Billinge Hill & Winter Hill

Billinge Hill is a place that I’m sure you would only visit if you either lived in the immediate vicinity, or if you were ticking Marilyns or HuMPs off a list. It’s not the sort of place that, but for those reasons, would jump off the map and demand a detour from the M6 to visit it. However, now that I’ve taken an interest in the Marilyn list, we did take the detour (detour on our way to where? Well, to other Marilyns, of course!).

It’s not a particularly interesting hill, save for the views from its summit, and there’s nothing in its surroundings that led me to think that a circular outing would be worthwhile, meaning this was an outright out-and-back bagging walk. A walk of smack on a mile, three quarters of which was along a tarmac track, took us to the top and we revelled in the glory of the day as we took in the vista.

Then we turned around, hot-footed it back to Colin, whereupon we pointed his nose in the direction of Rivington.

The car park at the south end of Rivington Reservoirs was busy, but I would guess that most people were visiting the reservoirs themselves, as only a very small handful of people were seen on our route, which was up Winter Hill – a far more pleasing looking hill.

We didn’t quite go to the top of Rivington Pike on our way, but we did enjoy the view back to it as we continued on our route:

A very pleasing walk over moorland, saw us onto what looked to me, from the map, to be a track, but on the ground gave every appearance of a public road. Amongst many masts up there, one in particular stood out (1000’ high, says t’internet) as a focal point for much of the outward walk:

Whilst the trig is in amongst the masts, they didn’t detract wholly from the merits of the place, nor did they destroy all of the views, which were fine and far-reaching. It was still a good place to be (in fact, in the case of the huge TV transmitter, it was quite a spectacle; I’ve never been that close to such a tall antenna before!).

Making a mental note to check later* whether Google could give us any further information as to the ‘barbarous murder’ in 1838 of George Henderson (who is remembered by a plaque), we made our way, via a slightly different route, back to the Reservoirs car park.

The stats for the day were 2 miles and 250’ of ascent for Billinge Hill and 5.8 miles and 1000’ of ascent for Winter Hill.

(*As I type this two days later, I’ve still not had any internet coverage in a location where I’ve been at liberty to use it.)