No new ways today but I enjoy revisiting others and seeing what has changed since last time, bear with me. I’m up and ready early (for me) as I have an appointment at the hospital late afternoon. ( Junior doctors working on a Sunday to get the NHS back up to speed. Hope they agree to the new governments pay offer). Driving along the Chaigley road a fleet of vintage tractors is coming towards me, I pull in to get a photo. It is then I realise I have left my camera and phone at home. Some days I’m not fit to be let out.
So its back to the start, the tractors are gone and by the time I park up at Kemple End the morning is all but over. I wander past the few houses making up this community. Most are old cottages but the last house I encounter is a large new build, no doubt replacing an old barn. 
Once in the fields I pick up the old sledge way for taking stone from the Kemple End quarries down towards Stonyhurst for construction of the Shireburn family home. Cows are thankfully docile in the heat. The building at the bottom was the stable for the sledge horses. It has been derelict for years but now after major refurbishments is a holiday cottage. 
Up the road is one of my favourite Stonyhurst Crosses. The Pinfold Cross is a memorial to a former servant at the College and fiddler, James Wells. It was erected in 1834 after he died in a quarry accident. On the front is inscribed the telling ‘WATCH FOR YOU KNOW NOT THE DAY NOR HOUR.’ Above this is written, ‘OFT EVENINGS GLAD MAKE MORNINGS SAD’ perhaps suggesting drunken escapades. On the left is ‘PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF JAMES WELLS’ and on the right, ‘DIED FEB. 12TH, 1834. 
The next fields have some of the meanest looking sheep around. Plenty of cows but the bull is far enough away to let me pass. 
The building you can see in the distance is marked on the map as Higher Deer House, a reference when this was the deer park of the Shireburn family who built what is now Stonyhurst College. The buildings are empty and being replaced by those ginormous agricultural sheds that are springing up everywhere. Soon will all livestock will be under cover and our fields redundant? 
I often have trouble finding the hidden stile across the field, today is no exception.
The stile leads into a jungle at the bottom of which is a footbridge over Dean Brook, then back up through more jungle to emerge onto the bridleway next to Greengore, an old shooting lodge. The raspberries are sweet.
Renovations are going on at the old house so I take a picture of the new build in the back garden. 
Now starts my long gradual ascent to Spire Hill some 600 ft above. It is a hot day and I take it slowly. More of those new metal gates keep appearing. The cyclist is a friend of mine trying out his new electric mountain bike. His wife appears as I enter the shady woods, no mountain bike for her – just taking the dog for a walk. 
It was good to get a bit of shade for a short time before walking up to the trig point, 350m. The views were a bit hazy but all the Yorkshire three peaks could be made out but perhaps not on camera. Looking down into Chipping Vale is always a revelation, spotting individual farms and lanes from on high. 
I continue along the ridge into the trees still devastated by a storm a few years ago. This is a concessionary path used my many and should have been cleared by now. A black mark Tilhill Forestry, a letter is being sent off to them. They should consider the recreation value of their holdings as well as the commercial value. Its a jungle up here, it would only take a couple of blokes with a chain saw to clear a way through. 
Mountain bikers have marked a blue trial through the worst, Thank you.
At least the forestry people have cleared their own forest road eastwards, it was a nightmare before. But what a desolate mess they leave behind but given a decade or so all will look good.
Along this stretch I come across a cyclist enjoying the view. Pendle is always prominent from this end of the fell. I compliment him on his Brook’s saddle, a cycling thing, and we get into conversation. Turns out he lives just round the corner from me and we have several mutual acquaintances. 
I escape from the forest road and take an almost hidden path through the trees back to my car at Kemple End. The shade was welcome in the heat of the day. 
With all the stopping and chatting I was a little behind schedule and had to rush off for my hospital appointment. At least I had made the most of the day, as I should every day, but sadly often don’t.
***
You do seem to have an inexhaustible variety of walks within comfortable driving distance, more so than I seem to have, although that’s probably because I’ve exhausted all mine long ago and not being quite so motivated as you for repeats.
I had a look at the map and traced the river Hodder back to its source in the hills about bout half a km. north east of “Rain Gauge” on the 1:25 map (SD 686 604.)
It seems to follow a convoluted and interesting course with many opportunities to follow it fairly closely on foot?
The Hodder is one of our great rivers It used to run out to sea north of Longridge Fell until blocked by glacial debris. Savick Brook is all that remains through Preston. The \Hodder having to go around the east end of the fell to join the Ribble.
I walked from that source you mention. the length of the Hodder years ago checking a guide a friend was writing.
I didn’t expect anything less than your last sentence!
Sorry.
A shame you didn’t get to photograph the tractors, I would have liked to see that. I like the cottages at Kemple End, they look very pretty with the red flowers on the wall, and those sheep made me laugh. They look like a cross between sheep and a couple of pit bulls 😀
No idea what breed those sheep are.
The tractor rally looked good with all vintages, they were heading to Beacon Fell where it woukd have been a ideal place to view them all.
Lovely, i know that area very well, we used to live on Browsholme estate and Kemple end loomed over us every morning as we waited for the school bus, i used to go cycling a lot too and set myself the challenge of cycling up the road from the Hodder bridge to the top without stopping or putting my foot down once, the last corner before the very top was always really difficult, the quarry up there was a favourite bilberry picking and swimming spot.
That cycle ride up the hill is a killer, once around the corner the road keeps on going up and up. Couldn’t do it anymore, unless I get an electric bike.
There are plenty of bilberries ripening there now.
You will have probably have seen the amount of forestry harvesting at that end of the fell. It looks bald from Hoddr Bridge.
I shall probably end up in that forest again before the year is out. I have been known to turn up for a walk having forgotten my walking boots, so you’re not alone in sometimes not being fit to let out. My favourite trick is to bring the camera but find I’ve left the memory card in the computer at home.
Just follow the blue marks through the trees!
I seem to have had a lot of wild raspberries this year, are there more of them about do you think?
Not sure, but maybe all that Spring wet weather we were all complaing about and now at last some heat has helped them. Isn’t it just great to pick the odd succulent raspberry as you walk past. I remember surving for days in northern Greece on nothing much more than raspberries, figs, walnuts and maybe the odd caterpillar.The bilberry crop up here is looking good.
Ah wild raspberries. Haven’t spotted any wild ones yet, perhaps because I don’t do all the walking routes I used to do with Hugo, we mostly just bumble around the park now or sometimes the nature reserve. Just short walks for him, I should go out more on my own but feels odd without the dog being with me!
Its a shame Hugo can’t manage what he used to. He will be missing it as much as you.
He definitely is!