Monday 5th April. 7 miles. Longridge.
I wrote about the ‘The Round Longridge Walk’ back in February…
Today I went out to try and improve the route by avoiding too many main roads and keeping outside the circle of ever-increasing hosing developments. I also had a new camera which I wanted to play with, it has far too many features for me to come to terms with quickly.
What a beautiful Easter Monday, blue skies, lots of sunshine and a cold wind. Perfect. Well not quite – they have taken out all the hedges on a new development. Our slate artist has summed it up nicely on a Hedge Sparrow triptych. [Richard Price – see transcript at end of post.]
I linked up with the route on Pinfold Lane where several parties were scanning the wetlands with binoculars.
I had a brief look, there is a digger in the background, and carried on my way down towards Bury’s Farm. A farmer was rolling his field – a picture from the past.
I found a better, more rural, route around Alston and on across the main road. I found my way through peoples drives and gardens back into fields before picking up the old rail Preston – Longridge line and onto home ground. The blackthorn and cherries were blossoming.
It has been a walk of contrasts – trying to balance the rural with the creeping urbanisation. It’s time for the hills.
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You don’t see many hedges these days, and the hedges you do see they’re not that thorny, it’s a shame, and when I say a hedge I’m not talking about a row of twigs between two lines of rusty barbed wire, or more likely just a big prairie where there were whole cities of hedges not fifty years ago, a big desert more like, and I mean thick hedges, with trees nearby for a bit of shade and a field not a road not too far off so you can nip out for an insect or two when you or the youngsters feel like a snack, a whole hedgerow system, as it says in the book, and seven out of ten sparrows say the same, and that’s an underestimate, we want a place you can feel safe in again, we’re social animals, we want our social life back, and the sooner the better, because in a good hedge you can always talk things over, make decisions, have a laugh if you want to, sing, even with a voice like mine!
Richard Price
Photos looking good. What is the new camera?
Same as yours more or less..
I walked through a couple of fields this morning and there was a sign saying hedge restoration project…..except the hedges seem to have completely gone and a fence has been put up.
Was that near one of the housing developments? They are ripping hedges up all over the place around Longridge. Mind you farmers have done the same to make their fields bigger. The birds will have nowhere to go
It isn’t but of course it could be one day as like Longridge, the new housing developments are creeping everywhere. The restoration signs don’t make sense if the hedge is completely gone. 🙁