The day I got a little too close for comfort
I took a trip up to the summit of Winter Hill, part of the West Pennine Moors on the border with Lancashire. I have visited the surrounding area many times, including several visits to Rivington Pike (see image below), but this was the first time I had ever got to see the huge television mast up close.
The Winter Hill transmitter is a very well known landmark in the northwest and it can be see from as far as Cumbria and Northwest Wales, especially at night, when the red aircraft lights beam out in all directions.
The main purpose of this trip was to use the height of the hill to look down on the Manchester area as a forecasted thunderstorm was to pass over, and I was intending to capture lightning strikes from a distance, however, I should have known that being at the top of a hill when a thunderstorm was nearby is not a good place to be. The weather quickly turned and I ended up having to rush back down to escape the lightning strikes.
Here are a few images from my trip. Notice how the weather looks fine at first, but then changes dramatically. This is how quickly the weather can change up here.
I put together video of this trip on YouTube. You can see it by clicking the link below.
Lightning strike over the Winter Hill transmitter
I took the route up Winter Hill from Georges Lane in Wilderswood Horwich. The first image is my van parked by the original gates on Winter Hill Road. This is about as far as you can get by road, as just a little further up there is a security barrier to keep out public vehicles.
I made sure to turn the van around before parking up as the side of the road here is very rough, and if I had to do it at night I may end up in a pothole. If you go further up to the new security barrier, there is a better maintained area where it is possible to park a few vehicles.
Winter Hill Road looking south southwest
A view of the mast from the main road up
Tensioned wires support the structure
Winter Hill is home to several communications towers
Old GPO tower (Now owned by BT)
There have been several air crashes on Winter Hill, most notably the Bristol plane travelling from the Isle of Man bound for Manchester and crashed on the hill close to the transmitter in poor weather, claiming 35 lives. The conditions were so bad that workers on the site at the time were not aware a plane had come down.
The memorial plaque is pictured below
In 1838 a Scottish man working as a courier was travelling over the hill on the way to Darwen, but he was murdered and robbed. His killer was never traced.
This memorial to the victim is known as Scotsman's Stump.
Scotsman's Stump
A view of Rivington Pike from Winter Hill
This rainbow was the first sign of the storm coming in.
Now the cloud has rolled in
An engineer working on the mast is staying in his van overnight, but it's not going to be a good night's sleep as thunderstorms are now rolling in.
I have to get down!
The mast becomes shrouded in cloud
Lightning flashes are now going off all around me. It's now getting very scary, but the local wildlife do not look so concerned.
I had to do without my umbrella for safety reasons
I made it down, but have never been so close to being struck by lightning. After getting back in the van I turned the camera back up towards the mast as the storms was passing over. I took around 100 frames, a few with flashes in them but this was by far the best. To think that I was right up there as this weather came in shows how lucky I was to get back down again safely. I won't be doing something like that again in a hurry!
Thanks for reading my blog. Remember you can watch my Winter Hill thunderstorm adventure on Youtube right here
{ccomment on}