Halton Moor & Primrose Valley Park
Long weekend due, with My Parents visiting for the first time since Dad was discharged from hospital, and as they'll be my shopping transport for the coming days, it makes sense to get out before they arrive, and Thursday offers me the best day of the four, and this should be my last wander away from Morley for this year, so you can stay in bed until 15 minutes before you need to start walking. No surprises on my initial steps, a 10am start down Queen Street and up Chapel Hill, taking in New Bank Street as the new route, still feeling the absence of the former Wesleyan Chapel destroyed by fire last year, passing the progressive development out to Daisy Hill and re-joining known paths out to Broad Oaks farm, keenly guarded by an exuberant dog, and thence on downwards to the old footbridge across the railway. Surprised I have never come this way before, as it clearly presents the quickest route to the White Rose Centre, and those who don't wish to shop can take the woodland walk around the perimeter, or they would if the installation of level access for the neighbouring business park had not blocked the path, so paces are taken back to access the car park, to head back in the right direction. Down by the 'lakeside path' and the channel of Mill Shaw beck before popping out onto the A6110 Ring Road Beeston, and find a lack of paths on the short route over to the A653 Dewsbury Road, and my path starts to get loopy as I rise to cross the railway by Stank Hall barn, choosing to not attempt the rough path over the golf course this time. Instead take the hard path that slips around the back of the Park Wood estate to follow one of the really lost railways of the county, the GNR Beeston Junction - Hunslet Goods line (1899 - 1967), whose alignment endures as a green space around to Ring Road Middleton, where the bridge tops remain and the line is nicely memorialised, before vanishing. Join Gipsy Lane to pass the Cockburn school, and to meet the best route up through the Golf Course, ascending into the woods of Middleton park, hopeful that the path I seek will be obvious, but manage to cross it beneath the shade of the woods before descending back to get onto it, you'd think a tramway would be more obvious. This isn't some leisure tramway though, this was the Leeds Tram route, operational from 1925 to 1959, where the shortest route up the hill to |Middleton was through the wild woods, just like the former colliery line on the other side of the park it is an absolute delight to discover and walk in the wintery sunshine.
The tramway vanishes at Hunslet Carr, where the most recent redevelopment is the John Charles Centre for Sport, which seems to be keeping on growing outwards from the original South Leeds stadium, the new(ish) Approach road leading us over to Old Run Road and the outer edges of Hunslet, a district utterly changed by late 20th century redevelopment and the arrival of the M621, passed under on the way to the Hunslet moor, on Moor Road. Over to Balm Road, where industry has remained before passing over my third railway of the day, passing into the yard of St Mary the Virgin church, with it tower and slender spire endure after the body of the church was destroyed by fire and rebuilt in the 1970s, and then to Church Street, and the main centre of Hunslet, where an utterly characterless shopping centre is the main feature. In all it's district to make you understand why older folks can lament that 'everything has changed', so it heartening to find the Branch Library and the Garden Gate pub on the old Waterloo Road to give a small indication of what the borough used to look like, then on to the A639 Low Road, where Stephenson's Wallpaper has proved to be an enduring retailer. Next it's into the post industrial lands along Donisthorpe Street, behind the First Bus depot and under the A61 South Accommodation Road flyover, the path alongside eventually joined to pass over the river Aire to slip into Cross Green, and the arrival of many residential towers, and the A63, have changed this corner remarkably since I last came this way in 2003(?). St Hilda's church is still there on Cross Green Lane, as is the NER's half of the Hunslet Goods branch, and that is there to be followed, but not on the paths behind the terraces as they have ben gated off, instead via the green space on the northern side, accessed via the community allotment on Fewston Road bridge. Frustratingly, it's a difficult line to photograph, despite being in a deep cutting with an elevated bank on its side, it seems reluctant to offer views of its quartet of bridges, maybe if it passes out of (minimal freight only) usage, it could become the East Leeds variant of Heckmondwike cutting?
