The 13 members who met on a lovely summers evening in Irwell Vale had been promised a short walk which would include a magnificent railway viaduct; the oldest house in Rossendale; industrial archaeology; the remains of Lumb dye works; geology; a Site of Special Scientific Interest; a first world war bomb crater ….. and more!

Walking on we passed under the recently restored Helmshore viaduct constructed in 1846 by the East Lancashire Railway.  Diverting to a recently restored pond we were shown a soil core from its base, the bottom 15cms of which was peat, radiocarbon dated to 13,500 years ago, pre-dating the last two ice ages!

Continuing along the track to the Lumb Dye Works vat store (now a house in a delightful setting) we were shown where a huge copper vat had once stood and next to it a huge single stone slab used for who knows what.  Pausing for a break, Alan showed us 350 million year old fossils found in a nearby Site of Scientific Interest (SSI).

Our next stop was a small crater dropped from a Zeppelin airship in September 1916, in the midst of WW1.    Finally, standing on a narrow path with a broad grass ledge in front of us, Alan showed us two stones that had obviously been rounded in a river or stream but had then been flatted on one side by a glacier rubbing across them.

All agreed that this was a truly outstanding couple of hours.