Towneley Hall and the Singing Ringing Tree

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Towneley Hall and the Singing Ringing Tree
David Turner
START: Towneley Hall, Towneley Park, Burnley (GPS waypoint SD 857 313)
DISTANCE: 6 miles (10km)
DIFFICULTY:
HEIGHT GAIN:
APPROX. TIME: 2 hours 45 minutes
PARKING: Towneley Hall riverside car park available at the beginning of the walk
ROUTE TERRAIN: Tarmacked tracks and roads, woodland paths, open fields
FACILITIES: Toilets and café available at Towneley Hall
SUITABILITY: Not suitable for wheelchair users or prams, dogs permitted but must be kept under control around livestock
OS MAPS: Landranger 103 (Blackburn and Burnley), Explorer OL21 (South Pennines)
A varied walk around Burnley,
starting from Towneley Hall Art
Gallery and Museum, which should
take just under three hours to
complete.
Make sure you really make the
most of your day by exploring the
Hall and grounds, plus there’s a
café if you’re feeling peckish!
The walker’s view
HISTORY AND HERITAGE
Towneley Hall is a grade I listed building,
dating back to the 14th century. It’s now a
museum and art gallery, lying within Burnley’s
largest park. The house and gardens are
owned and managed by Burnley borough
council.
The hall was the home of the Towneley family
for more than 500 years and it is thought that
the family settled here in the time of Richard
de Towneley, around 1295. The Towneleys
were a Catholic family who owned extensive
estates in and around Burnley, County
Durham and Yorkshire. Eventually, without a
male heir, ownership passed to the female line
in 1885, and in 1901 Towneley Hall was sold,
together with 62 acres of parkland, to the
Burnley Corporation.
The house was left empty and required
substantial work before it could be put to
a new use. Following a generous bequest
from Edward Stocks Massey, a local Victorian
businessman in the brewing industry, the Hall
is now full of paintings, ceramics, furniture
and decorative arts. From 1902, the park was
opened to the public and in 1903, the Great
Hall and the south wing of the house hosted
Towneley Hall’s first temporary art exhibition.
Towneley Hall’s collections today also feature
natural history, Egyptology, local history,
textiles, decorative art and the gallery houses
some important Victorian and pre-Raphaelite
paintings.
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Towneley Hall and the Singing Ringing Tree
David Turner
Explore the sights and sounds of Burnley with this six-mile walk,
which takes in many of the area’s landmarks and attractions.
Starting from the historic Towneley Hall, this route takes the walker
over open fields and up Crown Point to the Singing Ringing Tree,
through Broad Ing meadow and back via the Towneley Hall grounds.
Unfortunately this is not a fully accessible route due to the number
of stiles and the uneven terrain covered. Dogs are permitted but, as
usual, please adhere to the Countryside Code.
42 Lancashire Walks and Wildlife
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The entrance to the park is close to the urban
centre, with parkland covering 400 acres. At
the north end of the park are golf courses,
and to the south is Towneley Hall itself,
surrounded by broadleaved woodland. The
Hall has an attached working farm, which
extends east towards Cliviger, and the River
Calder flows through the grounds.
The Deer Pond, the park’s ‘man-made’ pond,
is a local nature reserve and was first recorded
on a park map in 1777. The area has recently
been improved and has a new picnic site, and
there’s a sculpture trail featuring artworks
carved from fallen or damaged trees. In the
woods you’ll also find Burnley’s oldest tree,
an oak, at over 400 years old. There are two
garden centres within the park too, Towneley
Garden Centre and Springwood Garden
Centre.
David Turner is out and
about in Burnley this month
“
After the biblical amount of rain
we’ve had over the past month, I was
beginning to wonder
whether I’d ever manage to
get out of the office and up
to Burnley to visit another
of the East Lancashire
Panopticons, the Singing
Ringing Tree. After visiting Atom at
Wycoller last year, I was eager to bag
another of the landmarks and thankfully,
a surprise break in the weather one
Sunday offered the perfect opportunity.
Towneley Hall provides a great starting
point for this walk and it’s worth spending
some time having a look around the
grounds before continuing on with the
route. The long path up towards the
Hall is a grand way to approach this 14th
century building, which sits proudly
behind a large fountain.
Beyond the grounds of Towneley Hall
the route moves out into the country and
along the Burnley Way. The occasional
marker posts are a welcome sight and
serve to reassure that you’re on the right
route. The markers are actually some of
the nicest I’ve seen, with many of them
decorated with wooden carvings of
various animals.
