WALKING THE BORDER

This glorious walk in the hills around Earby takes a peek over the county line

- John Lenehan

Earby is a small town now associated with aerospace companies. Its past major industry, as with most East Lancashire towns, was textiles and weaving and the town had many mills at one time. I was walking near Earby a few weeks ago and noticed the lovely hills that rise behind the town and decided to design a walk to explore the area.

Until the 1974 local government shake-up this area was a part of the West Riding of Yorkshire and the route I have devised does venture over the border into white rose territory, so don’t forget your passport.

DIRECTIONS

1 Leave the car park and walk uphill and along Mill Brow Road and reach a footpath sign on the right saying ‘Stoneybank Road 1/3 mile’. It is called Mill Lane on the map but there is no road sign and it is definitely not a vehicular lane. Take the path and follow this until it joins a main road and turn left then almost immediately there is a stile on the right with a Pendle Waymarker on it. Most of the stiles in the first section of the walk have Pendle Way or Pendle Bridleway markers on them.

Cross the stile and follow the path with a wall on the right. The path joins a track going left, ignore this and keep straight on with the wall on the right. The path bears away from the wall and starts to climb uphill, then turns into a green track. Follow this with a wire fence on the left.