Lancaster to Bentham via Ward's Stone

Posted by Sam Harrison on March 14, 2014 at 19:08.

 Fell running

bentham bowland fell running wards stone

The route of the Lancaster to Bentham run​

I had originally been planning on heading to Yorkshire to run around the Three Peaks last weekend, in preparation for next weekend's Edale Skyline race, but instead I got an offer from one of the guys in the Hiking Club, Tom (who is also a keen member of Lancaster University Running Club), to run a route he's done a few times before from Lancaster to Bentham, via Jubilee Tower and Ward's Stone. I love linear routes (especially when the return journey can be made by train!) and this challenge sounded really appealing. Hence, I accepted the offer and we were joined by Nick (another Running Club member) for the 22-mile route on a rather windy and cloudy Saturday morning.

Tom set a cracking pace out of Lancaster and we soon found ourselves at Jubilee Tower, ready to start the off-road section. I was quite glad of this as my legs were starting to tire of the monotony of mile-after-mile of tarmac, and the soft spongy bog-land was a nice change. The path from Grit Fell to Ward's Stone is well-trodden, but the section from Ward's Stone to the 4x4 track running from Tarnbrook to Mallowdale was less so, and plenty of wading through bogs and hopping over peat hags was endured.

A steep descent followed by a tiring ascent on the 4x4 track lead us to Salter Fell, and here we branched off-road once more, following a fence line down over Summersgill Fell. The terrain was at its worst at this point; a combination of wading through waist-high soft rushes and knee-high puddles. We were soon back on the tarmac however, and after around 5 miles that seemed more like 10, we reached Bentham railway station, 3 hours 50 minutes after we started and just in time to pop to the shop for malt loaf and Irn Bru before catching the 1513 train back to Lancaster.

The string in the tail was the 1.5 miles back from the train station to home, which combined with a leisurely jog down the canal to meet Tom and Nick in the morning made for a 25-mile day. Good training!
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