Dewsbury & D.R.C. Walk #3: Mirfield to Dewsbury 10/04/21

11.7 miles, via Hopton Bottom, Briery Bank, Whitley Wood, Whitley Lower, Briestfield, 

 Dimpledale, Thornhill Edge, Edge End, Rectory Park, Mill Bank, C&H Navigation, 

  Healey Mills, Pildacre Fields, D&O Greenway, Earlsheaton Common, and Sands Lane. 

Long Distance Trail
means Selfies!
#3 at Mirfield Station.

I'd have loved to have gotten this whole trail down within the Easter weekend, and a different vintage of myself would have eagerly been out there on the Monday, but my contemporary vintage is starting to feel the need to not push things so hard, and thus time is taken out to do other necessary things and the D&DRCW has to wait its turn in the schedule, dropping in on the last quiet weekend before the National Lockdown restrictions see their next significant easing, and also ahead of myself getting my second dose of the Covid vaccine to hopefully ease my mind ahead of the renewal of the crowds. We also have a nice day promised by the forecasts as we ride back out to Mirfield for a jump off ahead of 9.15am, rejoining the circuit path below the deep Station Road overbridge, heading south on Hopton New Road between the open fields and the large plots of allotments to approach the crossing of the Calder at Hopton Bridge, all the way feeling that the dense bank of cloud lingering to the south of the river was not something projected to happen today, before our path takes us a little way east along Granny Lane before slipping onto a path that takes us along between the back gardens, both old and new, of the suburban enclave of Hopton Bottom. Enter the fields as the path skirts the looming woodlands of Briery Bank, tracing the boundary before heading across to Valance Beck, which is crossed before we hit the sharp rise beyond, seeing naught but gloom ahead of us the the southwest, with the blue skies receding to the north as we look back over New Hall farm and woods to Mirfield and greater Dewsbury, and expanding the horizon northwards before we crest and field walk downhill again. A track is joined, skirting around Royds House farm in its own little glade, as we are lead downwards to pass over Liley Clough and then rise among more foliage free trees, to meet the track up from Hopton Mills, passing below Brier Knowl farm perched above, a lane which we traced southwesterly a good few seasons back, and those steps are retraced down towards the cottage cluster at Whitley Wood Bottom, whilst we aim a new track southeastwards, on one of those rare trajectories that has been distinctly absent on all our previous local travels.

Dewsbury & D.R.C. Walk #2: Birstall to Mirfield 03/04/21

9.3 miles, via Monk Ings, Gomersal, Spen Upper, Nibshaw Lane playing fields, 

 Little Gomersall, Royds Park, Rawfolds Mills, Jo Cox community woodland, Hightown, 

  Upper House, Sepulchre Hill, Hartshead, Dockentail Wood, Hartshead Hall Wood, 

   Bracken Hill, Battyeford, Heaton Lodge Junction, and Lower Hopton.

Long Distance Trail
means Selfies! #2 at
Bradford Road, Birstall.

Straight back onto the trail come Saturday morning, riding the #200 bus back to Birstall with some frustration that the Easter Weekend can't bring on some of the warmth that we had at the start of the past week, and gloom greets us as we alight on Kirkgate ahead of 10.30am, rapidly getting back to the D&DRCW path at the point of crossing Bradford Road, and ascending the suburban spur of Monk Ings and rising steadily eastwards out of the valley that encompasses Birstall, and Batley, across the open plots of Monk Ings Fields, aiming us up on the ridge on which Gomersal sits without ever feeling the burn of the ascent despite the altitude gain. Meeting the concealed and snaking path that leads into the close of Scott Lane, which sends us out onto the A651 Oxford Road at the cultural heart(?) of Gomersal village, where we can take in Grove chapel, the old primary school, Red House and the Public Hall before we slip away down Grove Lane, an historic feeling side street to take us to the West End inn and Latham Lane, where we can wave at the #200 bus as it passes on its return trip to Leeds, before we process up the side of the suburban edge of the village to the ancient Methodist chapel, with its boldly convex frontage Then take a left onto Ferrand Lane, heading us off the high ridge towards the Spen valley, recalling came this way many moons ago, down the rough track to find that the path towards Gomersal tunnel through the Fanwood Activity Centre had vanished, and the path up to Cliffe Lane still has you feeling somewhat unwelcome as you are squeezed up a narrow passage past Throstle Nest farm, landing by Gomersal's western edge again as we track southbound, joining Fusden Lane as it traces away around the grounds of Firdene House, which makes its own sort of bold statement. Arrive on the A643 Spen Lane, at the top of its ascent from Upper Spen (or Spen Upper), and we cross to finally get onto some off-road walking, dropping away on an enclosed and grassy track for a short while before we are led up steps to the Nibshaw Lane playing fields, where we head straight across the football pitches, thankfully not interrupting anyone's game to land on it parent road, on the fringe of the council estate that indicates that we are still in the vicinity of Gomersal, which turns out to be much larger than expected, and as we track on southerly, a westwards look into the Spen valley locates us on a latitude with Cleckheaton and Scholes, finally landing at a significant remove from 2021's local bubble.

