Walk 15 Farleton Knott and Holme Park Fell
Walk 16 Hutton Roof Crags
Walk 17 Clawthorpe Fell, Lancelot Clark Storth and Uberash Breast cairns
Walk 18 Dalton Crags and Hutton Roof Crags
Walk 19 Farleton Fell, Clawthorpe and the Lancaster Canal
Walk 20 Levens Park and the River Kent
Walk 21 Tewitfield Locks, Warton Crag, River Keer and the Lancaster Canal
APPENDIX A Route summary table
APPENDIX B Linear walks
APPENDIX C Suggested strolls
APPENDIX D The Cross Sands Walk
APPENDIX E Historic buildings in the area
APPENDIX F Recommended further reading
APPENDIX G Useful contacts
Fairy Steps is a popular feature visited on Walks 12, 13 and 14
Arnside Knott is seen above Silverdale Cove
INTRODUCTION
The combination of perhaps the best coastal scenery and the highest concentration of intricate woodland paths in north-west England make the Silverdale area a wonderful place to visit. There are low hills with exquisite woodland paths and old parkland, and areas of limestone grassland and pavement. Views are memorable over Morecambe Bay, the hills of the Lake District or back to the long line of the Pennines. The once extensive salt-marsh that made walking easy on the grassy shore is now but a memory, yet the upside is a more rugged sea-swept coastline.
The walks explore an area of low, densely wooded limestone hills, rich in flora and fauna, either side of the M6 in north Lancashire and south Cumbria. Summits include Warton Crag, Arnside Knott, Haverbrack Fell, Farleton Knott, Holme Park Fell and Hutton Roof Crags. There are numerous areas of intricate limestone pavement which invite careful exploration.
Leighton Moss is an internationally important wildlife reserve owned by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and there are many nature reserves and Sites of Special Scientific Interest where the fauna and flora are protected. Gait Barrows National Nature Reserve is renowned for its limestone pavement habitat. Historical features abound, from pele towers to the remains of quarrying and copper mining.
So often when the hills of the Lake District and the Pennines are shrouded with mist, this area enjoys good visibility and even sunshine. Annual rainfall is about 1100mm and sunshine is above average for the north-west of England. Mild winters mean that it can be enjoyable walking here when the weather is too rough to be attractive in other upland areas. Even strong winds are no deterrent, except on the coast, for the woodland walking is pleasantly sheltered.
Geology
All the hills in the area are formed principally of Carboniferous limestone, comprising the remains of marine life laid down in a shallow sea about 300 million years ago. Towards the end of the Carboniferous period violent earth movements convulsed the rocks. They were folded and broken into the present block and basin structure, although considerable erosion has taken place since. The blocks of limestone have a gentle dip, usually to the south or south-east as at Farleton, but to the north-east at Warton Crag, due to the effects of uplifting and faulting. The north–south valleys are the result of faulting. The Trough is a prominent feature encountered on several walks; this indicates the line of the Woodbine Shale, a bed of mudstone which is softer and more easily eroded than the surrounding limestone. At Trowbarrow Quarry it is easy to see how tectonic movements have caused the rock strata to become almost vertical, or even reversed.
The cave at Silverdale Cove (Walk 2)
The last Ice Age, which ended around 15,000 years ago, left its mark on the area. Ice sheets scoured the rocks, resulting in sheets of smooth limestone that can be seen in many locations. A considerable thickness of ice covered the area, and as this melted Morecambe Bay covered a much larger area than it does now. It is thought that ice in the Irish Sea may have dammed the freshwater rivers to make Morecambe Bay into a gigantic lake. The present-day basins were submerged, and it is easy to visualise the Arnside and Silverdale hills as islands. The fluctuations in sea level left deposits of sediments or alluvium in the flat basins, giving rise, where well drained, to rich farmland, or forming the marshy areas such as Leighton Moss and Hawes Water. Around Hawes Water the substance diatomite can be found, which is made up of the siliceous fossil remains of microscopic organisms. It is a valuable commodity, used for its insulating properties, and was worked commercially at Kentmere in the Lake District.
Hollows formed by large pockets of melting ice or slow drainage are typical of limestone scenery. These hollows are called dolines, and sometimes have a water sink at the base. Hawes Water lies over several merged dolines, and the doline hollow in Deepdale is the result of a collapsed cave. The larger basins, such as the area now covered by Hale Moss, were once lakes and still flood in winter and in wet weather. The edges of the basins were sometimes lined by small cliffs, like the ones close to the road at the edge of Hale Moss. These cliffs are riddled with small tubular water-worn passages. There is evidence of several sea levels along the Silverdale coast, and there is an almost perfect circular phreatic tube cave worn by water pressure action.
The many limestone pavements in the area were scraped by ice and eroded by water and rainfall into their present form of clints – smooth surface blocks eroded over time – and grykes – the deep fissures between the clints. Solution pockets of varying sizes can also be seen on the surface where rainwater has created hollows by dissolving the limestone. Where the pavements are tilted, surface runnels are formed by water. These are especially pronounced on Farleton Fell and Hutton Roof Crags, where the rounded rundkarren are among the best examples in Britain. These were formed when the rocks were covered by a layer of vegetation and water draining away underneath the vegetation wore the limestone into its present attractive patterns. Sharp-edged rinnenkarren were formed where the rocks were open to erosion directly by the elements. These are rare in Britain and are best seen at The Rakes of Hutton Roof Crags.
During the last Ice Age many limestone boulders were moved and deposited on other limestone beds, and there are many examples of these perched boulders, or erratics, in the area. (They are so called because they are not derived from the rock upon which they lie.) Sometimes the ice moved rocks from further afield before depositing them; Shap granite erratics can be seen on some of the walks.
In geological time the limestone was covered by beds of red sandstone, long since removed by erosion. An interesting feature that developed at this time was caused by water seeping through the sandstone and becoming impregnated with minerals which were then deposited in the limestone caves below. This is explains the presence of copper and haematite (iron ore) which were mined in several parts of the area, especially at Crag Foot, where layers of brecciated sandstone filled the phreatic passages.