Alone Beneath The Sky: Headingley to Thornton 25/03/17

12.7 miles, via Kirkstall, Bramley Moorside, Intake, Farsley, Woodhall Hills, Thornbury,
New Leeds, Bradford city centre, Brown Royd, Four Lane Ends, Fairweather Green,
Leaventhorpe, & Hill Top.

First weekend of Spring proper, and the last day of GMT, and the sun is out, promising a day of wall to wall sunshine and the hottest last weekend of March since that sunburnt day in Mallerstang five years ago, the sort of day that probably deserves better than another city trail, but after spending a month moaning about the lack of good weather in Bradford, it makes sense to see it when the day is going to be about as bright as it can possibly be. So, the cross town trip starts out from West Leeds once again, starting out from Headingley station on the Harrogate line at 9.40am, and it's a mystery how I've never travelled from here in my walking days, or found ,much reason to use it in the preceding decades, probably something to do with it being not very convenient for its namesake, and it's got a station building to admire too, one of the best examples of the NER's domestic styling. It's a short walk downhill, on the B6157 Kirkstall Lane to land us in the heart of Kirkstall, much more convenient for the station, and soon cross two old tracks on Morris Lane and the A65 Abbey Road, passing the drinking fountain and war memorial on the way down to Bridge Road, home to the former hotel with the excess of windows (still seeking an occupant), and the Kirkstall Bridge retail park, which is celebrating a year of business as we speak. This leads us to Bridge Mill and it's neighbour the Bridge Inn, and the path across the Aire on Kirkstall Bridge itself, also over the railway where the MR's original Kirkstall station once lived (closed in the 1960s when Headingley was favoured for retention), and then we hit Broad Lane, leading us up the Kirkstall Brewery flats, owned by the Metropolitan University ('Leeds Carnegie' be damned, I say), not actually the home of the currently operational Kirkstall Brewery, but idyllically placed by the Leeds & Liverpool canal, the bridge over which we cross.

After saying 'Kirkstall' and 'Bridge' a whole lot it's time to make tracks into Bramley, as Broad Lane rises rapidly away from the river, an ascent that I should have seen coming which soon gives us a view back to the path from Headingley and back down the Aire Valley to a city shrouded in pleasing haze of bright Spring sunshine, such a great sight after so many glum days in 2017. We'll be skirting the southern edge of the Bramley Moorside estate, but the elevation gives some good views across it, mostly in the direction of Horsforth Woodside, and it's not all council houses up here, as the road continues to rise, past St Catherine's Mill and its neighbouring terraces, and the enduring Moorside house gives suggestion of a rural past on this hillside, located at another point where the view down the Aire is pretty special. Focus turns forward as we pass the top of Newlay Lane and the most upscale houses of Victorian Bramley, meeting the dog leg of the A657 as it crosses Broad lane next to the Globe Inn, and the eyes wander to the view up the river valley before we head on forwards, past the old school and on to the hidden gem of Bramley Public Baths, the Victorian swimming pool that it still very much in use and a be-chimneyed landmark that can be seen for miles around. It's a decent visual substitute for not hitting the top of the nearby Beecroft Hill, and our ongoing path takes us down Calverley Lane, which seems like a suburban lane from the mid 20th century, but is actually much older, not that you'd guess from the mess of suburbia that has grown along its length without apparent rhyme or reason on either side of the Leeds & Bradford Road. What it does have is views, which were completely unexpected, as we get the whole family of Airedale's high points showing up in the vistas between the houses, Baildon Moor, Rombald's Moor, Billings Hill, Hunger Hills and Tinshill Moor all rise prominently before the views diminish as the road descends to pass the West Leeds Academy, the noted Arts college once known as Intake High (which gave us Mel B and Angela Griffin), where my best pal once worked, quite a few years back.

Another rise and a return of the views comes as we hit Coal Hill Road, another climb that should be expected with a name like that, and that leads over to the descent down to Farsley, another largely stone-y village that makes West Leeds look so different from the rest of the city (a thesis worthy of further investigation), and there's a particularly good terrace to see on the declining road, as well as a number of enduring mills, notably Cape and Springfield, and even the developments of the sites of Broom and Bank Bottom have been done in a style that is locally sympathetic, albeit without the acquired grime. Bagley Lane leads us towards Farsley again, but we'll not be seeing any more of this village as we need to hit Priesthorpe Road, home to some particularly good terraces and another excellent old school as we take the rise up towards the A6120 Ring Road by the Mormon Temple, where making a safe crossing can be a heart pounding experience, and then the lane continues into the countryside, 'unsuitable for motor vehicles' according to the signage, not that it prevents the 4x4 drivers from trying it out. It's access for farms and upscale dwellings in a remoter corner of the city's countryside in the initial going, before becoming very muddy and not much use for anything once the path previously seen on Shell Lane is crossed, but it's popular with those taking the dog or kids out for a stretch, and gains a better surface on the long rise up past Crossfields farm, and as we'll be over the 200m point at the summit, it's worth looking back to see the path walked through Bramley and to the city of Leeds off in the distant haze. Meet Woodhall Road on the top of Woodhall Hills, home to two golf courses, I think, and the road beyond is completely un-adopted, so a good rough surface is there to be enjoyed along with the view across the rise of East Bradford, with the Industrial Museum prominent and on to the distant Soil Hill and others far off to the west. Soon we descend to the path of the Leeds Country Way, last seen five years ago in glummer conditions, and carry on down to the chaos that reigns around the lodge house at the path junction into the woods along Fagley Beck, and it also seems the Blue Pig public house is no longer in business, hardly surprising when you consider its relatively distant remove from the city.

