B Walk - Darwen Tower (Jubilee Tower) with Roy Smith
5¼ miles (8.4km) with 550ft (167m) Total Ascent
Meet at Roddlesworth Information Centre (The Country Café), Tockholes Rd, Tockholes, Darwen (Sat Nav: BB3 0PA), ready for the usual start time of 10.30am.
The walk today is a circular walk starting from the Roddlesworth Information Centre. This very pleasant walk visits the deep wooded valley of Roddlesworth and then climbs to the airy heights of Darwen Moors and Darwen Tower. It takes in the ruins of an old manor house and, if you have a good head for heights and appreciate a stunning view of Lancashire, there is the 86 ft Darwen Tower to climb.
We start by heading away from Darwen Tower and enter the woodlands of the Tockholes Plantation. Within the woods we will be able to wander around the ruins of the Manor House, once owned by the Hollinshead family. We now walk uphill to the track that takes us along the flank of Cartridge Hill. Towards the top of the hill we are able (weather permitting) to view a panorama of the Lake District mountains and North Wales. We leave this track and head north on a trail that takes us to Darwen Tower. Here if you wish you may climb the tower, which was completed in 1898 to commemorate Queen Victoria´s Diamond Jubilee. We now make our way downhill, along the Witton Weavers Way. Turning off the Weavers Way we complete our walk along field tracks back to our start point.