Finding the Waterfall in Lead Mines Clough

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Some time ago I saw a picture of a waterfall in Lead Mines Clough, so today I took the dogs for a walk there to see if I could find it. Whilst I'm not certain I found what I was looking for, it was nevertheless a very enjoyable walk.

For those interested in a little history, the earliest recorded evidence of lead mining in the Lead Mines Clough area is from 1690. Though the yield was always small, production continued through the 1700s, finally ending around 1830. It seems that whilst the most productive time was in the late 1700s, this was often disrupted by disputes between the landowners and miners.

The grid references are taken from the Ordnance Survey map OS287, West Pennine Moors (courtesy of TrackLogs Digital Maps).

I parked the car on Knowsley Lane, that runs between Anglezarke and Higher Rivington Reservoirs, then crossed the road and walked to the sharp left bend and took the path into the woods.


Initially the path passes alongside the overflow channel that allows excess water from Yarrow Reservoir to flow into Anglezarke Reservoir. These days there is rarely enough water in Yarrow to cause an overflow, so of course the channel was dry.


After leaving the overflow channel the path rises steeply, but thankfully only for a short distance.


At the top of the climb the path meets the one that runs alongside Yarrow Reservoir (it's just on the other side of the hgh grassy bank shown in the top of the picture) where I turned left to head towards Parsons Bullough Road.


A glance over the stone wall on the right gives an excellent view of the upper reaches of Yarrow Reservoir, with Allance Bridge in the distance. In the far distance above the reservoir you can see part of the woods that surround the top of Lead Mines Clough, our eventual destination.


Pretty soon we reached the end of the path at its junction with Parsons Bullough Road, where we turned right for Allance Bridge.


At the point where Parsons Bullough Road turns sharp right to cross Allance Bridge we went through the gate straight ahead and took the path into Lead Mines Clough.


Nobody could ever accuse Sam of lacking ambition in his choice of sticks to carry.


At this point the path crosses a footbridge over Limestone Brook.


After a short climb the path meets several others near another footbridge. The one going sharp left would take you to Jepsons Gate and Moor Road, the one straight ahead would take you into Lead Mines Clough and the remains of an old pump house, and the one going off to the right would take you on a route past several derelict farms (possibly the subject of a future walk). I decided to take the path to the right, but then immediately went through a gate in the fence and continued walking alongside Limestone Brook.


This path eventually took me to yet another footbridge, where I crossed the brook close by the remains of the old pump house (though I didn't stop to look at it until on the way back).


This path then took me uphill to join another path, where I turned right and continued uphill to the war memorial commemorating the crew of an RAF Wellington bomber that crashed there during the second world war.


At the war memorial there is an excellent view of the moors and Winter Hill, as well as a couple of benches to rest your weary bones.


Just past the war memorial the path went to the left of the old stone wall and into the woods.


This particular path traversed uphill between the edge of the woods and a fence to meet another path at the top of Lead Mines Clough. There seems to be other paths that wend their way through the woods, though we didn't explore them on this visit. Intead, we went through the gate and turned right.


Very soon we came to the junction with another path, where we went right around the top of the woods and over the wooden footbridge. The path to the left would take you out onto Anglezarke moor in the general direction of an ancient burial mound known as Round Loaf.


Immediately after crossing the footbridge we came to a ladder stile that took us into the top of the woods of Lead Mines Clough.


From the ladder stile there was a rath indistinct path that I negotiated with great care (Brett and Sam just bounded down) to reach the small waterfall at the top of the clough.


This picture gives a view of the waterfall. There has been little rain this past several days, so there wasn't much water draining down from the moors. A few days of heavy rain would provide a much more spectacular view of the waterfall, but the path down to it would probably be quite boggy and woud need even greater care in descending.


This is a short video of the waterfall.


After taking a few pictures we clambered back out of the clough and made our way back to the gate into the woods.


Here the path goes to the left of a stone wall. In the top left of the picture you can just see Rivington Pike on top of the hill, and some of the woods surrounding the Terraced Gardens.


Here the path goes to the right of an old stone wall, just nefore arriving back at the war memorial.


Back at the war memorial Brett and Sam were waiting for me to wheeze my way back to the top of the hill.


After a short stop to catch my breath and admire the view, I continued downhill, going left at the junction. Brett seems to be trying to see how many sticks he can get into his mouth.


At the bottom of the path I stopped to take this picture of the foundations of the old pump house that was part of the lead mine. There is some information about these foundations on an information board at the bottom of the clough. Please excuse the rather strange orientation of the picture, it was the only way I could get all of the foundations into the view.


We continued on our way downstream, with Limestone Brook on our right.


Eventually we reached the footbridge at the end of Lead Mines Clough and crossed to the other side of the river.


Soon we reached the gate at Allance Bridge that would take us onto Parsons Bullough Road.


A short walk along the road brought us to the gateway on the left to take us alongside Yarrow Reservoir.


This picture gives a view across Yarrow Reservoir, showing Winter Hill with the large telecommuncations mast on the left and Rivington Pike on the right.


Soon we reached the junction with the path that would take us downhill to Knowsley Lane, where we turned right.


Do you sometimes get the feeling you are being watched from above?


All too soon we were back to Knowsley Lane and our waiting car.

PS: Although I found a waterfall I'm nor sure it's the one I'd seen in photographs on other web sites. Perhaps there is one lower down the clough that may be accessible from one of the other paths into the woods. A good excuse to return another time.