Foulridge Upper Reservoir Fishing

After eating we headed off left to join Long Lane, and soon started to go down to Marsh Farm, then this is Calderdale after all we were soon climbing again to sooner or later cross the A649 at Hipperholme. We now came to a awful muddy and slippery area for a while at the top of Woodhead before a steep climb up to the major road. We turned back on ourselves shortly down Soaper House Lane. Then another short climb again up to Wynteredge Hall with lovely long distance views. We soon passed St. Johns Church near Coley and continued through Lower counter on the tarmac road. (k-ramblers.spruz.com)

By 330 AD the choice was made to build the last 4th fort, however this was to be different than the rest. It was not interior unrest that the Roman’s feared, however attack from outside. Roman Britain was now under threat from sea borne raiders from Ireland. The new fort is built on a totally different alignment, presumably to counter this danger. The new outer fort wall may have been fitted a hurry, because the its outer ditch cuts right through the caldarium of the bath house, which may well have still been in use up to that time. If you stand by the interpretation boards you may be able to see the ‘V’ form ditch bank cutting through the walling of the caldarium. (lancashirepast.com)

I was lucky to get an invitation to what turned out to be a last look at the juvenile Two-barred Crossbill at Crow Wood Farm on Tuesday and it obliged by visiting the closest feeder for a change in some nice light. I was interested to see that they’re seemingly still on the move in Finland, with a motion of c. 1000 past a watch-point on the Baltic coast there today so there can be more to come. One wonders what happens to them. Do they keep going west and drop into the Atlantic when they run out of energy or do they have the sense to stop here? This winter is going to be interesting and it seems like people who missed this bird may get some more chances still, maybe in East Lancs? Thanks lots to the finder, Barry Tyrer and his partner Louise for allowing so many people to take pleasure in this special event with them. (birdwatchinglancashire.co.uk)

The effect on the southern Dales of the arrival of the canal at Gargrave can’t be overestimated. Though limestone was meant to have been the canal s big traffic it turned out to be coal instead. Up till then coal for domestic and industrial use in the Dales had come from frequently remote collieries like those above Threshfield or on Tan Hill. The state of the roads and the difficulty accessing many of these collieries meant that packhorses and to a lesser extent wheeled vehicles had been the only technique of transporting it. Added to that, local coal was shaley and poor quality. The Leeds-Liverpool canal offered a viable alternative by being able to transport bulk materials over distance at a low cost. (Click here for more info)

But the southern half of the canal – fitted the twilight of the canal age – is an astounding feat of engineering. It has long embankments and deep cuttings, some which were reputed by the old ship people to be haunted. They were big undertakings, Shelmore embankment took six years to build and Woodseaves cutting is 100 feet deep. Almost all the locks are bunched together in "flights". This made for quicker working by the ship people because locks may be easily prepared in advance of the boats. The Shropshire Union was made by the "union" of a number of canals, that from Nantwich to Chester was built to broad barge standards, and many miles of little used branches through Shropshire were abandoned early in the 20th Century. (fatbadgers.co.uk)

Time passed as time does and sooner or later we entered the lock bordering to the ‘Star Inn’ in Stone.   This canal-side pub became famous as the watering hole for ‘Narrowdog to Carcassonne’ author Terry Darlington and his dog ‘Jim’.   Terry and his wife Monica crossed the English channel in their Narrowboat ‘Phyllis May’ and wrote a book of their adventures becoming what can only be portrayed as a classic tale of nautical endeavour expressed with superb humour. Not content with crossing the channel they took ‘Phyllis May’ to the United States  in a ship and cruised 1100 miles of the U. (sanserriffe1.blogspot.com)

. At 3, 076 yards 2. 81km it s one of the longest on the canal system. When construction began in 1793, the tunnel was a big feat of engineering. Teams of navvies worked with picks and shovels for three years till they hit quicksand and the tunnel collapsed, killing 14 men. A new path for the tunnel was found and it opened on 25 March 1805. Over the years, some boaters travelling through the tunnel have stated seeing lights and a second path rising. But the tunnel runs straight through the hill so people have must seen the flicker of candlelight at the spot where the 1st tunnel could have intersected with the major canal tunnel. (drifters.co.uk)