An Evening On Heapey Moor
It seems like it's been a while since I last walked from White Coppice to Great Hill, I'm not sure why, but I think the prospect of fighting gravity to reach the top of the steep Western face of White Coppice has something to do with it, so instead I've been tackling less challenging routes on the moors, which has been fun, but I figured it was about time that I revisited what used to be one of my regular local walks. As such, I found myself driving up the unadopted road to White Coppice cricket ground, a road that is in such poor condition it resembles the surface of the moon in places.
From there I began the steep and laborious trek up the front of White Coppice to reach the ruins of Coppice Stile. There are more interesting routes, such as following Black Brook but I wanted to try the direct approach for a change. From there it was a matter of crossing the bog-fest known as Heapey Moor to reach Drinkwater's Farm and then the final short but steep path to the summit of Great Hill. The return walk was more or less a reverse of the outward one, but instead of walking back down the nose of Great Hill, I took the shallower path that runs down the side to visit Great Hill Farm on the way back.
All pictures taken handheld with the Fujifilm X-T50 and a bag of primes. No filters were used as these lenses are all over the place in terms of filter size, but I did shoot everything in simulated black and white (Astia + red filter), even though some of these images have made the transition back to colour. All images processed from individual raw files in Capture One Pro 23.
The Welcome Sight of Coppice Stile
Coppice Stile House used to sit at the top of White Coppice on the boundary where Heapey Moor begins, as denoted by the tall dry stone wall that defines the boundary. I believe that, in addition to being a small farm, Coppice Stile did double duty as an inn for weary travellers as they crossed the moor. I could have done with its services as I'd forgotten to pack my bottle of water, but I guess I'm about 100 years too late for that.
There used to be a couple of nice compositions around the spot where the main path passes through a gap in the wall, but the presence of the unsightly info sign that's been erected there completely ruins most of them without a bit of digital painting to remove it and it's that big, it's often not possible to do that successfully. From this angle though, the sign is on the other side of the wall.
On The Bound(ary)
Looking North along the White Coppice boundary wall from Coppice Stile. I took three shots of this, one with a deep depth of field, one with a shallow depth of field but focused on the distant part of the wall and this shot. Out of the three, this was my favourite.
The Path To Great Hill Is Paved With Bog
Don't let those cobbles fool you, they disappear at the end of the wall to be replaced with bog of variable quality (although, in fairness, it's not too bad at the moment). You can just see the edges of the Coppice Stile ruin off to my right, replete with hideous info sign, which is fortunately entirely out of shot. The clump of trees in the centre of the image marks the location of the Drinkwater's farm ruin, while the more distant clump to the right of Great Hill show the location of Great Hill Farm, which we'll be seeing more of a bit later on.
Sheep On The Moors
At this point I've crossed the boggy stretch of Heapey Moor, passed through Drinkwater's farm and I'm now on the way up Great Hill. The moors where Round Loaf can be found can be seen in the distance, although Round Loaf itself is a little way out of shot on the right.
The View From Great Hill
Great Hill affords some pretty good views from the summit, this is a favourite angle with the edge of Darwen Moor entering the frame from the right, complete with its spaceship like Jubilee Tower, before sweeping down to the lower ground where Blackburn sprawls off into the distance on the left. The big hill lurking in the distance behind Blackburn is Pendle Hill.
Descending to Great Hill Farm
This is one of my favourite views over Heapey Moor and I only discovered it a few years ago when I spotted a little known path that runs up the side of Great Hill. The big clump of trees on the left mark the location of the Great Hill farm ruins. The row of trees in the middle of the frame run along the Heapey Moor side of Black Brook and face Drinkwater's farm which would be off to the right in this image. Beyond these, the bulk of Anglezarke moor can be seen rising to the left and beyond that, the woods covered bulk of Healey Nab can be seen.
The Other Side of The Fence
This was taken just on the other side of the fence at the bottom of the previous picture (you can see part of it top right). I switched from the mid tele lens to something a lot wider here so that I could get the fallen tree in the foreground into the frame as well as that menacing cloud.
Round Loaf Has Entered The Chat
You can't wander around Heapey Moor taking photographs without getting my favourite Bronze Age barrow in your shots, well, I suppose you can, but it takes more effort.
Approaching Great Hill Farm
This has some similarities to earlier shots, but I particularly like the way the grass in the foreground looks here and decided to include it.
Great Hill Farm
A couple of Great Hill farm shots, one colour, one black and white. This was actually the first shot of this set that I processed as I skimmed through all 250 raw files after the walk. It looked good in monochrome, but also worked well in colour with a few tweaks. It's the best part of a century since this farm was destroyed, yet the finer lawn grass still persists around its ruins, this always amazes me.
A monochrome variant taken a little closer to the ruins.
The Sentinel
Round Loaf slumbers silently on the moors as this tree keeps guard.
Crossing Heapey Moor
After leaving Great Hill farm there are a number of options, but in this case I decided to make my way back to the main path at Drinkwater's, which can be seen on the right of the image.
Dramatic Drinkwater's Sky
A slight change of position and change of composition bringing in more of the sky above Drinkwater's.
The View From Drinkwater's
This is looking across Heapey Moor towards Grain Pole Hill, with the treeline of Healey Nab framed by the branches of the tree. There's another one of those info signs just off to my right here, ruining any shots of the ruins.
New Tenants at Coppice Stile
On the last leg here as I return to Coppice Stile. This is taken from the opposite end of the short piece of cobbled path I mentioned in the 3rd picture. The info sign would be on the left hand side of the gap in the wall, but has been digitally erased using C1P's somewhat iffy retouching brush. The sheep have moved in since I passed through earlier, although they're asking for trouble pottering around on top of that pile of rubble.
