Geography
The parish is located at the northwestern entrance to Cliviger Gorge, which extends southeast to the (now) West Yorkshire town of Todmorden. It is regarded as a remarkable example of a glacial valley that follows a fault line cutting through the South Pennine Moors.
The valley was formerly a major transport link between Lancashire and Yorkshire, both the A646 road and a railway line pass through it (there was previously a railway station at Holme Chapel). However a road called ‘the long causeway’ which runs above the valley (passing Coal Clough Wind Farm), is believed to be ancient in its origins, possibly dating back to the Bronze Age.
The parish contains the sources of the Lancashire River Calder, the West Yorkshire river with the same name, and the River Irwell. It lies astride the main watershed of Great Britain, as the Lancashire Calder and the Irwell flow west (via the rivers Ribble and Mersey respectively) to the Irish Sea, whilst the Yorkshire Calder flows east (via the Aire, then Ouse) into the North Sea.
Read more about this topic: Cliviger
Famous quotes containing the word geography:
“Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River, and Boston Bay, you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we tarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it, only, that thyself is here;—and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels, and the Supreme Being, shall not absent from the chamber where thou sittest.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The California fever is not likely to take us off.... There is neither romance nor glory in digging for gold after the manner of the pictures in the geography of diamond washing in Brazil.”
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)
“Ktaadn, near which we were to pass the next day, is said to mean “Highest Land.” So much geography is there in their names.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)