David Turner
The Singing Ringing Tree looked tiny
when I finally noticed it perched on the
horizon, but it wasn’t long before I was
making my way along Crown Point Road
and up towards my second Panopticon.
I didn’t know what to expect before
arriving at the large twisting collection
of steel tubes, but as I got closer I heard
the noise of the wind passing through
the structure and a huge grin appeared
across my face - the haunting ‘music’
that’s produced is absolutely brilliant! I’d
recommend you visit on a windy day but I
would imagine most days are windy days
when you’re at the top of this hill.
As with Atom at Wycoller, the Singing
Ringing Tree is a magnet for cameras and
I spent some time taking pictures from
various angles before leaving the Singing
Ringing Tree behind and making my
way down the hillside and back towards
Towneley Hall.
For those people wanting to head straight
to the Singing Ringing Tree, there’s a car
park at the top of the hill making it easy
to visit if you’re unable to walk to the site
or if the weather is bad. From the car
park the structure is only a few minutes
away and the views across Burnley and
towards Pendle Hill are fantastic.
”
GEOCACHING
This month, David Turner’s back hunting for geocaches, this
time around the Singing Ringing Tree and Crown Point.
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By the time I got to this geocache, the dog walkers and runners were out
in force and I had to be careful not to be seen rummaging around the
drystone wall where it was hidden. I finally laid my hands on the cache after
some suspicious looks from a few passers by and signed the log.
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The ruins where this cache was located provided plenty of hiding places.
After some searching around at the co-ordinates, the actual hiding place
was quite clever and the person who hid the cache had constructed a
stone box for the cache to sit inside. There were a few swappable items
inside and another wet logbook to attempt to sign.
This one managed to elude me for a while. I checked the log for this
cache on my phone and realised that it had recently been replaced after
the previous cache had gone missing. A little more searching and turning
of stones finally yielded the cache, and I was surprised to see that I was
the ‘first to find’ since the new cache had been placed - a much sought
after achievement in geocaching circles! The small (and dry) container
held a huge diamond. Being a generous sort of bloke I left it for the next
geocacher and moved on...
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Cache 4 - Limy Way 4a - Wall Corner
(GC40VHA)
Cache 4 - Limy Way 3 - Limy Water
(GC2V5XJ)
44 Lancashire Walks and Wildlife
P RO
Cache 5 - Limy Way 3a - Top of the Hill
(GC40VGG)
Cache 6 - Limy Way 4 – Ruin (GC2V5Y4)
After finding this cache, the first thing I had to do was tip it upside down to
pour out the rainwater that had found its way inside. The bright red race
car was a sizable addition to the cache, along with another rather damp
logbook. It was just off the track but there weren’t too many stones to turn
over in order to reveal its location.
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D
T R OA
Cache 3 - Limy Way 2 – Plantation
(GC2V5XB)
Singing Ringing
Tree
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Clowbridge
Reservoir
Cache 2 - Limy Way 1 – Dunnockshaw
(GC2V5X4)
This second cache was the first in the ‘Limy Way’ series, which would
make up the rest of the caches that I found that day. All the caches in the
series are to be found under stones but very often there are more than a
few stones to turn over during your search! Among other things the cache
contained an old one penny piece and, like most of the caches I was to go
on to find, it was very wet!
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CROW
After completing the Towneley Hall route a few days earlier in sunny
weather, I returned to the Singing Ringing Tree to grab some caches, but
as you can see from the photograph, the weather was back to ‘normal’
and I could barely make out the path back through the mist.
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Cache 1 - Das Singende Klingende
Baumchen (GC11A6P)
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B AC U
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More information on geocaching and how to get started can be
found in issues 5 and 7 of Lancashire Walks and Wildlife, with
the back copies available online.
The container was on show when I arrived at the co-ordinates and the
logbook too wet to sign unfortunately. I made sure to hide it a little
better and continued to the next one.
A671
Geocache locations
This trail is a particularly good option for beginners or those
with children, as all of the caches were fairly straightforward to
find and mostly located on safe pathways.
Whenever I’m out geocaching, I usually succeed in getting a few funny
looks from curious sheep. This outing proved no different as I made my
way along to the grassy path to the wall corner where this cache was
hiding. I soon managed to locate the cache and among a few other items I
found a large shell and a key ring.
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I then set off for what would have been the final cache of the day further up
the hill, but after much searching and noticing a few walkers coming up the
hill towards me, I had to admit defeat. Although, it’s the perfect excuse to
return to the Singing Ringing Tree in the near future.
www.walksandwildlife.co.uk 45
A varied walk around Burnley, taking in many of the area’s main attractions and landmarks.
