Winter Hill is the highest point on the West Pennine Moors at 456 metres, and on a clear day the view from the summit encompasses an extraordinary sweep of northern England: the Bowland Fells to the north, the Pennines to the east, and on exceptional days the mountains of the Lake District to the northwest and the Isle of Man across the Irish Sea to the west. A major telecommunications mast on the summit has been transmitting television and radio signals across the region since the 1950s.
The walk from Rivington village to the Winter Hill summit and back takes around three to four hours at a moderate pace, passing through open moorland of heather and peat bog. The landscape has a bleak, windswept quality that appeals to walkers who want something genuinely wild within easy reach of a major city — Bolton town centre is less than 10 km away as the crow flies. The hill can also be approached from the Bolton side via the Lever Park footpaths. A café at Rivington provides a useful base, and the combination of Rivington Pike, the Terraced Gardens, and Winter Hill can fill a full day.