Dewsbury & D.R.C. Walk #1: Dewsbury to Birstall 02/04/21

9.1 miles, via Eastborough, Crackenedge, Hanging Heaton, Croft House, Soothill Wood, 

 Howley Hall, Howley Park, Cliff Wood, Birkby Brow Wood, Howden Clough, Copley Hill,

  Birstall Fields, Fieldhead, and Oakwell Hall Country Park.

Long Distance Trail
means Selfies!
#1 at Dewsbury Minster

With the 'Stay Local' lockdown restriction ending on 29th March, we are now officially released to cautiously approach the idea of walking further away from home again in 2021, and with a promising-looking long Easter weekend coming up, it's the perfect time to pull the Dewsbury & District Ramblers Centenary Walk off the To-Do list, as I've had the route guide on my shelf for years and it sat as a plausible fall-back route for last Summer until I decided to go full bore into the Pennines, so its moment is now, easily dividing into three legs that are only modestly long, and with none more than a straightforward ride away from Morley either. Good Friday morning thus has us up, but not with the lark, to ride a still under-populated TPE service down to Dewbury station, to alight at 10.05am, and making our way to the start line via the western side of the town, across the A638 Ring Road and down Wellington Street, by the Dewsbury Reporter flatiron building and the Elim Chapel, across Daisy Hill and down Southgate to the bus station on South Street, before spilling out of Church Street and across the A638 again to the official beginning of the trail at Dewsbury Minster, the ancient church of this parish. Away we go then, anti-clockwise on the trail, along the side of the ring road, eastwards below the looming Town Hall, past the Sports Centre, Job Centre and Bingo Hall complex, and the Matalan dominated retail park, all located on the former goods yards of the L&YR and the GNR, all completely scrubbed from the landscape aside from the name of Railway Street bisecting the two sites, as we rise up to cross the foot of  Wakefield Road and carry on up the side of Old Bank Road to trace the Kirklees Way route on paths seen seven seasons ago. Up the toe of this hill we travel, along the wooded Hollinroyd Road, above the terraces of Eastborough before Sugar Lane drops us onto the A653 Leeds Road by the Crown Inn, with the way leading us on into Caulms Wood park, where we infamously lost the trail in 2014, but this time we are prepped, and find the correct route from the main path across this lofty green space over the town, as we meet the circular arboreal feature at its heart where we are led up into the eponymous woodland.

Birstall, Birkenshaw, Tong & Farnley Circuit 27/03/21

14 miles, from Morley Station, via Troy Hill, Scatcherd Park, Bruntcliffe, Howden Clough, 

 Brown Hill, Birstall, Gomersal (station), Birkenshaw Bottoms, Birkenshaw, Tong Moor, 

  Cross Lane End, Tong, Roker Lane Bottom, Farnley Park, New Blackpool, Farnley Wood, 

   St Bernard Mills, Rooms, Clark Springs Wood, Lane Side, and Daisy Hill.

