It was in April 18, 1936, that the first trig pillar was installed by mapping agency Ordnance Survey (OS). Some of the pillars may have been moved, removed or you may need the landowners permission to visit them. By this point of running the route I was trotting rather than running and grateful for little traffic.

After his death in 1929, his widow, Lady Nina Knowles, presented Turton Tower to Turton Urban District Council in 1930, and it became the council chamber. From here, poking out above the trees in the surrounding park you get amazing views across the Forest of Bowland and out to Morecombe Bay. She is based in Scotland and is an all-round outdoors enthusiast with favorite activities including trail running, mountain walking, mountain biking, road cycling, triathlon and skiing (both downhill and backcountry). My imagination, by the way, is far from desultory; I'm presently plotting a short story in which a walker, inevitably northern and well stricken in years, goes doo-lally through an excess of cakes and tea and starts rendering homage to these unbeguiling stumps, believing them to be the souls of dead protesters who participated in The Great Moors Walk back when bread was still rationed.

A prominent limestone hill, Warton Crag is the highest point in the Arnside and Silverdale AONB at 535 feet (163 m). There are good views also to the south with the Manchester skyline often visible and of course Peel Tower to the east.

From the summit of Black Hill head Northwest on a small worn grass path, which eventually becomes more visible as it wanders down the hill. Turton Towers has a long and varied history with many famous occupants including Humphrey Chetham, who founded the famous music school in Manchester. Just me (on the pillar), my son (at its base) and my wife (behind the camera) being Silly at Rhossili on the Gower peninsula. Ling Hill is a mountain summit in the Ingleborough to Blackpool region in the county of Lancashire, England.

The spread of man’s impact on the land was starkly seen from on high with the vast industrial and residential spread of conjoined Blackburn, Darwen, Oswaldtwistle and Accrington. Constructed between 1936-1962 as part of the Ordnance Survey’s retriangulation of Great Britain, this logbook is your ideal hiking companion as you ‘bag’ them all in Lancashire.

While slightly longer I’d head on the North side of the reservoir to avoid a bog where the drainage ditch on the south side ends. Pass through a gate stile and turn right and follow another good path north to the trig point at summit. An OS spokesperson explained: “Triangulation works by determining the location of a point by measuring angles to it from known points at either end of a fixed baseline. But it is a lovely diversion taking in some great history and scenery before the final push back to Burnley, which is now only 20 miles away.This is the third reservoir that we have now visited, all of which serve Bolton, although they are now in the Borough of Blackburn with Darwen. Thanks to the construction of a paved path and moorland restoration work Black Hill is now grassy again.