Walk: Early bird ramble

4:20pm Friday 4th July 2008

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p>Leighton Moss is England’s largest reed bed. It is located in a delightful wooded valley, its limestone floor covered with marine clay, overlaid with peat. Water from the surrounding hills drains into the valley and forms three main meres. About these grow the extensive reed beds which have to be controlled to prevent them encroaching upon the open water. The RSPB visitor centre has several bird-watching hides, overlooking the shallow meres, from where you might see bearded tits, marsh harriers, see or hear bitterns, and many more. Four of the hides are accessible to disabled visitors. The public hide gives you a welcome pause near the end of this walk. Park in the large car park opposite the Visitor Centre, grid ref 477751. If approaching from Kendal or Lancaster, the Visitor Centre is well signposted from the A6. There are good bus connections close to Silverdale train station or, of course you could take the train. The station is very close to the centre.

1/ From the car park, turn left and walk a few steps to take a gap on the right just beyond the centre. Go left through a kissing gate to walk a good off-road path to its end. Join the road and walk on, with care, for a short way to cross the road to go through a signposted gap stile. Take the permissive footpath, the right of two, to stroll through pleasing deciduous woodland with limestone boulders and a long scarp on either side. Pause at the unusual gate to read about the woodland and then go on the lovely way. Follow the track as it leads into an open area and, immediately beyond the first information board, bear left along a narrow path through more woodland and limestone. This brings you close to a track and, away to the right, the lofty face of Trowbarrow Quarry.

2/ Turn left to walk a narrow path, through more woodland, that keeps roughly parallel with the wider track. Go through a gate where the path ends and the track continues. Follow it as it winds on, eventually to pass through a metal gate and then a wooden one onto a narrow road. Walk left to cross a bridge over the railway line. Continue on to the B-road. Use the pavement to walk right and, where it runs out carry on, with care, until you can take a stile on the right into a meadow, signposted Challon Hall. Keep beside the fine limestone wall on your left and climb another stile to come to the side of the railway line. Cross with utmost care and climb yet another stile (all three rather awkward) into Gait Barrows National Nature Reserve.

3/ Walk ahead, to go through another stile and then on to a signpost, where you go on ahead for the Hawes Water bridleway. Stroll the long pasture, with Challon Hall away to your left and glimpses of Hawes Water to your right, guided by white posts, to come to a gap stile in the wall on your left. Beyond turn right and descend the good track through glorious deciduous woodland, with more views of the lake. Along the track are several Natural England numbered posts. At number 3 go through a gate on the right to cross a meadow. Another gate brings you back onto a track at number 4.

4/ Very soon you reach two boardwalks stretching ahead. Take the one, beyond a gate, on the right. This is a delightful, very welcome, new way that leads along the edge of the lake to a seat – just the place to have your first break. Here you might spot marsh harriers and hear sedge warblers from deep in the reeds. Then return to the gate and take the other boardwalk and, where it ends, carry on along a track through a strip of woodland to a gate, on your left, onto open pasture. Here strike half right along a grassy path towards a signposted gap stile, where you might spot deer. Keep on the same diagonal across the next pasture and the next to a signed stile/gate onto a track, where you turn right. If you wish to avoid the cattle in the two fields, turn left before the first signpost and descend to a kissing gate onto a track on your right. Carry on this pleasant way and at a Y-junction, keep right. Just beyond, the other path, across the two fields, comes in on the right.

5 Carry on the wide track through the fine limestone woodland for more than half-a-mile to reach the road at Yealand Storrs. Cross the road and walk on towards the first few houses on your right, and take the footpath, also on the right, signposted for Leighton Hall. The neat little way winds round for a couple of steps to join a reinforced access track that descends between dwellings to a gate. Beyond, wind steadily right, soon continue beside the wall on your right and Cringlebarrow wood well up to your left. At the first gate a track goes ahead, with a hedge now to your left. Soon elegant Leighton Hall comes into view, to your left, and Leighton Moss to the right. Follow the track all the way to reach the access track to the Hall, where you turn right.

6/ Descend past a house on the left and then a farm on your right. Go through a gate and walk along a track for a short way and then follow a waymark directing you right to join the Causeway at Leighton Moss. Half way along is the public hide on your right where you might wish to pause to enjoy some bird watching. As you continue on the causeway, listen carefully, for it is along this track that I have heard the bittern booming. At the Causeway end, turn left onto the road, and a short way along take the off-road track to return to the car park or to visit the centre and perhaps its café.

Information

Distance : 5.5 miles Time: 2-3 hours. Add on time for bird watching. Terrain: Good paths and tracks. Many paths and gates have been improved but the three awkward stiles remain. Map: OS Explorer OL 7 NB. The reserve (open 9am to dusk) and the Visitor Centre (open 9.30am-5pm) are open daily all year round except for Christmas Day. For info tel 01524-701601. Restrictions on space mean that this article provides a general summary of the route. It is advisable for anyone who plans to follow the walk to take a copy of the relevant Ordnance Survey map.