Soutergate walk (From The Westmorland Gazette)

Soutergate walk

8:30am Friday 24th June 2011

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This is a second walk from Soutergate. The last one was in The Westmorland Gazette on April 28. If you want a really long challenging walk add the two together.

This, on its own, is a lovely airy walk. Choose a good day to enjoy the spectacular coastal views and the huge expanse of rolling hills and moorland. Check your map before you set off, perhaps mark up the route, as some of the green routes on the map are not always clear on the ground. We did this walk on Bank Holiday Monday and met only one person walking his dogs. Wear boots and carry your waterproofs.

Park in the new car park at Soutergate, grid ref 229817. This lies on the east side of the A595, less than a mile south of the crossroads at Kirkby-in-Furness.

1 Leave by the gate at the far end of the car park and walk left beside the neatly channelled Soutergate Beck. Look for wood sorrel growing along its low banks. Ignore a ford over the beck and carry on to a pretty signposted bridge over the stream. Once across stride up the pasture to a gate to Low Hall Farm. Ignore the waymarks on the latter and turn right to walk through the farm and then along a metalled way to reach a narrow road.

2 Turn left and climb steadily between several houses at Gill End and then ascend quite steeply beside Bank House Gill. The stream drops down in delightful cascades, its banks supporting daffodils in the spring. Carry on up between the burgeoning hedgerows, below which grow, celandines, primroses, barren strawberry and pink butterbur. At High Bank House Farm, take the signposted way, right, to descend between dwellings to a waymarked gate, the second on the left, at the bottom of the short slope into a sloping pasture. From here you have a superb view of Duddon sands and Back Combe beyond. Continue left keeping roughy parallel with the wall to your left to pass through a gate – difficult to open unless you pull the top towards you. Go ahead over rough grass, keeping parallel with the wall on your right. As you approach the hedge ahead, look for the waymark on the right against the wall. This marks the start of the zig-zagging path up the steep slope on the left. From afar this path is obvious but when walking it follow it carefully especially now that the grass is lush after the last few weeks of rain.

3 At a rather battered wall, the path moves left to pass through it and then back to the wall on your right. Go on up still quite steeply on an old track with a row of scattered hawthorns to your left. Continue until you reach the wall corner, with a row of Brathay flags just before it, to pass through the gate on your right on to the lower slopes of Bank House Moor. Go ahead along a good track, as directed by the waymark, and enjoy the superb view down to the Duddon Estuary before it sweeps out into Morecambe Bay. Step across a small stream and carry on bending right and then left, soon reach a waymark at a Y-junction. Here take the left branch and climb gently to reach a gate below a TV station.

4 Do not pass through but turn left and follow the grassy trod to left of the boundary wall. Stroll the high level way, with fine views over the wall of rolling slopes and then the northern tip of Harlock reservoir and the wind farm. Look for wheatears flitting about the wall and the heather and for skylarks, rising high into the air. When parallel with the first windmill (over the wall) look for a narrow path left and arc round with it to avoid a bog. Soon the path begins to wind back towards the wall on a narrow causeway. Just before you reach the wall step over a small boggy stream to reach the path beside the wall – this manouvre is required because where the stream reaches the wall it is very boggy.

5 Go on climbing gently beside the friendly wall and look for the wide track, left that climbs easily to the trig point on the summit of Bank House Moor. Return to the path and carry on to the brow and then descend to the Fell Road between Ulverston and Four Lane Ends. Turn right and in a few steps climb the signposted stile on the left. Here, ignore the arm pointing slightly right, and slope left towards the fence. There seems to be no path and at the time of writing you cut off the corner through a magnificent buttercup pasture where young trees have been planted. Pick your way carefully as you cross two small streams and then head down to an obvious, large, waymarked, wooden stile over the fence. Turn right and walk a few steps to join a wide well waymarked track. If this bit of rough walking is not for you, go on right along the road, until you can turn left into a wide track. This eventually passes through the delightful Pepper’s Wood to reach the gate on to the open fell.

6 Go ahead beyond the gate or turn left up the track if you have taken the short cut. This is a lovely way, climbing steadily through the moorland slopes. At the Y-junction take the right branch (the left branch is a bit of a balancing act). Follow this to a junction of the two paths where you take the wide grassy swathe on the left, that drops easily down to the valley. Here the earth formations are most extraordinary and need some concentration in walking narrow paths as directed by a waymark. Cross Gill House Beck and carry on up the slope. Watch out for the waymark directing you left along a bumpy narrow path. This leads you to a ford over a little beck. Go through the gate beyond and walk on to pass through another and then down a track to a narrow road. Turn right and at a junction left again and stroll down the lovely lane and through Beckside. Turn left immediately beyond the church gate and then through the stile on the right a little way along the road.

Turn left and walk beside the magnificent recreation ground to join the path that leads you all the way beck to the parking area.

Information:

Terrain: Much easy walking on wide grassy tracks. Some steepish climbs and one boggy patch to be avoided with care. Some narrow lane walking. Wonderful views.

Distance: 7-8 miles

Time: 4 hours

Map: OS Explorer OL 6

NB: Restrictions on space mean that this article provides a general summary of the route. It is advisable for anyone who plans to follow the walk to take a copy of the relevant Ordnance Survey map.