Across the fourth major railway line entering Leeds, and the York 'n' Selby line is going to be our companion as we move on into East Leeds, and out first port of call off Park Parade is East End Park, probably the prettiest part of this quarter and once the marker of the eastern boundary of the Victorian city, the clue is in the name after all. Distinctly quiet on a Thursday afternoon, most of the noise coming from the trains coming and going around the Neville Hill depot, so among the playing fields is a place to pause for lunch before pressing on into Osmondthorpe, via Richardson Road and Rookwood Vale, where some odd development has left the road pattern very confusing. More council house provide company on Rookwood Road before meeting the footpath that passes below the railway again, carried by a most impressive bridge, before joining the Halton Moor estate via Wykebeck Avenue, which directs us down to Halton Moor Avenue, just across from Corpus Christi church. The avenue leads on to Selby Road, for a complete change of surroundings, arriving opposite the Wykebeck Arms, with the road all seeming a bit overstated now that the A63 doesn't come this way anymore, pacing the north side and turning off into Lucy Avenue before we've ventured too far into Halton. Onwards into Primrose Valley Park, a nicely undulating green space that gives suggestions of being reclaimed land, largely due to the though that it would have been built on otherwise, and sure enough it was once home to Killingbeck colliery, some sewage works and a bunch of quarries, now a good place to exercise the local cyclists and oldsters, the actual Primrose Valley being met at the north-east corner, where a nature reserve has grown alongside the stream. Pass over the railway, again, onto the rough ground at the back of Seacroft hospital, still undeveloped as we are still waiting on LTHT to run the site down, and it's good to know the finish line is close as my feet have had enough. Onwards to Cross Gates then, along Poole Road and Cold Well Road before limping across the A6120 Ring Road, and I really feel the need for a revivifying brew as I pass The Station and cross the railway one last time to finish off the day on the platforms at 2.15pm. A decent speed achieved for the distance, but my toes feel squashed and for the first time ever I have painful pressure blisters on my soles, clearly Boots #5 are not sitting well with me, and we are going to have to experiment with new socks soon, else these might prove to be my shortest lived footwear.
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 2041.8 miles
2016 Total: 27.4 miles
Up Country Total: 1868.1 miles
Solo Total: 1811.7 miles
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| New Bank Street Wesleyan Chapel (former). Torched and Demolished in September 2015, a painful loss to Morley's Sykline. |
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| White Rose Centre Lakeside Walk. |
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| The GNR Hunslet Goods Branch, Middleton. You don't get many railways as comprehensively vanished as this one. |
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| Middleton Park Tramway, once the shortest and most modern route up the hill to Middleton, and now a quiet lane well out of most folks' sight. These woods really have survived everything the 20th century threw at them, haven't they?. |
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| The John Charles Centre for Sport, Hunslet Carr. I recall when this was just an athletics stadium that bit too far away to feel really useful. |
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| The Garden Gate, Hunslet. Easily the prettiest building in the borough, and one of the few remaining non-industrial buildings that suggest that the 19th century actually happened here. |
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| The A61 flyover and South Accommodation Road. The redevelopments here and around the new A63 have gotten so confusing that I needed new maps just to make sense of them all. |
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| The NER Hunslet Goods Branch, Cross Green. This line needs to stop being used because I really want to walk along it! |
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| East End Park, where the Victorian city ended, and is now found about half way through the mass of contemporary East Leeds, and all looking peaceful in the winter sunshine! |
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| Wykebeck Arms, Selby Road, where the B6159 has a much larger road than it really needs. |
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| Primrose Valley Park, in its authentically natural corner, but thanks to the former presence of old industries, East Leeds now has another pleasant green space. |
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| The Station, Cross Gates. Rolled up here plenty of times now, and I've still never gone in. |
Next Up: The Trails through West Leeds to Wharfedale resume.
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