Walk 74: Black Combe

The Duddon Estuary, seen from the ascent of White Combe

Date completed: 11th October 2013.

Weather conditions: Good on the whole, with comfortable temperature, no rain and some sunshine. However, it was very windy on top of Black Combe (though I suspect that may be true on most days).

Summits bagged: White Combe (1361’), Stoupdale Head (1548’) and Black Combe (1970’). These are the three summits named in the Black Combe chapter of The Outlying Fells (pp. 162-177), though see the note on that page. They become numbers 227-229 of the 330 Wainwrights.

The south summit of Black Combe — damn fine view, damn fine cairn.

Start and end point: Started at Green Road railway station, and finished at Silecroft station. These two (separated by Millom) are on the Cumbrian coast line between Barrow and Ravenglass. I fitted the walk into the gap between the 10.33 arrival at Green Road (which comes in all the way from Preston, departing there 08.38) and the 14.37 departure from Silecroft, which in theory should have got me back to Preston at about 16.33; however, see my commentary below. I was not particularly pushing the pace to do the walk in these 4 hours, but those who will take longer can note that the next departure from Silecroft (at least, the next to Barrow) is currently 16.18, and anyone could do this walk in that time.

The walk could, of course, be done the other way around, but I don’t think it should be: you would be walking away from most of the best scenery, and the end would be far less satisfying. Do it from Green Road to Silecroft.

Cartmel Sands, near Ulverston, pictured from the train this morning

Distance walked: 8.91 miles

Total ascent: 2326 feet

Pub at end: The Miners’ Arms, Silecroft.  Let’s face it, any village with a pub called the “Miners’ Arms” is probably going to have had a hard time economically over the last few decades, and Silecroft certainly feels like such a place. The pub, however, was absolutely heaving, because I arrived in the middle of a wake. Lucky I did too, otherwise it would not have been open before 6pm on a weekday: this is important to note if planning this walk, as there are no other sources of refreshment in Silecroft that I could see. It opens from noon on Saturdays and Sundays, and seemed OK but on the day I visited it was impossible to form a considered opinion about it.

View on the final descent from Black Combe

It does have the advantage of being so close to the railway station that you could probably wait until you heard the level crossing siren go, leave then and still make the train (assuming you are going to Barrow, anyway).

Route card: Route card for walk 74: Black Combe

Route:  Despite the altitude gained, which, as you start at sea level, is reasonable, this is an easy walk throughout. The pull up to White Combe is a bit of a drag but it doesn’t take long, and apart from that everything is easy. Routefinding is also no problem in good weather: in poorer visibility the walk might be trickier, but to be honest, in poorer visibility there’s no point doing it anyway, as by far the best reason to do it are the views.

View north towards Whitfell (right), with Buckbarrow and Kinmont Buckbarrow in the middle distance

Stoupdale Head is only worth adding to the walk if you are on a pure Wainwright-bagging run, although the extra time and effort needed are pretty minimal, say about 20 minutes of level walking.

From Green Road station take the road which leads to the nearby village of The Green, and when you come to the bridge from which you can see the main A5093, swing left over it and cross the main road — I would say ‘with care’, but to be honest this was a wholly traffic-free experience on the day I did it, eerily so in fact.

The town of Barrow-in-Furness, from White Combe

Take the lane straight ahead, and about 100 yards further at the top of the slope, turn right on a footpath signposted “Lanthwaite Bridge”. This leads you up and over the shoulder of land between the valleys of Black Beck and Whicham Beck. Although not always with a clear path, as long as you keep looking for the next stile or gate ahead, and head always in the direction of Black Combe, there should be no problems.

At Lanthwaite Bridge turn right along the A595, which you do need to walk on for a few hundred yards, unfortunately. This was also a fairly quiet road when I walked on it, but that does not mean it was empty, and there is one bend in particular at which care is needed.

