk back to the crossroads, cross the main road and continue along the minor road between the cricket pitch on your right and the football pitch and pavilion to the left. Immediately beyond the football pitch, cross the stile in the wall on the left and follow the wall down to another stile and a lane. Before you is Ribbleden and Holmestyes Reservoir. Turn right along the lane, but in a few yards take the stile on the left. Follow the wall on your left down to another stile and a very steep overgrown walled-lane. Keep to the wall on your right. At the foot of the hill, bear right downhill on the track. At the T-junction turn right along the lane and climb gently.
2. On emerging from the trees take the stile on your left by a gate and follow the path to the farm. Pass through a gateway into the yard and walk straight through between the buildings to the other side to follow a wall on your left to a bedstead gate and stile. Go down the steps and turn left down the path.
3. Fox Clough is the valley on your right. Pass through a wicket-gate and continue with the beck to your right. Just before the path leads across a footbridge follow the Public Footpath sign left, at a telegraph pole, and follow the wall and beck on the right to the next footbridge on the right. Cross this and climb the field with the wall on your left, then up the steps to the lane. Walk up the lane to the road. Here turn right (walking straight on) and after 150 yards fork right down a lane marked with a public footpath sign. The reservoir is down to your right. Where the track forks, keep right and drop to the head of the reservoir. Go through a small gate and bear left on a rising track. After a few yards pass through a gate and continue up into the trees. Cross a stile by a gate out of the wood and turn right along the track. Pass to the left of two groups of derelict buildings, and at the second bear slightly left to pass to the left of the lane-wall, and curve left with this wall on your right down an old lane to cross a beck. Follow the track as it bears right up the other side. Pass through a gate and walk along the top side of a wood.
4. At the next cross tracks turn left, cross a stile by a gate and continue up a walled lane, leaving the wood behind. Pass another derelict farm. At the cross tracks go straight over into a grassy. When you come to a surfaced road, you will see across on your left a public footpath sign. Pass through the gate and follow the wall on your right. Where the wall ends follow the track straight on to cross the valley of Dobb Dike.
5. Continue on the track through a broken stile by a gate and keep on with the wall to your left. Where the trees end, go through a gate and walk on with the wall on your right. Cross a gully to a gateway and continue with a wall on your left. Here you will have exceptional views over the Holme Valley and on to Almondbury.
6. The track drops towards a walled lane. After 100 yards on the lane cross a stile on the right (beside a gate) and drop down the hillside past the end of a wall in the field, to a wood. Enter the narrow wood over the broken wall at the top end and follow the path down through the wood. Follow the wood down to the very bottom, pass through a wicket-gate and down the drive of a house to another gate. Turn right along in front of the houses into a lane and walk up this to the end of the last barn on the left. Here turn sharp left to a step-stile in the field corner. Continue towards the housing estate with the wall to your left. Cross two more stiles and pass into a wood.
7. The path curves right to some steps down in the wall on your left. Cross the beck by the bridge and climb to the stile at the road. Cross the road to the road opposite, Acre Lane. Opposite Hill House Lane on the right, cross the stile on the left and drop steeply to the next stile. Continue down with the wall on your left, then on your right, towards a large building. Go through a stile by a gate on the right to pass to the right hand end of the building and drop steeply down beside it to a little iron gate which gives access to the bank of the River Holme.
8. Go right along the riverside path. Cross a stile into a field and another one out of it a little way up from the end of the wall. The path leads straight across the next field, not along the riverside. Just over a tiny beck take a right hand fork and climb to a step-stile into the woods. Keeping in the same direction the path climbs on. At the remains of some walls make certain you keep on up in the same direction to leave the wood by another stile by an old gate. Keep the same direction towards the end of the house ahead.
9. Proceed through a gap-stile and then take the stile by the gate in front of the house, Malkinhouse Farm. Walk past the farm and up the farm road to the main road. Follow the public footpath sign opposite across a stile and walk up the field with the wall on your left. Where the wall turns left, bear left to a solitary oak tree and then on up the wall side to a stile. Bear half left towards an imposing ruin. When you come to a rough road turn right up it. There are excellent views behind, ahead and to your right. Soon you will be back to where you parked the car
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