Wilderswood

Introduction

The photograph on this page of Wilderswood by David Dixon as part of the Geograph project.

The Geograph project started in 2005 with the aim of publishing, organising and preserving representative images for every square kilometre of Great Britain, Ireland and the Isle of Man.

There are currently over 7.5m images from over 14,400 individuals and you can help contribute to the project by visiting https://www.geograph.org.uk

Wilderswood

Image: © David Dixon Taken: 22 May 2012

Wilderswood (Wilder’s Wood) is a heavily wooded area on the southern flank of Winter Hill, south of George's Lane, near Rivington Pike. Up until the second half of the twentieth century, Wilder's Wood was much smaller than it is today, being mainly confined to the area of Wilder's Clough (http://wtp2.appspot.com/wheresthepath.htm?lat=53.59846231682764&lon=-2.531308309629222&gz=14&oz=8>=6. – present day and historical map). The bulk of the area was once bare moorland with few trees (except for the nearby wooded cloughs) and would have been fairly busy with local coal mining activities.There was also a large house known as “Rockhaven Castle” which was demolished in 1942, possibly because it provided an ideal marker for German bombers trying to target the Loco works in Horwich (http://www.about-horwich.co.uk/horwich/about-horwich-Rockhaven_Castle.html About Horwich - includes a photograph of the castle in its heyday). The larger area now covered by Wilderswood was planted with Beech, Alder, Corsican and Lodgepole pines in 1959 in an agreement between Lancashire County Council and Blackrod Urban District Council. Hybrid Larch was planted later to replace dead pines. http://www.daveweb.co.uk/whcombined.pdf Winter Hill Scrapbook compiled by Dave Lane http://justramblingon.co.uk/country-walks/rivington/to-the-wilderswood/ “To The Wilderswood” - Mal Firth “Just Rambling On”

Images are licensed for reuse under creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0

Image Location

coordinates on a map icon
Latitude
53.607418
Longitude
-2.531138