Distance: 12 Km or 7½ miles
Time: 3½  - 4 hours  
Terrain: 5 Km or 3 miles of this walk is a testing moorland yomp which should only be attempted if a) you are confident of your fitness b) the weather is settled. The ascent of Boulsworth can be avoided reducing the walk by 3 Km or 2 miles and 220 m of ascent. After prolonged wet weather some parts of this walk would become excessively boggy.

Start: Car park. Wycoller Country Park.
From the end of the M65 at Colne follow A6068 towards Keighley. After 1 ½ miles beyond a roundabout turn right onto B B6250 towards Trawden and Wycoller Country Park. After 1000m turn left onto the steep Keighley Road. At the top bear right at a junction. The car park is 500m further on the right.
The walk is surprisingly accessible by public transport if you follow directions from Trawden. Take the train to Colne and then No.21 bus to Trawden (Running every 30mins)

Map

1. Car Park to Lad Law (5 Km or 3 miles: 1 - 1½  hours)
Facing the lane in the right corner of the car park take a path that runs parallel to the lane for a few hundred metres towards Wycoller.


When it ends join the lane and descend into the hamlet. There is much that will grab your attention. Ancient bridges cross the beck, while a little further on lie the ruins of Wycoller Hall.


This is reputed to be the "Ferndean Manor" of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre". Indeed for this next stage of the route you are on the Bronte Way which links Colne with Haworth, the heart of Bronte country, across the moors. After strolling through the ruins of Wycoller Hall and perhaps calling in at the visitors centre, rejoin the lane on your right, following Wycoller Beck through a lovely vale. After a clapper bridge arrive at a junction of paths. Yours is the middle way - the Bronte Way.


This leads up to a farm (Dean House) and then bears left through its yard.


After the farm, the way leads gently upwards on a grassy track besides a wall. When the wall turns right keep ahead. (As frequently happens at a point where a waymarker would be most useful they suddenly disappear!) In a short distance you pick up another wall on your right. Ahead a recently replaced kissing gate will come into sight confirming you are on route. A little way after this you reach the junction of the Pendle Way, before the farm of Brink End. Turn right. For the next section the route is clear and well signed. You keep on the Pendle Way for 2 Km, about 30 - 45 mins. With Brink End on your left drop down to an impressive wooden bridge that crosses the top of Turnhole Clough.


For almost a Kilometre the way follows a rough, rutted track. It then dips down to join a much more substantial farm service road. Keep ahead at this junction.


After another 600m before a farm (Spoutley Lumb) turn left onto a United Utilities service road and yet another named route "The Boulsworth Circular".


(If you do not want to climb Boulsworth continue along the track for 800m until a cemented cairn is reached. Resume directions in the next section.) The way up Boulsworth is steep, but well signed with frequent waymark posts. Underfoot, especially on the summit plateau, the ground is very boggy, even after dry weather. Curious rock outcrops litter the way up to the trig. point (517m). Needless to say on a clear day you will be rewarded with extensive views. To the north Pendle of course and the Yorkshire Peaks, but curiously those to the south may impose more on the imagination. Apart from the wind farms, the sea of rolling moors seems unpeopled; a dark, brooding landscape evoked so vividly in the novels of the Bronte sisters. Turning your back on it you can now return to the world below your feet.

2. Lad Law to Trawden (4 Km or 2½ miles: 1 hour)
For this stage it is downhill all the way - well just about. The path is clearly waymarked back to the Pendle Way. At its junction is the cemented cairn that was once an information point.


(Readers who declined the delights of Boulsworth resume directions here.) Turn left and almost immediately cross a stone stile next to a gate, which was open when the route was checked. Along a grassy path, with a clough on your left keep ahead crossing two wooden bridges, the second of which takes you across a beck.


After a stile the path skirts to the right of a property (Gilford Clough) bringing you round to a tarmac lane. Follow this for 800m to Meadow Bottom Farm. At this point and beyond any way right will quickly put you onto the lane leading into Wycoller. But across from the farm a path leads through a plantation of young trees and brings you to a kissing gate. Across the track and a wooden stile the way leads you into the outer limits of Trawden. Walk down the hill, past the parish church to join Skipton Road. At the war memorial turn right into Keighley Road.

3. Trawden to Car Park (2 Km or 1½ miles: 30 - 45mins)
On the corner of Keighley Road there is a poets' corner dedicated to Lancashire Dialect, a charming piece of public art and a most diverting attraction. After a breather here or/and in the Old Rock Tearoom, continue along Keighley Road and turn right into Stunstead Road. Soon you will be gaining height above the village. After Stunstead Farm pass through a white gate and reach Higher Stunstead.


Keep ahead in the direction of Wycoller as indicated on a sign post. At the end of the track cross a wall into a field. Here the main path continues to Wycoller. However your way back to the car park is left along an unmarked right of way. Head for large farm buildings (Little Thorn Edge) On reaching the main farm track turn left and walk down to the lane. Turn right for the car park which is 800m along on the right.

The Old Rock Café
On route "The Sun Inn" and "the Trawden Arms" may be open for refreshment depending when you try this walk. However on the three occasions the route has been researched neither was open. All was not lost though since Trawden possesses a most enchanting tea room in the Old Rock Café which is adjoined to a gift shop on Keighley Road. Its warm friendly atmosphere, combined with a menu where the words "home made" featured frequently made it a most pleasurable lunch stop when the route was checked. Moreover it is open every day of the week.