Old Knowle's is yet another farmland ruin of Anglezarke
Moor. It's also one of the more accessible ruins.
John Knowle was a mining engineer who formed a partnership with Sir
Richard Standish and commenced the mining activities around White
Coppice - was John Knowle the owner of Old Knowle's?
There is very little left of this ruin now, due to its proximity
to the road. However, there's plenty of history behind this little
spot.
Browsing Landings
Diary, I discovered the following interesting article about all
the ruins on these moors :
"Quite by chance I visited the information centre at
Rivington Barn. Occupying almost an entire wall is a map featuring
the area’s ruined farmhouses. I managed to obtain a grainy
photocopy and was astonished to discover that it lists far more
ruins than I’d known about. From Grut & Jepsons at the
most southerly reaches of Lower Rivington Reservoir, to Brook House
at the northern tip of Anglezarke Reservoir. Sadly, it
doesn’t go any further north to detail the greater extent of
Anglezarke Moor, so I still don’t know the name of the ruin I
mistook for Calico Hall a few days ago."
Landings Diary gives perhaps a full list of the ruins - I've
bolded those with caches. Note that Simms and Simms' Farm are
different locations - the former on Anglezarke Moor, the latter in
Rivington.
"Brook House, Jepson’s Farm, Old Brooks, Peewet
Hall, Foggs, Lee House, Abbots, Simms,
Wilkinson Bullough, Lower Hempshaw’s,
Hempshaw’s, Stone’s House, Parson’s
Bullough, Old Rachel’s, Stoops, Morris House,
Alance, Brown Hill, Old Knowles, Butter Cross, Lathams,
Wilcock’s Farm, Andertons, Coomb, Moses Cocker’s,
Bradleys, Sparks, Lower House, Moor Edge, Old Isaac’s,
Sweetloves, Pilkington’s, Sheep House Farm, New Hall, Old
Kate’s, School Brow, Ainsworths, Great House, Old Thatch,
Intack, Top o’ th’ Hill Farm, Wards Farm, Gills,
Higher Wards, Top o’ the Meadows, Crosse’s,
Simms’ Farm, Prospect Farm, Higher Derbyshires, Smiths
House, Pall Mall, Old George’s, Higher Knoll, Lower Knoll,
Lower Derbyshires, Old Wills, Grut, Jepsons & Old
Lords."
"So many names forgotten. I hadn't realised that time had
undone so many. I decide to visit two ruins that form a kind of
alignment with Old Rachel's."
"Coomb is accessible via the rough track known as Belmont
Road that skirts Moor Bottom and Noon Slack Hill. It’s quite
desolate. Almost completely flattened. I set up the amplifier and
play the now familiar sounds recorded at Old Rachel’s in
spring. Listening as it drifts outwards across the moor, I know
that just over this rise, not half a mile northeasterly, lie the
ruins of that totem place. I trace the uncertain outline of this
ruin with my footsteps. And as I play this music, the connection is
almost tangible. In some oblique fashion this music has come to
work its way into the moor itself. Played over and over again at
various times and places, it mediates my experience of this
landscape. Conjures it. Summons it. Suffuses it.
Bowed, plucked and chaffed steel strings. The sound of stones
gently rubbed together. Soft soil sprinkled on resonant wooden
bodies. Grasses and leaves intertwined around neck & fretboard.
Bone and wood plectra. Sound folded on sound. A collusion of place
and instrument.
Locating Brown Hill proves to be a more difficult
proposition. There’s something here but I’m unsure what
exactly. The remnant of a wall. And what looks like the traces of
another intersecting it. The grainy, photocopied map is
tantalisingly imprecise. As I approach a large bird noiselessly
takes off from the nearby trees. I feel like an intruder here. I
quickly place a stone from Coomb on the structure and
leave."
I wonder if he knows about caching?