June 2024: Field trip from Greenhall
A dozen members were treated to a sunny and fascinating afternoon in the company of THS stalwart and lifelong Greenhall resident John Wilson. His farmhouse home is a listed building with many intriguing and unusual features, including a 1673 date stone. John described how this farm, like others in Tatham Fells, would originally have been created as a curvilinear enclosure of a small area of the “green” – rough moorland fell – as long as 800 years ago. He has researched changes in ownership over the centuries, before his grandfather became tenant and, from the 1930s, owner of Greenhall.
A short walk took us to Ringstones, where two houses – at one time distinct farms and both with date stones – stand next to the cobbled yard. From here we followed a field path to Lanshaw, and on past the site of a locally notable 1938 car accident to the open fell and the attractive Willy Close barn by Slaidburn Road. Then down to Moorcock, once an alehouse, albeit briefly – though long enough to have been the scene of a police raid in response to reports of illegal selling and consumption of alcohol on a Sunday. In a pre-bicycle age, the policeman must have walked miles to this remote spot, doubtless tipped off by a zealous Sabbatarian neighbour annoyed at the weekly flouting of the law.
A short walk on field paths returned us to Greenhall, where much-needed refreshments awaited.
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