It's the roughest path we follow as Woodhall Road traces the perimeter of the old quarries, meeting the embankment and broken bridge of the GNR Laisterdyke - Shipley line that just keeps on showing up on my trails without me having walked it yet, and to be honest ascending the better surface of the old quarry road is the best way to examine it. Soon push on to the edge of Bradford, and there's an abandoned hospital site and a bread factory by the last of the fields before we crash into Gain Lane, choked with traffic, and the last stretch of Woodhall Road will be terraced and residential, just like our departure from Leeds was initially. Traffic chaos seems to be a theme in Thornbury, where passage over the Old Leeds Road needs some weaving to be done, to hit the 'New' Leeds Road, swinging to the south and showing up some more fine terraces and staking another claim on being the Curry Mile as it seems that every shop that isn't selling frocks for Asian Ladies is either a restaurant or a takeaway. Otherwise there's only the odd pub or mill to provide some variety before we pass inside the A6177 Ring Road, and now we see a few more interesting things, like the Congregational Sunday School and the Roman catholic Church of St Peter in a rather Byzantine style, before the terraces, mills and takeouts resume on the decline down towards the city, with the Hindu temple and cultural centre popping up along the way to add a bit more colour to Bradford's fascinating landscape. The roads eventually widen and the buildings get larger as we approach the city centre, passing our third Gurdwara, the one with many yellow ogee domes, before the tangle of the A6181 and the A650 Shipley Airedale road is met and crossed opposite the prominent contemporary apartment block and restaurant on the side of Leeds Road next to the playhouse theatre and the Victorian gem of Eastbrook Hall. Sunshine shows up the city in a much better light as we again pass the apron of Exchange station and the Broadway Centre as Hall Ings leads us down past the Telegraph & Argus (T&A?) offices and down onto Bridge Street once again, and doesn't this city look so much better when lit up and showing the quality of it many buildings in yellow sandstone, it's like we can see it all again with fresh and eager eyes.

Pause at City Park, along with many others, to consume lunch and to let some accumulated heat out before we start off again up Sunbridge Road, a street of shops and many bus stops up as far as the slightly space age and sadly vacant TJ Hughes store, and then we're off into a quieter landscape of warehouses and factories, some suggesting continued industry and others looking to residential reuse. It's a landscape that persist for quite a while until the building heights drop and we start to push out into the valley of the becks to the west of Bradford, and there's few more good factories to spot, like the Oakwood dye works to see as we pass on City Road to the junction with Thornton Road, opposite the site of the GNR's other goods yard, which offers nothing at all to spot from this angle. It's a straight road to the west for the remainder of the day, and the district names in these parts seem vague to the outsider, so if this is Brown Royd, I'll say that this landscape feels shockingly like Burley Road in Leeds, uncannily similar it is. Aside from the presence of Whetley Mills of course, this beast in yellow brick towers over the landscape and might be the best of many in the city, a monster to admire in the sunshine as we move on out to the passage of the Ring Road once again, getting sight of the Mosque on Syedna Way that had somehow escaped my gaze last time we came this way. Carrying on along the B6145 we meet some good terraces around the district of Four Lane Ends, which just doesn't suggest the interest of Five as it's a much more regular number, but it marks the crossing of the roads to Allerton and to Scholemoor cemetery, and beyond there the southern side of Thornton Road gains the most notional of footways on the south side, but we'll stick to it, despite the risks, as it offers the most shade from the sun and the better views to the green lands of Alpine Bradford to the west. Regain a sense of equilibrium as we meet Fairweather Green, a district that might be named after its pub, which along with the Queen Hotel show up a favouring of the south side of the road to guarantee a sun trap in their back yards, and as we press on, the uphill slant starts to be felt by the tiring legs, as we pass the bottom edge of the Lower Grange estate and meet the dual carriageway section of Thornton Road which makes little sense as there's plenty of moors and not much more city (or any towns of particular note) as we head on to the west.

Sight of a distant spire suggest the proximity of our finish line, but there's a lot of up to come before we get there, and site lines to the north show more fun heights to be walked in the Alpine District, whilst to the south a gated community has aggressively landscaped the fields above Pitty Beck (though it strangely looks under-occupied). Not too sure if Leaventhorpe is an actual place or not, but it has an estate as is also home to Thornton Grammar school, where my best pal also taught until recently, which is a weird and unintentional coincidence, though the best local feature is the equestrian farm attached to Leaventhorpe Hall, a nicely bucolic scene on the very outer edge of Bradford. Eyes may glance towards the hills occupied by Clayton and Queensbury off to the south, but the shaded toad is about to bring us into Thornton, meeting the Hill Top estate at its eastern extremity, and the eyes will wander to the older farm building hidden among the semis before all attention is drawn to St James's church, as bold and distinctive a Victorian church as any settlement could one, apparently massive at a distance and still pretty big when encountered up close. Push on as the railway pops up in the landscape for those willing to see it and press on into the village past the Blue Boar in and the former public baths to give us some more symmetry on the day, and the height gain on our ascent can be illustrated by the short terraces dropping steeply from the road to the south and by the three storeyed houses that have their back doors on the middle floor on the other. It's an altogether lovely place, with all sorts of nooks and crannies to investigate, as well as places to tempt the thirsty walker, like the New Inn or the previously mentioned Great Northern Emporium, and the Bronte family's birthplace is another place to seek out as well, but the day has proved far too warm for it to be drawn out any longer than is necessary. So a proper look around Thornton will come on a day when the weather is maybe a little less nice, and so final footfalls move on to my bus stop of choice, opposite the primary school and the former station, boarding the #607 as it arrives at the exact same time as me, 2.45pm, to ride us back to Bradford in a quarter of the time it took to get here.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 2638.2 miles
2017 Total: 73.2 miles
Up Country Total: 2411.4 miles
Solo Total: 2382.9 miles