Drive & Stroll, with RON FREETHY - this week, the village of FOULRIDGE

WHEN many people are thinking of planning a walk around Foulridge, they think only of a stroll along the canal towpath towards Barnoldswick.

There is, however, much more to the village than this.

Take all day and explore three routes all from the village where the Hole in the Wall pub or the Hare and Hounds are rightly famous for their bar snacks. Foulridge is situated on the B6251 from Colne to Barnoldswick.

STROLL 1: From the area close to the Langroyd Hotel follow the circular walk around Lake Burwains. Take 1 hours and enjoy the wildlife.

STROLL 2: From the opposite side of the road follow the old road towards Laneshaw Bridge. Turn left along a track which passes between two more reservoirs. Follow the footpath down into Foulridge and cross the road into the village via Croft Mill.

STROLL 3: After a picnic or a bar snack stroll down to Foulridge Wharf. This is like a blast from the past as the old stables for the barge horses are now a cafe and shop. There is also a museum of canal life and there are canal trips aboard a barge which has a bar and light snacks. For those with energy to spare there is a towpath walk to Barnoldswick via Salterforth.

I have been a keen naturalist for more than 50 years and Foulridge has been one of my favourite haunts for more years than I care to remember.

The circular walk around Foulridge has only been developed in recent times but it has been very well designed and for birdwatchers, especially in the winter, it is one of the most fascinating places in Lancashire.

The "lake" was designed in the late 18th century to provide water to operate the canal locks. I would guess that first thing the water settled the diversity of wildlife would have substantially increased. The late summer sunshine began to warm the atmosphere and Foulridge became not just a haven for birds but there seemed to be butterflies almost on every plant. There were lots of common species such as red admiral, small tortoiseshell and large whites. There were also some rarities such as the painted lady and the comma.

Looking at my diaries for last spring I saw that there were lots of orange tip and meadow brown, so Lake Burwains, also known as Lower Foulridge, was good for butterflies earlier in the year.

Upper Foulridge reservoir is much more open than Burwains and the stroll between the latter and the even smaller reservoir was an autumn birdwatcher's paradise. Here feeding on the grass was a large flock of Canada geese, plus lapwing, golden plover and wigeon.

A flock of starlings rose in panic and I thought that I had disturbed them until I saw a short eared owl and a sparrowhawk both on the lookout for breakfast.

My third stroll was a real contrast to the first two because here I concentrated on history rather than natural history.

In preparation for this walk I bought a couple of books each published by Shire Publications at less than £2.50 each.

Between these two books I had some insight into the work of families who spent their whole life on the barges. They loved their horses, taught their children to read and write, decorated their barges with great skill with many being first rate artists.

The men were hard working and did use the canalside pubs while the women also did their share of labour but were also skilled with the needle and thread and paintbrush. The next time you stroll along a canal look at the architecture along the banks. These buildings had a function to perform but the design had character. Many of these buildings have aged gracefully and in recent years British Waterways have realised the tourist potential of canals.

I completed my hat trick of walks by following the towpath from Foulridge to Salterforth, watching swallows feeding over the water and mute swans and moorhens gliding by.

I could identify warehouses, canal keepers cottages, the Anchor Inn, once the haunt of the bargees, and lots of lime kilns where limestone was burned to produce lime for mortar and to fertilise the fields.

I thought of families and their horses, gliding along earning a living amidst glorious countryside. There were downsides of course (there is to any job) and it cannot have been very pleasant unloading limestone or coal in the middle of Burnley or Blackburn on an ice cold wet day in December.

I much prefer Foulridge on a warm late summer afternoon with the birds, the bees and the butterflies to keep me company.