How long is it since any of you had a walk down Ouzledale Clough from Forty Steps to Wapping? The land between Ouzledale Mill at the top and the old Clough Mill site at the bottom used to be the lodge for the water wheel at Clough Mill and later on, the steam engine. It looked very different in those days when it was being well maintained, it was a large body of water, fed by Gillians Beck and an essential part of the infrastructure of the mill. Now it is a good example of what neglect can do to something like this. The silt brought down by the beck builds up, vegetation and even trees take hold and the level of the ground can rise as the plants drop leaves and branches until the level is higher than the original water level. You can see the same thing above the waterfall on Forty steps, Ouzledale dam is completely filled. Add to this erosion of the banks which fall in and you end up with an overgrown piece of land with a beck meandering through it finding its own way to the outlet into the culvert at the bottom. It makes a pleasant wild woodland walk on a summer's day but consider what the potential is.
We have a good track record in Barlick in these matters, Victory Park was the town's waste tip, the Green was the old railway sidings and Valley Gardens was an overgrown footpath originally intended to give the owner of the Corn Mill access to his head race and the weir in Butts. The path through Ouzledale Clough was originally for the same purpose.
Some years ago there was a proposal to redevelop the Clough, reinstate the lodge and install a water turbine to use the head of water available as a Green Energy Project. I was very much in favour and gave what input I could. I asked them to consider opening up the culvert from the lodge, across what is now Clough Park and down the side of the New Ship on the grounds that this would make a far more effective watercourse in the event of a cloudburst on Weets, the very thing that caused Wapping to be flooded in July 1932. I think they took all this on board but funding difficulties prevented any progress beyond making the path part of the Stream and Steam Trail which has been so well used.
The potential is still there and I hope that this article will remind the Councillors that the potential for a really good addition to the town's attractions still exists within a stone throw of the town centre. It may be that the flood control aspect of the scheme and perhaps even a limited building development on the far side could be elements in getting funding together. We have all seen how attractive waterside properties can be and if sympathetically done I think this could be a winner. Perhaps this is a project whose time has come!
A pleasant woodland walk but how much more could it be?