Having spent the bulk of my just-passed 10 day weekend making myself useful elsewhere, we return to the trail, having passed the first anniversary of the start of our first national lockdown and finding ourselves at the hopeful end of our third national lockdown, a situation we probably hadn't imagined when we rolled into that long weird Spring of 2020, but at this time around, we can start to imagine trails a bit further afield once the 'stay local' restriction ends as of next week, and thus we aim ourselves into the last local circuit for this phase of the Covid pandemic, at least. Our targets all lie to the west and north of Morley, so it's natural that we will pick our eastern start line for this occasion, departing Morley station at 9.25am, and heading up Station Road as far as Dartmouth Mills, and joining the ascending footpath that rises up the wooded angle above the valley and the recreation ground, up to Albert Road and across to the bottom of Troy Road, and continuing the ascent onto Troy Hill, possibly the most pronounced of the town's seven, along the terraced parade on the south side. At the top we meet St Mary's in the Wood, with the church building still derelict after being gutted by fire in 2010, and its graveyard looking increasingly forgotten in the interim, a site we skirt around as we drop out onto the top of Queen Street at Coffin Corner, before heading up Queensway, passing Scatcherd Park, Morrisons and the leisure centre on the way up to Corporation Street, which is crossed as we make our way forward through the council estate along Wynyard Drive. We're obviously varying the routes so we aren't always making the exact same footfalls, but emerging onto Bruntcliffe Lane again, it's equally clear that we are running short of dynamic routes after all these local walks, and thus everything remains familiar as we pace on up the A643, beyond the cemetery and the school on the rise up to the cross roads, where every plausible crossing option has already been used this year, heading on south past the Bruntcliffe Club and downhill beyond the Methodist Chapel and the Cassellie plant, and over the M62. Southwest again we head with the Howden Clough Road, past the outying terraces and the expansive view over Kirklees district, and through the edge of Birkby Brow woods as it reaches up to the roadside, descending to the bottoming out by Howden Clough mills and the stream that feeds the valley, where it's already been noted that neither Leeds or Kirklees seem to want to claim the valley floor, according to the signage, and as we rise among the terraces at the edge of Howden Clough village, a novel route forwards needs to be sought. 

Greater Dewsbury & Crow's Nest Park Circuit 20/03/21

14.9 miles, from Morley Hole, via Dean Wood, 62 Leeds & Treefield Industrial Estates, 

 Gildersome Street, Birstall Retail Park, Birstall, Birstall Smithies, White Lee, 

  White Lee Common, Bunkers Hill, Staincliffe, Westborough, Boothroyd, Crow's Nest Park,

   Eightlands, Springfield, Batley Carr, Commonside, Batley Junction, Soothill, Croft House,

    Woodkirk, Tingley Common, Birks, and Town End.

As Winter comes to its end and Spring looms, it's probably time to start taking our planning just a bit more seriously, even if we are going to be staying close to home for another few weeks, as focus needs to be gotten on to get me out of bed and out of the house in the mornings and to walk with a bit more impetus as we don't have any fixed deadlines on our walking days, so that we might pass into the next season with a bit more mental order than we managed last week, altogether a good collection of intents as we aim as distant a public park that I can claim as local. So we're almost up with the lark for a 9.20am start, with climatic conditions looking a bit more favourable than were projected through the week, and thus the sun shines through as our next circuit over the top of the local watershed ridge starts, heading off northwesterly, in the wrong direction, up Asquith Avenue again, past the school, the terraces and estates, while generally making short work of this familiar lane, walked on the unfamiliar side as we pass Deanfield Mill, and head out over the M621, snaring to view towards Leeds before we start to move away from the big city. We can't have every excursion tracing the exact same pavements, so once through the spread of Dean Wood, we take a turn with the available walkway to pass through the 62 Leeds industrial estate, only laid out in the landscape very recently and claiming all the fields between the cleft of the woodlands, fenced off below, and the A62 above, with most of it being occupied by an industrially scaled laundry, with more security on site than workers it seems, and the access road to the southern side, on its embankment over Dean Beck can be paced too despite the works here being apparently abandonment. This extensive and barren foundation plinth has been observed before but as a right of way passes around it, it remains publicly accessible, as does the way down to the longitudinal path at the edge of the older commercial facilities, which we'll pass over and through a gap in a theoretical barrier gate to pass on westwards through the Treefield industrial estate, which is dominated by the Leeds TNT depot (for distribution rather than explosives), and only a short traverse before we alight onto Gelderd Road again, between the Street Lane rec and the Overland Park retail stores at Gildersome Street. 

South Leeds & Middleton Circuit 13/03/21

15.3 miles, from Morley station, via Daisy Hill, Churwell, Cottingley Hall, Royds Farm Ind Est, 

 Beeston Royds, Gelderd Road, Monk Bridge, Granary Wharf, Camp Field, Crown Point 

  retail park, Pottery Field, Hunslet Moor, Middleton Railway, Middleton Park (Belle Isle 

   railhead, & Broom Pit), Middleton, Thorpe Lane, Tingley Common, Glen Road playing fields, 

    and Magpie Lane rec. 

