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Now that the snow had gone I thought it might be a good time to revisit Tigers Clough. I was hoping that the melting snow and the recent rain had provided plenty of water to rush over the waterfall. You may remember I had been there on a number of other occasions (see here, here, here and here), but it’s such a lovely place to visit that I thought it was about time to go there again. So I set off with the dogs and walked up Lever Park Avenue to the Grammar School, where I turned right up Roynton Road. As the road levelled out at the end of the left hand bend I took the tarmac path off to the right that leads up to a farm.


Shortly after passing through the gate to the farm I went through a stile in the right hand fence to take the path down into Tigers Clough. The picture shows a view of the bridge over the River Douglas that passes through the clough on its way to Lower Rivington Reservoir.


This picture shows the wooden bridge that lead down to the foot bridge. Although the offical name for the clough is Shaws Clough, local folk always refer to it as Tigers Clough. It appears to have got its name many years ago when there was not only a bleach works in the clough, but also an unlicenced inn. The inn owner had a sign outside that depicted two tigers, and the rest they say is history.


This picture gives a view looking upstream towards the footbridge.


Close by the bridge are the remains of the bleach works. More details of the bleach works, and of the remarkable history of Tigers Clough, can be found in Dave Lane’s excellent booklet “Winter Hill Scrapbook“.


From the bridge I walked about 1/4ml upstream, being careful to avoid the numerous boggy bits, and soon came to the waterall. There was indeed a lot more water coming through than when I last visited the clough, though a runner passing through and who stopped for a quick chat said there had been even more last week.


Even so, the water was too deep for me to be able to scramble over to the other bank and get further upstream. Perhaps next time I come here I’ll try scrambling up the left side of the waterfall to see if there is a way through to the higher sections.