Walk 9 – Burn Moor Circular

Length: 4 miles with 500 feet of climb (2.3%)

Choose a sunny, clear day. Though short, and mostly on well-defined paths, this route traverses exposed moorland, and some paths are boggy and/or indistinct in places. You will need to be properly equipped, and to know how to use a map and compass.

ACCESS LAND & DOGS
The moorland on this walk is Access Land, and usually open to walkers.
Any closures are advertised on local notices and on the Open Access website.
In addition, dogs are not permitted, except for assistance dogs.
Click here and use the postcode LA2 8RD, for more information about access land and restrictions relevant to this walk.

Click here for a printable PDF version of the map and directions

walk09-burnmoor

Profile
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Start grid reference SD 671 661
Park by the Slaidburn-Bentham road, near its hill-top junction, with a lane leading west, which is sometimes signed to Wray and Lowgill (the signs often get blown off-course!)

DIRECTIONS

Head south on the Slaidburn road for ½ mile till you reach a track on the left signed to Croasdale Grains. Follow this track for nearly ½ mile until you reach a track junction by a wall corner on your right, where the right-hand track bends right and heads towards a gate. Turn left at this junction, towards a shooting hut, where the track ends after less than ¼ mile.

20 yards before the hut, turn left up a grassy quad track. After 200 yards you will reach a grit tray (for grouse) on the ground, by a white marker post. Here the track bends right and becomes less distinct as it passes through rushes and heather, then after 100 yards it bears left and becomes more distinct, aiming just left of a long heathery hillock on the skyline. It soon becomes a very distinct rutted track through the heather, and leads in an almost straight line up to the Standard on Burn Moor, a boundary post (Tatham, Newby, Bentham) next to the county fence, and only 150 yards from the trig pillar which marks the hill summit.

Turn left and follow the fence (and a quad track) gradually downhill for just over ½ mile, and you will reach a wooden gate in the fence. Go through, and continue on a quad track, with the fence now on your left, until the fence bends sharp left.

Leave the fence and follow the grassy quad track to a grouse butt (number 1). Follow the track down to butt number 12 and continue to the next, which is a wooden structure numbered 1 (superstition?). Keep on the winding grassy quad track for 200 yards and you will reach a junction. Go left here to a wooden gate in the nearby fence.

Follow the boggy quad track to a line of wooden grouse butts. At number 9 you will notice a boulder next to the fence on your right; this is the Queen of Fairies Chair, another boundary marker.

Continue along the line of wooden butts. After the last, the quad track peters out, but you will see, straight ahead of you, the fingerpost at the junction where you started the walk – and hopefully your car.

You can head straight for your car, but it is a very boggy route choice. A better route is to lear left along the edge of the heather, then right to cross a short stretch of bog, then follow the grassy slope until you reach the road, a little south of your starting point.


We hope you’ll enjoy walking this route. We’d like to keep these directions accurate and up-to-date, so please let us know if they need correcting, updating or clarifying. Thank you!