This walk should take just under three hours, but we recommend taking in the view from
Crown Point and also spending some extra time exploring Towneley Hall and the grounds.
START
A
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wind-powered musical
The Singing Ringing Tree is a unique,
its position high above
from
ley
Burn
s
sculpture, which overlook
e is three metres tall, made
the town on Crown Point. The sculptur
l to form the shape of a
from galvanized steel pipes, which swir
, the pipes produce an
tree. When the wind drifts through them
eerie melodious hum.
inning architects Mike
The sculpture was designed by award-w
in 2006.
d
plete
Tonkin and Anna Liu and was com
Panopticons, a series of
Singing Ringing Tree is part of a set of
ss East Lancashire. Others
landmarks that have been erected acro
urfields in Blackburn and
include the Halo in Rossendale, Colo
Atom in Wycoller.
TOWNELEY HALL, TOWNELEY PARK, OFF TODMORDEN ROAD, BURNLEY, BB11 3RQ
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T he Singing Ringing Tree
The grounds and the area around Townele
y Hall at the
beginning of this route are great places
to see wildlife. Snipe,
reed bunting and siskin have previously
been spotted on
the lake in Towneley Park, yellow wagtail,
treecreepers and
nuthatch have also been seen and alon
g the River Calder,
look for dipper and kingfisher. The woo
dlands are filled with
bluebells and wild garlic in the spring, shor
tly followed by
rhododendrons in early summer.
1 Towneley Hall and the Singing Ringing Tree
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Don’t miss...
Wildlife watch
Cut out this page and
take with you...
Towneley Hall Art Gallery and Museum
Towneley Park, Burnley, BB11 3RQ
B
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This route starts from the stunning Towneley Hall – a historic house, art gallery and museum located in 400 acres
of beautiful parkland. With an extensive range of events, activities and exhibitions on offer, it’s perfect for the
whole family.
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The magnificent hall, which dates from the 14th century, contains fine period rooms decorated with oil paintings
and sculptures, while the museum houses an eclectic collection including an Egyptian mummy, the Whalley
Abbey vestments, Lancashire-made oak furniture and Pilkington Pottery.
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Towneley Hall is set in extensive parkland, where you can explore formal gardens, woodland walks, sculpture
and nature trails, and there’s also a large adventure playground to keep the little ones entertained.
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The art gallery boasts a spectacular collection of oil paintings, including works by Sir Lawrence Alma Tadema,
John William Waterhouse and Johan Zoffany and visitors can also explore life ‘below stairs’ in the Victorian
kitchen, servant’s bedroom and discover the hidden Priest Hole.
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If you’re after a bite to eat, the Stables café is close to the Hall and provides a range of refreshments from light
snacks to full meals.
There really is everything you need for a fun, educational and adventurous day out at Towneley Hall Art Gallery
and Museum, so make sure you take some time to visit before or after this walk.
The Hall is open from 12pm until 5pm Saturday to Wednesday and from 12.30pm until 5pm on Thursdays.
Please note Towneley Hall is closed on Fridays.
C
David Turner
START: Towneley Hall, Towneley Park, Burnley (GPS waypoint SD 857 313)
DISTANCE: 6 miles (10km)
DIFFICULTY:
HEIGHT GAIN:
APPROX. TIME: 2 hours 45 minutes
PARKING: Towneley Hall riverside car park available at the beginning of the walk
ROUTE TERRAIN: Tarmacked tracks and roads, woodland paths, open fields
FACILITIES: Toilets and café available at Towneley Hall
SUITABILITY: Not suitable for wheelchair users or prams, dogs permitted but must be kept under control around livestock
OS MAPS: Landranger 103 (Blackburn and Burnley), Explorer OL21 (South Pennines)
©Crown copyright 2014 Ordnance Survey Media 043/14
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Your walk, step-by-step
START
From the riverside car park,
make your way past the toilets and
café and over the footbridge. Keep
straight ahead and join the long
pathway, which leads up towards
Towneley Hall and the fountain.
Walk to the right side of the Hall
and around the extension. You can
also pass through the information
centre if this is open. Pass the Craft
Museum and take the footpath on
the right towards the large boulder,
then take the signed path on the
right through the trees.
Continue for 300 metres and when
you reach the shelter by Boggart
Bridge, turn right and follow the
path for around 150m then take
the next left to exit the grounds at
Todmorden Road. Carefully cross
over the road.
