Race 25 of 60 @ 60 : Rivington Pike

Just as Wordsworth travelled to Monmouthshire to prove, in his lines about Tintern Abbey, that he could be boring outside the Lake District too, we went to Horwich to confirm that classic fell races can also be found outside the National Park. In fact, with the Rivington Pike Race first being held in 1882, this is thought to be the oldest fell race still going. The 2024 edition was the centenary celebration of Horwich RMI Harriers (that’s the Railway Mechanics’ Institute) who’ve been organising the race since just after the second world war.

It’s a pretty simple race route, up and down to the tower on the fringe of Winter Hill, scene of the biggest and best mass trespass for access which set off from Bolton in 1896, decades before the copycat Kinder Scout kerfuffle of 1932. The Kinder Scout trespass is probably more famous because of it’s success in securing access whereas the Winter Hill one ended up with 12,000 Boltonians drinking the pubs dry in the village of Belmont and Colonel Ainsworth’s lackeys and gamekeepers securing the moor for the toffs. It’s a matter of priorities I suppose. Anyway, since I started with poetry, here’s a short one by Allen Clarke, published in 1920:

Will yo’ come o’ Sunday mornin’

For a walk o’er Winter Hill?

Ten thousand went last Sunday

But there’s room for thousand still!

Oh there moors are rare and bonny

And the heather’s sweet and fine

And the roads across the hilltops –

Are the people’s – yours and mine!

 

Ahead of a fair few

For us, the event was a bit of a family get together with Luke leading us home, Tim not appearing on the results although he was standing chatting to Luke when I got there ( I guess I’ll have to admit that he beat me), then Katie, just a few seconds in front of Mary.

Results: 123rd/396 V60-69: 8th/38 Time: 26:09

Luke 67th in 23:38;  Tim (estimated): 109th in 25:30;

Katie: 253rd in 30:43; Mary: 258th in 30:54

Distance: 5.2km Climb: 213m