Waterfall

If you promise not to tell anyone I’d like to take you on a walk to one of the hidden gems of an area between Preston and Blackburn, an area not known for waterfalls. It is situated directly below Hoghton Tower and is called Hoghton Bottoms.

Annie and friend walking to Hoghton Bottoms

Before we set off I should explain that the Bottoms, in geographical terms, derives from the Old English for broad river valley or valley floor and the Tower has quite a bit of history.

The Grade 1 listed building was originally built in 1109 and is the ancestral home of the de Hoghton family. The de Hoghton’s are descended directly from Harvey de Walter, one of the companions of William the Conqueror and through the female line from Lady Godiva of Coventry.

It was recreated in 1565 by Thomas Hoghton. The driveway to the house is around a mile long and had been lined by a red carpet for the arrival of King James 1st, the cost of which almost bankrupted the family. While he was visiting it is said that he was so pleased with the loin of beef that he knighted it there and then, hence sirloin.

On August the 4th 1581 Alexander Hoghton wrote a will naming 11 people. One of them was named William Shakeshafte. Well, it’s possible I suppose.

Enough of that. To get to the start of the walk that I’m proposing (there are other walks round this area from different start and finish points with shorter and longer lengths, check on google) you can get the 152 bus which runs between Preston and Blackburn and travels along the A675 to the Hoghton Tower driveway. Or, by car there is limited street parking by the Boar’s Head Pub from which you can walk a short distance along the main road to the entrance to the driveway.

Hoghton Tower driveway

Walk up the driveway until you come to the Lodge and turn left onto the footpath, cross the stile and turn right with a wall to the right. Keep going over two more stiles and you will see a path heading downhill, it crosses the railway, and turns right going past the derelict cottages. The views from this path are beautiful. At the end of this path there is a small collection of houses. Turn right following the Darwen River underneath the splendid viaduct. If you’re bringing a dog on this part of the walk it is recommended that a lead is used as the path has steep drop to the river. After about six or seven minutes you are at the Hoghton Waterfall.

It is situated, as you will see, in a dramatic sandstone gorge and was used as a weir which supplied water to the local mill but that has long since closed and now if you look up walking guides it is usually referred to as a waterfall.

Hoghton waterfall

One problem when it was being used as a weir was that it prevented fish such as brown trout and salmon migrating so in 2018 a fish-pass was added.

Rather than carrying along the river path we turn back at this point and return under the viaduct and instead of using the footpath back we carry on past the houses along the road until we come to a fork. Turning right takes you to a footbridge over the river where there is an idyllic picnic spot.

Turning left i.e. keeping to the road we walk up a steepish hill past a gorgeous Manor House on the right and the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel built in 1794 and one of the oldest in the country. Over the railway bridge we are now on Chapel Lane with its rather pleasant houses. At the end of which we are back at the Boar’s Head.

Annie bounding home

Assuming that WS did stay at the Tower I’m sure that he made a small error in Macbeth and the following is what he meant to write:

Ay, in the catalogue ye go for men;
As hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,
Shoughs, waterfalls, and demi-wolves, are ‘clept
All by the names of dogs; the valued file
Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,
The housekeeper, the hunter, every one
According to the gift which bounteous nature
Hath in him closed

(otherwise I can’t find any reference to waterfalls in his work).

Terry Q.