On a wild wet winters day in late December we set into the mist to complete another Lowland Leader training walk.
The weather was terrible but really helped to blow away any lockdown blues.
We walked up from Walker Fold Farm up Two Lads cairn on Crooked Edge Hill. There are different stories about why the cairn is called Two Lads.
One story says that two lads got stuck on the moor and froze to death and the cairn is a memorial. An older legend claims that two Princes of a Saxon King died on the moor. Another legend was that it was the sons of Bishop Pilkington who died on the moor in 1540.
The final spooky part of the tale is that every 13 years a ghost horseman rides from the cairn to Noon Hill and try’s to capture a soul who will be the horseman for the next 13 years. Winter Hill is such a wild and featureless place so it’s easy to see when the mist comes down why it would be easy for someone to get lost up there and for the horseman to claim them.
After leaving the cairn we crossed the moor onto Rotary Way which follows the boundary of Bolton up to the radio masts that dominate the summit of Winter Hill. We wound our way back down past many of the local farms winding our way back to Walker Fold farm.
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Escape to the Wild Side 