These landscape forms connect the geological features of Scarlett’s Stride, a walk through the Cliviger Gorge into Towneley Woods, demonstrating the coal seams beneath the landscape.
The land was all forest before the last Ice Age, which is why, in recent history, the Gorge had many coal mines. Every coal mine is a dead forest.
Ten thousand years ago the ice began to retreat. For tens of thousands of years, in places up to three thousand metres thick, it had pressed heavily on the land, pushing down from the mountains, carving new valleys with steep sides and flat bottoms, creating the “hanging valleys” of the Gorge. The retreating waters left behind vast accumulations of mud and sands. The muds now form the dark mudstones at the sides of the moorland cloughs; the sands became sandstones, which are harder and crop out to form cliffs and waterfalls. They were extensively used as building and roofing materials.
As the ice retreated, living things moved in – lichens, mosses, ferns, fungi – and eventually, seed-bearing plants, flowers, and trees. As this vegetation decayed it first formed peat which subsequently became naturally converted to coal.
“Since sandstones were very hard, they were made into millstones and other grinding wheels . . . there can be few exposures as magnificent as the escarpment of Thievely Scout...
The higher rock strata contain many coal seams . . . containing the region’s most important natural resource since Norman times. At their now silent and lonely situations we can only imagine the former scenes of intense activity when trains of packhorses were being loaded prior to carrying the coal down into the Cliviger Gorge.”
Iain A. Williamson, “A Geological Sketch of the Cliviger Gorge” 2012
Section of “Cliviger Gorge Packhorse Trails Circuit” Taylor, J.B. (1994)
Following the route of “Scarlett’s Stride” we come to Spring Gardens, and the geological feature of Dyneley Knoll. (or “The Fireman’s Helmet” as it is known locally, due to the plume of trees on the crest of the hill.) The walk was devised, named and organised over twenty years ago by local resident and walker Eric Wrathall. He has been supported by local photographer Eddy Rawlinson, and more recently by Matthew Pickles and Mark Grice.
Past the hill and turning sharply to the right we enter Towneley Park and progress through the woodland to the medieval pollarded oak tree.
Pollarding is a form of woodland management where the tree is cut off at a level above the point a deer or cow can reach. The Towneley family were fond of hunting – hence the name Deer Park, and Deer Pond.
I have a family link to medieval times with the following story -
My father and his sisters grew up on a smallholding beside the Deer Pond on Deer Park Road. My Aunt Olive found a gold ring in the mud of the pond and my grandfather insisted she take the ring to Towneley Hall, (by then it was owned by Burnley Council.) It was dated and found to be a medieval posy ring with an inscription in old English inside it. Apparently, there was a shelter on the deer pond where ladies would rest their horses during the hunts, and the ring must have fallen as a lady removed her glove. The ring is displayed in the local history section of the hall, a wonderful piece of family history for me!
Back to the woods and the oak tree. The pollarded tree has an extended life because it doesn’t have to maintain a large canopy and its branches are constantly renewed. As it is regularly cut, water, fungi, and parasites get into the tree, which eventually becomes hollow, making a home for a variety of insects.
The underground fungal network is busy beneath the tree.
Mocha diffusion tests
The cutting of the tree leads to gnarling and knotting, creating places where mosses, lichen and fungi live, a feast for the imagination.
“These are the trees that, as a child, you wanted to climb – to build a nest or a tree house in. Inside the hollow oaks the ground is often dry and soft with heaps of old leaves; it smells sweet and musty. These are the caves that you were going to run away and hide out in and wait for the prince to come riding along, or for an old woman to pass by and give you a gift that would make your fortune. These are the trees of magical dreams.”
Maitland, S. Gossip from the Forest. Granta (2012)
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