family lower coppice and pleck brook walk, accrington,

This short walk has been popular with my two daughters aged 10 and 13. Using my route on a separate blog. From the top of avenue parade, accrington. Walk up past the play area and take the path to the right through the trees after a few hundred metres there is a cross pathways. The tree immediately on your right before the path coming accross is a good climbing option for children. 

Meander through the woods carrying straight on rather than up the hill to the left, there are other climbable trees and lovely bird song to hear. At the end of the path turn right and then when fence post appears on your left take the first path afterwards that goes off between the fence posts. Continue on this across the fairly open field as it drops down to pleck brook. Here you can 'touch the water' as I like to do! Follow the stream for a hundred metres to the drain valve before climbing up onto a field (when the stream is shallow you can criss cross it using the stones within the stream. To retrace to the coppice, turn right and follow the right hand path that leads up to Washington road. Which leads you back to the starting point. 

The walk is just over 2 kilometres with 40ish metres climbing. I would allow 45 mins to a hour depending on the age of the children to complete the walk. 

The tree climbing and stream make me think of the joy many of us adults had in our wonder years as we explored are neighborhood which many children don't seem to do as much now! Keep exploring, best wishes james

Woodlands wander (Clayton le Moors)

For this walk, we abandon the west Pennine moors surrounding the Accrington/Hyndburn area. But discover fabulous wooded and canal areas the locality has to offer.

In conjunction with my route map blog, you can see I start off at Avenue Parade, Accrington. skirt the lower edge of the coppice, crossing Burnley Road, before heading towards Accrington Cricket Club. At the cricket club, I turned right down a path alongside the ground and then left at the top of it into a pathed wooded area. After a few hundred metres this path bends to the right to meet a path cross junction with a marker post. Go straight ahead on the path in front and follow the path up around slightly left. After a few hundred metres you will be half way up Whinney Hill, there is a bench in a clearing giving fantastic views south (good brew spot). Continue on the main path as the path curves to meet Whinney Hill road near the entrance to a modern housing estate. Cross the road and follow the path down the side on greengates building supplies. 

Follow this path as you enjoy (may need to ignore smell!) the tip and landfill site to your right and old brickworks(I found it strangely interesting, the large size of the land and on-goings). After a kilometre or so the path turns right alongside the M65 motorway before crossing the footbridge (excellent views of Ribble valley from footbridge.). Follow the path straight ahead through farmland till you reach the main Burnley Road in Altham. Turn right follow this for a few hundred metres, just after you cross over a canal turn left down the lane (before you do spare a moment to look at the memorial on the right hand side of the road honouring the many life's lost in the moorfield mining disaster from the 19th century.)

After a couple of hundred metres you will come across an entrance to Woodlands, I completed a circuit of this lovely wood. Squirrels and birds aplenty. After completing a circuit I carried back on past initial entry point and took the signpost to the Liverpool and Leeds canal. Once at the canal I turned left and followed the canal past swans, ducks and agricultural countryside for around a mile. I then took a grass path off to my left to cross the footbridge and double back a little to access a footbridge back over the M65. From here I turned right and past the side of the still working brick works. Heading up through Huncoat, going more or less straight across at the top of Bolton Road through newish housing (foxwood chase) up to take a footpath up to the right as the road bends left. This ascends to join a footpath that can with a right turn be followed down a track to the bowling green at the base of the coppice (the initial ascent from foxwood chase, gives good views if you turn around of our route and beyond into the lush trough of bowland and Ribble valley).

I would allow 3 hours for walk(that is averaging 5 km an hour this allows for some view and snack stops on top of that, it is relatively flat for the local area, 229 metres gained during ascents and a travel distance of 14 kilometres). Thanks for reading, get out there and enjoy walking.