Tumulus on the summit of White Combe (also the only other hiker I passed today, though I did see a couple more in the distance)

Keep going until you pass the cottages (don’t be tempted down the first footpath), then go through the gate, up the field and into a rather swampy channel between walls that starts the ascent of White Combe. At the top of this first section, I found it tricky to work out where I should be: the way does not lie down the obvious path ahead, but through the gate; and then not along the wall, but up the slope. It took me a little while to find the path, however, and there’s a lot of bracken round here so in high summer this could be a pain. The path does exist, though, and I probably just needed to go further up, earlier, than I did.

Nor did the path I was on look as if it would lead to White Combe summit, so I struck up the slope on my own at one point; a tedious haul but a short one. There may have been other ways to reach it. The summit is not particularly well-defined in terms of the landscape, but it is unmistakeable thanks to its huge pile of stones. There are excellent views of the Duddon estuary from here, and of Black Combe itself, showing the huge gouge in its side which gave the fell its name.

Caravan site and wind farm, near Silecroft

White Combe is a ridge sticking out from the main spine of the mountain, and as you walk along it you are coming onto this spine.  Turning right will lead you to Stoupdale Head, but do bear in mind there’s nothing there except a sad little pile of stones; maybe I should have been more conscientious and checked out the view into Stoupdale that Wainwright mentions, but I didn’t. Whether you visit this point or not, the route onto Black Combe should now be obvious, and much further advice on routefinding unnecessary.

Let me at least mention that Black Combe has two summits, and the south one should be visited as well, as it has a better view, and also a very impressive cairn. The path down to Whicham is easy, with brilliant views of the Irish Sea, but steep in places, so do keep an eye on your feet instead of the landscape — stop walking to take pictures!

View towards the main Lake District, from Black Combe (Stoupdale Head is the moor immediately ahead)

At the bottom there is a signpost back up the hill and right to the ‘A595’, but I think it is important to be careful here: I did turn right, and found myself out on the road about a half mile north of Silecroft, and unlike the other two A-roads used today this one was busy, and unsafe for pedestrians. At that signpost I would therefore turn left, as it looks from the map like a path swings down straight into Whicham.

Silecroft village is just off the main road down its one real street, and the Miners’ Arms is right by the railway station (you won’t miss that, either): but as I said above, remember that it does not open before 6pm during the week.

Another view of the Duddon estuary, this time with friendly sheep. Millom is in the middle distance, below, Barrow on the peninsula behind.

‘Not my problem’ commentary: Sometimes I take the Mac on walks, but today was a proper day off (I’m working Sunday coming, and worked the last two, come to that), so I didn’t. Which means I am typing up these notes after a night to sleep on my feelings about yesterday. Had I written the blog up on the train I think you would have got, let’s say, a polemic about the way I (and several other people) were treated on the way home, and I am going to mention it towards the end, but (probably fortunately) it won’t have the full Meldrew effect.

Even if I hadn’t decided to do all the Outlying Fells I would have come to climb Black Combe at some point. Despite sitting a long way out from the rest of the main body of mountains, it’s clearly still a part of the Lake District massif, with a high ridge, going through Whitfell and up the side of the Duddon Valley making it potentially possible to walk from here all the way through to the Scafells. Being so far out made it illogical to include it in the original Pictorial Guide, but Wainwright gives it more pages in volume 8 than any other fell and also outlines more different routes of ascent (four, to be precise; most chapters in this volume have just one). Add to that the apparent ease of access from the Cumbrian coast rail line, all mean that at some point I would have come to see what it was like. Going on the description of the view, it also made sense to save it for a day with a good weather forecast, which this was.

