This walk takes you through rolling pastures with extensive views over Lancashire and Yorkshire. Although your walking starts in Yorkshire, for most of the way you are in a lovely quiet corner of Lancashire. Old field paths linking one farm with another were in use long before today’s connecting roads were constructed. The route passes through several deciduous woods where, in spring, trees slant down slopes to small streams and the floor is covered with a vast carpet of bluebells. If you complete the walk a week or so later you will hear the haunting cry of the curlew and the wild musical whistle of the green plover that nests in the pastures. Go warily along hedgerows or over long grass where pheasants may nest, the females lying so still that you can pass without them blinking an eye.
This walk entails climbing many stiles and passing through farm gates – not all of which are waymarked.
Park in the free car park at Low Bentham, grid ref 651694, which lies on the south side of Low Bentham Road. Turn left out of the car park and walk west through the village, crossing the bridge over the River Wenning flowing north. Continue under the railway bridge and walk on with care to turn left into Eskew Lane, immediately beyond the Punch Bowl Inn (dated 1670). Unexpectedly the River Wenning is now on the right – but flowing south under a splendid arched bridge. A look at your map solves the puzzle – this is where the river makes a large S-shaped curve.
Walk along the lane for 200 metres to take the signposted stiled footpath on the left. Continue ahead to pass through a gateless gap, and then veer slightly left (east) away from the wall and hedge on your right. Climb the long sloping pasture and pass a house, Cloudsbank, on your left, then carry on for a few steps to a signposted stile to the right of a gate onto Mill Lane.
Turn right to continue along the lane and take the second signposted way on the right – from this good track you have a grand view of High and Low Bentham. Continue to the yard of Kirkbeck, a gracious farmhouse dated 1676 – a monastery stood here earlier and its stone was used to construct the farm. Just before the house follow the waymark directing you right. Go slightly left across a small yard and take a stepped stile over a wall to the left of a barn. Descend a small pasture, slightly left again, and cross a wooden footbridge over Eskew Beck and into Lancashire. Climb up the slope through woodland, where the path is deeply littered with leaves, and go on to a stile. Keeping beside the beck, deep in its wooded gill, continue left and cross the next stile. Keep ahead over a pasture to a stepped stile to Mewith Lane (here in early autumn harebells flower in profusion), turn right, and then take the next left turn, which is a track to Oak Bank farm.
Wooden footbridge over Eskew Beck
Walk in front of the farmhouse and turn left to a gate just beyond. Pass below two magnificent horsechestnut trees shadowing a yard to go through a waymarked wicket gate onto a pasture. Cross to the far right corner where there is a white post (out of sight at first). Climb a stile and cross a plank footbridge and go on ahead in the same direction to take the next stile. Turn right beyond it, walk to a gate onto Spen Brow and turn right. Stroll along the lane until you reach Spen Lodge on the right, with its white studded door.
Take the gate opposite the lodge and head over the pasture to the side of Spen Gill Wood. Walk downhill with the plantation to your left, taking care here as the ground can be very wet all the way down beside the trees. Go through the muddy gateway to Spens Farm and turn immediately right through a small gate. Carry on over a lawn to a stile, and then strike left to join the track through this open area. There is walled woodland to the right, and enormous high slopes supporting more deciduous woodland to the left. Go on to join Furnessford Road.
Ingleborough seen from walk
Turn right and climb the hill to a signposted footpath leading left into a wood. Descend a slope to step across a tiny stream and go on, keeping to the left of the fence that forms the boundary between the wood and the farm. Follow the narrow path, which keeps well above the River Hindburn, as it leads to a waymarked stile. (Here, if you can see a bull in the field, ignore the stile and keep going along the path to the far end of the wood.)
Beyond the stile continue in the same general direction (northwest) to cross to a stile in a hedge. (If, because of the bull, you have arrived at the end of the wood, go through a gate, head up beside the hedge and then descend the slope.) Go ahead and then drop down the slope to a ladderstile to the right of a reinforced track. Continue ahead along the track, passing to the right of Mashiters, and walk the lengthy access track to Long Lane, which you cross.
Walk a few metres left to go through a signposted gate and continue ahead to a stile in the left corner of the pasture. Stride on ahead over a rough pasture to a rather awkward stile in the far corner. Beyond, descend an old sunken way to a clapper bridge over Clear Beck. Walk to the end of the fence on your left and climb the stile in the corner.
Press on to climb a small stile over a fence to the right of a barn, then go on to take a stile in the hedge on the right. Once over, walk the sunken track ahead and follow it as it swings slightly left and uphill to a stile on the right beneath an oak. Head on across the pasture to another stile and then take a little stile immediately on your left. Halfway along this large pasture follow a sunken track that leads slightly right to a gate to a lane.
Turn right and pass a farmhouse called Russells (dated 1682). Turn left, just beyond, into another lane in the direction of Meggs farm, with extensive views over Lancashire. Once past the access track to the farmhouse on your left, climb a stile over the wire on your right and walk on to a stile in the left corner of the hedge. Then go ahead over another stile over a fence, and on ahead to a stone stepped stile to the access track to a dwelling. Turn left and pass through a wicket gate at the left end of the barn of School Hill farmhouse. Continue ahead for a few steps and climb a stile in a hawthorn hedge. Head diagonally down, right, to a large tree in the middle of the pasture and then go straight down to a stile in the hedge. Beyond, walk ahead to cross two more stiles to reach a narrow lane.
Walk right and after 20 metres take the signposted footpath on the left, the second of two tracks, to Higher Perries farm. Turn right beyond a barn to reach a waymarked stile under an oak and go diagonally across the pasture to the far left corner. Walk ahead to a waymarked stile in the hedge opposite, and continue slightly right to wind round a pasture to a gate to Greenfold farm. Go ahead in front of the house, cross the access track and take the arrowed gate in front of you into a pasture.
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