We've passed the first anniversary of the declaration of the Covid-19 Pandemic, and we find ourselves still constrained by the restrictions of National Lockdown, still in a situation which I'm sure none of us through we'd find ourselves after 12 months, but as HM Government is not looking to offer any meaningful release for the remainder of this month, we need to plot out things for our walking year on a local bubble basis for the next three trips, and thus the breakout of the season is held back while I seek parklands or other points of interest in the vicinity if Morley. South Leeds is thus the target for the day, as I've never done a there and back to the city before, and we don't get started early as the morning is looking aggressively mediocre, with wind being the major issue as we don't get to the starting line at Morley station until 10.10am, and setting off on a northbound and clockwise path that leads us up the steps to King George Croft and on to the ascent of New Bank Street up to Daisy Hill, and we haven't got much further along, onto the dirt path through the valley, before the day's issues start to take hold. As soon as we start to descend on the muddy slope, my feet slip from under me, planting me on my backside as I realize that I don't have my walking stick with me, before finding that traversing up the field path towards Broad Oaks is much harder going than expected as the soil is extremely damp, and once on the lane I find that my camera has decided to get fritzty and under-responsive as the farm track out to Elland Road is traced, meaning my photography is going to slow me down further as is the wind as it blows in hard from the southwest. Cross the A643 feeling muddy and mightily frustrated, all ready to quit on the trip before we've barely traced a mile as we continue on to seek the footpath beyond the end of Daffil Road, that leads us onto the end of Smools Lane, and into the top of Churwell's suburban spread and urban woods, tracing the Daffil Wood path until we reach a split off onto an older right of way that leads us out into the open fields on the side of the M621, which have still managed to resist both phases of Churwell's suburban expansion. With the motorway droning away to the side of us, we pass alongside a large leveled off area which seems to be formed of colliery spoil, before we are compelled to descend with the path as the valley space below Farnley Wood hill, formed by its beck, crosses the landscape, offering a view to the city and a slippery service that I lose traction on again, hurting two different muscles in my right leg as I slither downhill, cursing my rotten luck noisily as we come down by the most recent development of the Churwell new village at Fairfield Rise. 

Wilton & Oakwell Hall Parks Circuit 06/03/21

13 miles, from Morley Hole, via Bruntcliffe, Schole Croft, Howley Beck, Upper Batley, 

 Wilton Park Greenway, Wilton Park (Carlinghow Shaw & Bagshaw Museum), 

  Birstall Smithies, Birstall, Oakwell Hall Country Park (Well Spring Woods, Oakwell Hall, 

   & Colliery Field), Gomersall (station), Birkenshaw (Swincliffe), Kittle Point Wood, 

    Drighlington, Lumb Bottom, Nethertown, Cockersdale, Gildersome, and Dean Wood.

2021-22 finally gives us the
chance to really fill in the blanks
 in my walking calendar!

It hasn't been extensively trumpeted on my blog, but one quiet fascination that I've developed over the walking seasons has been watching the sequence of available Saturdays shifting around as I've travelled, and as entering the tenth year of my career, we finally land ourselves on the seventh, and final, schedule of dates that have not been traced thanks to the movement of the Leap Years, and from now until the end of February 2022 we are going to have the chance to fill in a lot of the blanks in my calendar, to see if we can walk on all 285 days in what I've deemed to be my walking year before I turn 50 at the end of Season 13! So, with that thought in mind, we open out March, without it's business feeling too serious as we are still compelled to keep things local through the enduring lockdown conditions, heading out with the intent for more local park walking, over the border in Kirklees district, as we start out from Morley Hole at 10.10am, and immediately finding that the amount of local trails blazed is really starting to run me short of original routes to illuminate as we are compelled to set off up the A643 Bruntcliffe Lane, among the estates and industry, cemetery and school, in order to travel to the southwest. Crest to the south side of the Aire-Calder ridge beyond Bruntcliffe Crossroads, and note that over the last nine years we have been witness to the decline, closure and finally demolition of the Shoulder of Mutton inn, which has now been replaced by a vacant lot in the heart of its urban hamlet at the town's fringe, which peters out as we cross over the M62 and aim ourselves down Howden Clough Road between the pair of rural outlying terraces, seeking the one local path that seems to have escaped my feet so far. We may have come up this way in 2012, at the conclusion of my Leeds Country Way circuit, on the trail out of Birkby Brow Wood, and paced across these open fields last year, but the long wandering driveway to Schole Croft farm across this lofty, and still rural, plateau had escaped my passage until now, directing us toward the decline of Scotchman Lane, with the Gawthorpe and Ossett towers directly ahead of us, at the edge of the long Kirklees horizon to the southwest, sadly shrouded by much cloud, though the pervasive gloom of the morning does look like it might break.