Cartmel sands, crossed by the viaduct that links Ulverston and Cark stations, performed for the camera on the way home as well (cf. the picture above: this is taken from pretty much the same point, as the appearance of Chapel Island in the background of each picture proves)

However, it is also a long way from other places, tucked in the far corner of Cumbria where, I get the impression, very few people come. At least Barrow is a sizeable town with (just about) functioning industry, a Conference football team, etc.: but when it takes another 45 minutes to get a train round from there to Silecroft thanks to there being no bridge over the Duddon estuary… we are talking remote, certainly by English standards. I am not trying to be rude about Silecroft, the village where I ended the walk — its pub, the Miners’ Arms, was a busy and welcoming place (thanks to the first funeral to cross the path of this project — there have been two weddings before) — but it does look terribly run down, with a decaying service station being the first thing you see of it and a general look of neglect. As I said above, any village with a pub called the “Miners’ Arms” can probably be expected to have had a hard time of it recently.

Offshore wind farm, from Black Combe summit

The landscape round here has always been used as a source of energy, even if the coal mines are now closed. Those sensitive to this kind of thing should note they will see wind farms on this walk — some small ones on land and a big one, out to sea. However, you also get the chance to compare their appearance with that of Sellafield nuclear power station, also prominently seen to the north. Personally I prefer the wind farms. Can you say that the farms honestly detract from the two pictures on this page in which they appear? Now, admittedly I took a half-decent photo of Sellafield once too (from Crag Fell: it’s the one at the top of the walk 28 page), but there you go.  We need power as a society — both these installations are consequences of that. Whether they bring much direct benefit to the people of this corner of the world I am less sure.

Townend Knotts, a little excrescence on the side of Black Combe

OK, my journey home. I should have got home at 6pm, instead I got home at 8pm, thanks to the fact that the connection at Barrow, which was running late anyway, was not held a couple more minutes so it could meet the train coming in from Millom and points north (including Silecroft). There were at least 10 people intending to make that connection. The connection is an advertised one, that is, it appears in the train timetables and when you book a ticket online, for instance, your schedule will be calculated based on the fact that connection can be made in Barrow.

Now connections get missed sometimes. I accept that. But what annoyed us most of all — and there were other passengers complaining in similar ways, including one very determined elderly lady who was clearly furious, but just about bottling it up for the sake of decorum — was the sheer bloody indifference of every single member of staff we spoke to. With the possible exception of the guard on the first train down into Barrow (and at that point the scale and form of the cock-up had not become apparent), nothing we said was treated with anything other than an absolutely brazen ‘Not my problem’ attitude, reflecting, I think, the fact that the idea of a ‘rail network’ in the UK no longer makes sense when coming to think about planning and infrastructure, but makes absolute sense if the interlocking organisations are seen as a network designed simply to deflect blame.

Stoupdale Head, from White Combe

All I wanted to hear at some point was someone who might even have uttered the words “I’m sorry about this” — and not a mechanical voice reading from the “we apologise for any inconvenience caused” script; but a real apology, someone actually acknowledging the problem. Or, “let me see what I can do to help you”.  Why did we deserve that? Because I paid £51 for today’s train journey, fifty-one bloody quid, an outrageous price actually (Lancaster to Dalegarth, via the R&ER, cost less than half that back in August). I give a couple of thousand quid a year to the train companies, in fact. Many give much more.

The reason for Black Combe’s name is obvious when one sees the huge glacial gouge, from which issues Blackcombe Beck. This picture is taken looking down into the combe. (Worth also pointing out this is the windiest place I have stood for some time.)

So I’m a paying customer and if I got treated like that by a shop I would never return. Alas, the same exit strategy is not available here and the whole attitude towards the customer is one of studied indifference and not the slightest element of care. The train we wanted to catch was already running late. To let it go, when surely everyone present knew that the first train was only a couple of minutes away, was inconsiderate at best, studiedly contemptuous towards the customer at worst. And when you want to complain — ‘Here’s the form’. ‘Phone this number’. Meaning – I don’t want to hear it, it’s not my problem, you’re the unreasonable one.

How sad it is that I have to report this kind of thing on a blog which is supposed to be promoting public transport. But so be it, that was my experience today. Black Combe was a good walk, with stunning views and I got some great photos. Whether it was worth a nine-hour epic journey…  yeah, probably it was. But one for which I am getting my money back.