13.4 miles, from Golcar, via Linthwaite (Hoyle House and Lower Clough), Banks Brow,
Kitchen Clough, Yew Tree, Top o' the Hill, Lingards Wood, Holme Moor brow,
Binn Moor brow, Binns, Bank Bottom, Marsden, Huck Hill, Slaithwaite Moor, Reaps Hill,
Scout Wood, Merry Dale, Ainley Place, Wilberlee, Campinot Wood, Crimble Clough,
Westwood Edge, Bolster Moor, and Heath House wood.
Another Summer Saturday drops from the schedule due to heavy rainfall, as if the peaking of national all-time temperatures in late July was the cue for everything to go downhill and render the remainder of the season changeable and rather chilly, and so we are shunted onto a Sunday trip again, with my options limited by the issues that come with transport connections, and that's why we end up on an early bus ride out to western Huddersfield to start the Colne Valley Circular walk from Golcar, not a part of the world I've travelled into so far due to its distinct lack of railway stations. So alight the #301 bus by St John's church, in this village that has now been largely consumed into the neighbouring town's suburbia and we make our way to the Colne Valley Museum, where we'll have a 9.05am jump off, elevated above the valley side and surrounded by the many cottages of the domestic weaving industries of the early 19th centuries, and set off with the guidebook in hand, ready to be informed as to why so many houses have multiple storeys and large upstairs windows as we head down the steep Carr Top Lane, because many had their workshops located in the part of the cottage where maximum daylight for their workshops could be gained, it seems. This guide, which I've had my shelf for over 5 years, seems keen to inform me about everything there is to see on this route, and provides detail about the Sunday School and the lost Baptist Chapel on Chapel Lane before we hit the path by the burial ground that seems far to slick and slippery for comfort, descending us down towards the railway lines, where two short viaducts span a descending brook, one a disused relic of much busier times on the L&NWR's Leeds to Manchester lines, which are passed under to hit the soft track that descends to the valley floor under the cover of trees. Meet the Huddersfield Narrow canal by lock 15E, which has us tied to a familiar trail again, albeit one that's nearly 7 years old, and the route guide would send us along the towpath, but I'm ready for a deviation even at this early stage, which will take us down by the side of the Colne, which charges angrily after the rains of the last two days, along the path on the edge of the flood plain where the long grass will quickly saturate one's trousers, taking us around the Linthwaite's famous Titanic mills, named for their 1912 completion date, rather than their massive size, and our route goes straight through their carpark, where the Titanic Spa and many apartments now dwell within the site.
