Hunting Tigers – Part 1

Clough is an unusual word. You may wonder what it has to do with tiger hunting, but continue on dear reader and all will be revealed.

In the English language the word clough has many meanings. For example, dictionary.com lists six results from a trawl of its database, but the one that interests me is 'a cleft in a hill; a ravine; a narrow valley'. In this context a clough is usually hewn from a hillside by the action of water over many millennia. There is one such clough not far from where I live, where the infant River Douglas makes its way from high on Winter Hill to its meeting with Lower Rivington Reservoir. The ravine that has been formed by the passage of this river is known locally as Tiger's Clough, why I know not. Nevertheless it is considered to be a pleasant place to stroll so I thought I would go there today in the hope of getting some pictures of the small waterfall, especially as it had rained for most of the day and there was a good chance of seeing plenty of water flowing down it.

Well, as a famous Scottish poet once said, 'the best-laid schemes o' mice an men gang aft agley'. And so did mine today by virtue of the fact the sky fell on me! That is, the gentle drizzle that greeted me as I set off with my dogs on what I hoped would be a fruitful photoshoot turned into a downpour of rain forest proportions by the time we had reached the area where the clough was supposed to be. The thought of having to fight my way through what appeared to be a veritible jungle of tall ferns quickly extinguished my already fragile photographic aspirations, so I decided instead to take the dogs for a stroll cum ball kick-about and save the tiger hunt for another day.

So we headed off along one of the many paths that dissect the area of Rivington, gradually heading upwards into the clouds. The rain continued to fall in torrents, and by now I was beginning to discover a disconcerting fact about my waterproof jacket. It had worked well for the first hour or so, but gradually the seams admitted defeat and soon I was feeling rivers of my own running down my chest, back and arms.


Ah well, such is life. The dogs were just as wet but they weren't bothered so long as we continued to play football. Well if they could cock a snook at the weather, so could I. So we plodded on our soggy way and eventually found ourselves at the Pigeon Tower. In such miserable conditions the tower wasn't looking its best, though I suppose with the mist all around there was an air of eeriness about the place.


I've walked up to the Pigeon Tower many times but this was the first time I had seen it in the mist, and it certainly created a different kind of atmosphere. A wee bit spooky in fact. After taking the picture of the tower I looked around to see if there was anything else to photograph before we made our way back home.


Nothing else seemed to inspire me and I was just about to leave when I spotted these flowers. I don't know what they are called, and many people regard them as weeds, but they looked so nice I had to have a picture. Just goes to show you can always find a little beauty, even in the rain.

Well in the end we didn't find any tigers, but it wasn't really so bad. Just hope I don't get rained on like that too often. In the meantime if you would like to see a picture of the waterfall in Tiger's Clough you can see one at David Tomlinson's excellent gallery, in the section on Horwich and surrounding area.

PS: I'm told by a reliable source that the flowers in the picture above are foxgloves, apparently derived from the term 'folks gloves'. I've also discovered that the true name of Tiger's Clough is Shaw Clough (not as evocative though, is it), and a little bit of its history can be found at a website called About Rivington.