Pony Trekking at Dinkling Green

It was sometime in April 2000. The Estates Manager at Myerscough phoned me and said "I'm going out to Dinkling Green - want to come?"

Dinkling Green was the college's pony trekking centre and as yet was not covered on the college website, so yes, I was only too pleased to pick up a camera and go for a visit.

Dinkling Green was out near the village of Chipping, on the edge, or just into, the Trough of Bowland. It was a farm with stabling for the ponies and was also used by many nearby stables who would bring their own horses and ponies by horsebox and then take them on a trek into open countryside.

When we arrived one such activity was already taking place and there were a few horseboxes parked up in the courtyard.

We got there just in time to see them disappearing into the distance!

So we went to have a look round the farm, which was managed for Myerscough by a local farmer in addition to his own farm. The college had an office there that administered bookings to the pony trekking centre.

Myerscough's own stable of ponies were looking wistfully out of their own stables. "Taking me out for a ride? Oh... well... got any apples then?"

"Hullo! Did I hear you were bringing apples round?"

The farmhouse had a lovely little stone head carving above the door lintel. There are a few around Lancashire, particularly around Ribchester and a couple that came from Wardle, now at the Touchstones Museum in Rochdale. Various ages have been suggested for them from Celtic (a bit far-fetched) to medieval right up to the 18th century, though the latter dates, which are inscribed near to some heads are more likely to be the date the stones were incorporated into a more recent building.

The trekkers were coming back. One came back a bit quicker than the others, a young boy helplessly trying to stay in the saddle as his pony decided it had had enough of the wide open spaces it wasn't used to at its own stables.

John, the Estates Manager ran to grab the reins and bring it to a halt. "Just pull back on the reins," he said, though it is doubtful that the lad would have had the strength to halt a determined pony. "They bring these ponies out into open countryside that they are not used to seeing at their own stables and they see a horizon instead of surrounding buildings and go a bit crazy and just want to get back to their horsebox to go home!"

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