& Austhorpe.
Back up country for the last couple of weeks of the season, feeling secure to be here as news from Leicester had been mixed, with the result of my Dad's MRI scan showing the possibility of him having a brain tumour, but the team at the Infirmary deciding to put him into the process for discharge to the Rehabilitation unit. Anxiety inducing news for sure, but the lack of urgency at their end is enough reason to feel that things may not be immediately serious. So I return to my familiar haunts, with the walkable season fading fast, with a plan to stitch the two halves of my walking season together, attaching the late season lands of Wakefield district to the early season territory to the east of Leeds.
Today brings me to yet another fresh station to check off the WY Metro list, starting out from Glasshoughton, between Castleford and Pontefract at 9.25am, early enough to get ahead of the crowds who alight here to visit Xscape and the Junction 32 retail park, many of whom would probably be unaware that this was a colliery site only three decades ago. My ancient E289 shows none of the developments that have grown since then, but the eye can still be drawn to the dark soils of the spoil tips to the south of the railway line, and there's a post industrial feel to all the rough land along the side of Thunderhead Ridge (yes, that is the road's name), and the big clue to this site's use is the considerable colliery memorial sculpture located on the A639 island, reminding the visitors of the industry which endured here from 1869 to 1986. Pass onwards, along the main road between the local branches of Wakefield College and Asda, and downhill to the railway crossing at Cutsyke, with intention to walk the greenway that has recently developed on the L&Y Cutsyke - Methley line, previously seen from above but now accessible, once I've found my way to it via the terraces on Granville Street. Despite having been open only 16 months, it's already looking pretty much settled in with the vegetation having covered much of the recently turned earth, and foliage obscuring most of the sight lines in the early going, but things get more interesting once the deep cutting below the Lumley Street bridge is met, the access ramps being almost as impressive feats of engineering of the cut of the railway itself. Pass on to the Barnsdale Road bridge, a much more modest structure, and soon enough the path ends, less than a mile on behind the edges of Castleford, but a nice start to a track that should grow to meet the Methley Joint Lines, at least once someone finds a bridge to replace the missing one at Whitwood Junction, hidden away but still accessible beyond the trees. So back to the roads, following the A639 through the estates at Whitwood Mere, and to the edge of the Calder, a location I have already seen many times, but this is the first time I will actually make my way across the river.
Whilst this land between the Calder and Aire may look flat and agricultural these days, it is a landscape heavily scarred by industry, and whilst the corn fields along Green Lane may have it looking bucolic these days, a keen eye will spot the sand quarries that consumed the lands of Methley Mires, towards the confluence of the rivers, whilst to the north opencast coal mining was the order of the day. Mickletown doesn't offer much to suggest industrial heritage, but Boat Lane is an old track down to the old ferry crossing to Allerton Bywater, and here and there terraces seem incongruously placed by the farm cottages on Lower Mickletown. The village centre offers more suggestions of its history, even if suburban growth has become attached to it since, but the best clues come along the path beyond Pit Lane, naturally, the flooded workings and familiar growths of trees revealing the heritage now lost to time. Cross the Aire via the footbridge whose location and purpose seem unclear until you recall that these were constructed in the wake of the catastrophic flooding of the St Aidan's opencast site in 1988, and the subsequent rechanneling of the river, and it's to the nature reserve that our footfalls take us next, at least once I've found the old coal road towards its eastern perimeter. I'll save the paths among the wetlands for another time, maybe after the RSPB have resolved the land access issues that ended their presence here in 2013, pressing on past the railhead to the old line to Castleford, and finding a bench to enjoy an early lunch and a rare burst of autumnal sunshine. Pass the Walking Dragline, an impressive piece of electrical (!) colliery machinery that was easier to preserve than dismantle, and press on out of the site on the rising track above the now landscaped coalface at the northern edge, along a track that gradually gets less like a formal path and much wetter as it goes, eventually overwhelming my boots, finally springing leaks in the last corner of the season. A path downhill has to come eventually, dropping me down to Fleakingley Bridge and Astley Lane, and a hard surface is most welcome as the lane feels rural again, pushing towards Swillington, one of those places that has managed to escape my walking attention since the Leeds Country Way avoided it back in 2012.
First time I ever came this way, I thought we were somewhere on the outer edge of Leeds, but the reality of it is that the city is far off to the west, and the council houses are a reminder of the industries which needed people out here in the not too distant past, but even with my flawed analysis, it's pretty big place to have missed out on, showing several different faces on Astley Lane and Church Lane, with St Mary's itself looking like its clean up job ran out of funds halfway through (and I think it looked better dirty anyway). The smartest face is to be found on Swillington Lane, facing westwards, and from here we can push on to the last miles of the day, descending to a beck crossing and then hitting the boundaries and field paths over to Bullerthorpe Lane, where a footway takes me over the M1's northern extension and on to the eastern entrance to Temple Newsam park. I'm heading for Colton, so stay on the road as the footway vanishes and a pretty fraught mile ensues as we are forced to walk against the on-rushing traffic or take up a place on the narrow and elevated verge. Only once we are nearly among the buildings of Colton does the parallel bridleway become apparent, and I'd seen no indication of where that should have been joined near Temple Newsam, so unnecessary risks pass as a path leads up Stile Hill Way to the Colton Common business estate, and now we can consider ourselves in East Leeds proper, crossing over the A63 to smell the traffic fumes and to see the sights of suburbia. There is one last interesting point of call though, hidden away down Austhorpe Lane, and that's Austhorpe Hall, built in 1694 and a very early exercise in the classical revival style, despite its construction in brick, and now marking the absolute eastern edge of the city, its estate still undeveloped. Head on to the finish line via the bungalow on Kingswear Crescent & Parade, detouring to see if the spired church on the map is worth a look (it's the Mormon Temple and it's not, sadly), and then it's back to the A63 again. Long shadows are coming on already as the as the final steps are made to Cross Gates station, wrapping the day at only 1.45pm, but damp feet and late season chills are enough to make me glad to be finished for the day, at what might be my favourite railway station in the whole county.
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 2014.4 miles
2015 Cumulative Total: 612.2 miles
Up Country Total: 1840.7 miles
Solo Total: 1784.3 miles
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| Xscape, Glasshoughton. Coal was mined here only 30 years ago. |
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| The Castleford Greenway on the L&Y Lines, Lumley Street Bridge. |
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| The Castleford Greenway on the L&Y Lines, Barnsdale Road Bridge. |
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| Methley Marina on the River Calder. |
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| Lower Mickletown, I may have been talking up the industrial heritage of this quarter, but I illustrate it with some bucolic charm. |
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| RSPB St Aidan's, former opencast site endures as Wetlland habitat. |
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| A Mile on, and you are still at St Aidan's, also Walking Dragline! |
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| St Mary's Swillington. A handy reminder that northern buildings are not naturally black. |
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| Bullerthorpe Lane. Don't walk here, find the bridleway! |
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| Austhorpe Hall, a gem from 1694, still not swallowed by the City. |
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| Cross Gates Station. The original NER bridge still carrying the A63, and all that red brickwork make this one of my favourite places in West Yorkshire, and beyond. Yes, I know I'm weird. |
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