Sunday 8th September 2019.
Our second walk on Haworth Moors, trudging through the heather from Top Withens to Crow Hill.
We parked the car once again at Ponden Reservoir and followed the same route as the last walk, up the gentle slope to the sign post of Top Withens. This path is one of the ways tourist can visit the well known Top Withens, supposedly associated as the farm house in Emily Brontes famous novel 'Wuthering Heights'. So therefore underfoot is a very well made up track (most of it being flag stones) leading you all the way to the ruin.
From Top Withens we walked to Alcomden Stones on Stanbury Moor.
On these rocks we sat and enjoyed the view, the stillness and soaked up the atmosphere of the place while having a brew from our flask.
We decided next to walk to Crow Hill through a huge swathe of heather moorland following Boundary Stones and a thin path. It felt like a long way from one hill to the next hill but as we trudged through the heather it was worth the effort.
Finally the summit of Crow Hill, which was the finale of our walk.
The reason why we chose Crow Hill was because we were both intrigued by the CROW HILL BOG EXPLOSION
On the 2nd of September 1824 it was the sight of an enormous bog explosion which was investigated by Mr Patrick Bronte.
Branwell, Emily and Anne, whilst out walking near Ponden Hall, saw the weather and light suddenly change, there was a rumbling sound, then the earth shook violently followed by hail stones. They all ran to take cover in the Hall.
A huge torrent of water and mud reported in the Leeds Mercury as a tsunami flooded across the landscape they had just been walking in.
Seemingly the torrent was 7ft high which caused large boulders to be picked up and hurled through the air.
But it was not an earthquake that burst the bog, constant rain had eroded the soil making a land slide which gathered force and momentum until mud and water broke free with an explosion force. The sound of the explosion was heard as far away as Leeds. Also dead fish were being found for weeks later in the streams.