Following in the tracks of the Victorians
Today, with the beautiful weather, we took a trip to Hollingworth Lake near Littleborough and Smithy Bridge, somewhere I had never been before.
Rather than jumping in the car, however, we decided to take the train. At £5.80 return for two adults and one child with a family railcard (under fives still free) that wouldn’t even cover the current extortionate cost of the diesel, let alone wear and tear and the pay and display parking at the lake. It is of course a little slower but that was not an issue today.
Hollingworth Lake is actually a reservoir built in 1804 to feed the Rochdale Canal but later became a tourist attraction for the Victorians and I realised that today, by choosing rail, we were following in the tracks of the same Victorians who would have visited by rail in the latter half of the 19th century. After closure in 1960, Smithy Bridge was reopened in 1985 and is fairly well served with a half-hourly service between Manchester Victoria and Leeds; a pity the same cannot be said for our local station, Blackrod.