Turn left along the road then take
the marked footpath on the right
which leads up a steep track. Pass
through the gate then take the path
on the right.
“Unfortunately the footpath
here was closed when we
visited, due to the weather. If
the path is still closed when
you visit, please follow our
alternative route, which is
indicated on the map by a
dashed red line”
Bear right again when the path
forks and continue on with the
railway line visible down to your
right side.
Pass beside the decorated brick
kiln on the hill and continue along
the path. Beyond the hills, a kissing
gate leads to a group of new
houses known as ‘The Kilns’. Carry
on down the road to a marker post
on the left about 70m further on.
A Take the left hand turn up to
the steep steps into the woodland
and after 200m, there will be open
fields and a gate on your left. Do
not take this gate, but continue
along the path and out along a track
with a wooden fence on the right.
Follow the track for 150m looking
for a kissing gate on your left.
Go through the kissing gate and
follow the path as it rises through
more trees to a marker post on your
right. Pass beside the marker post
and carry on along the main track
to an area with four gates beside
the road.
Pass through the gate and turn
right onto the pavement of
Glenview Road. Then, after 50m,
cross the road to the marker post
by the drive. As you walk up the
drive take the signed footpath on
the right and head up between
the shrubbery and a fence to a
stile. Pass over the stile and follow
the field edge. Pass a lone broken
stile without a fence attached and
continue on over another stile.
Join the track and make your
way towards the green fencing.
Continue along the left side of the
fencing and pass over a stile onto
Burnley Golf Course. B
Turn left and follow the golf course
fence past the 16th tee, avoiding
the greens. Continue along the
edge of the course and after 350m
turn left at the marker post and
descend towards a stile. At the stile
look out for cattle and head straight
across the field towards the Singing
Ringing Tree on the horizon.
Carefully cross a boggy area in a
dip before you rise up onto the
brow of the field where there is a
marker post. Follow the direction
of the marker post and follow the
path along to the next post on a
track above a small stream. Follow
the track down to the stream and
another marker post.
Pass the post and follow the cattle
path up the valley side, keeping
the stream on your left. The path
climbs steadily, above a boggy area
then swings left over a footbridge.
A few metres on you will come to a
stile to the left side of the fence by
the wood.
On the other side of the fence
follow the path markers over four
boardwalk bridges. Follow the
path past another marker post and
over two further board bridges to
a kissing gate. Through the gate
follow the path on the raised dyke
about 400m to Crown Point Road.
Carefully climb the stile and cross
Crown Point Lane to the new path.
Turn left after 150m, heading back
to the road, where you should
carefully cross again and follow the
zig-zag path about 600m up to the
fence gap to Crown Point car park. C
“Here, to your left, you
should be able to see
Burnley’s Panopticon, the
Singing Ringing Tree – a
wind-powered musical
sculpture that was completed
in 2006”
Through the fence follow the path
left and down, then go along the
fenced path around to the Singing
Ringing Tree.
After admiring the views from the
top, go over the stile to the right of
the Singing Ringing Tree and turn
left into the field. Go downwards
400m to a wall corner stile.
Continue through the next field
looking for the trees of Dixon Hill
Plantation and cottage roof, head
down towards the cottage gate
and stone stile. Continue down
the steep concrete track past the
cottage to Bacup Road.
Carefully cross the road and turn
left along the pavement. Some
400m on turn right into Dyneley
Lane D past the postbox and
follow it down. Follow the road
to the left at the sharp bend and
carry on.
Just past the Dyneley Hall entrance
turn right through a gap in the
stone wall and pass over a small
footbridge. Follow the wall side
for 100m to another stile. Head
straight down to the railway and
cross carefully via the gate. On
the opposite side, follow the
path down to Todmorden Road.
Carefully cross and turn right.
Around 20m on, turn left along the
signed path which leads between
houses and out onto a road. Cross
over and continue along the
opposite footpath and over the
little river bridge to Park Road.
Turn left and walk 300m to an
old kissing gate into Broad Ing
Meadow. Head straight onwards
and follow the fence line to arrive
back at the Towneley Hall grounds.
Continue towards the bridge and
back into the car park.
If footpath is closed – please
follow our alternative route,
indicated on the map by a
dashed red line:
Turn right along Todmorden
Road for 450m before
turning left down Rock Lane.
Continue under the railway
bridge then turn left into
The Kilns. Take the footpath
on the right just before the
houses to reach A
1 Towneley Hall and the Singing Ringing Tree
David Turner
48 Lancashire Walks and Wildlife