Alone Beneath The Sky: Bradford to Thornton 18/02/17

8.8 miles, via St Dunstan's, Manchester Road, Horton Park, Great Horton, Paradise Green,
Clayton & the Queensbury Triangle.

The first of two lost railway walks around Bradford for this season starts from the Interchange bus station, because that is the easiest way to travel in that direction from Morley, departing onto Bridge street after 10.10am, on a quest to find the third arm of the GNR's Queensbury lines, fully operational from 1878 to 1955, and now almost completely vanished from view since final closure in 1963. Before we get to that, though, we need to take another look at the site of Exchange Station, the joint station built by the GNR and L&YR, and closed in 1972, its 10 platforms and double barrel-vaulted glass roof replaced by the hugely unimpressive Interchange station in its approach cutting to the south. The station apron still exists, platform level accessible from Drake Street and Wakefield Road, but the combined courts building obscures any sense of scale to the site, that can only be gained from Vicar Lane, looking across the car park towards Bridge Street (where the titular bridge is no more) and the Great Victoria Hotel, it's just one of those sites that stimulates my imagination so much. Move on, as there are miles to put down, heading south beyond Croft Street, along Edward Street and Fitzwilliam Street above the contemporary railway and through the industrial doughnut that seems to surround Bradford's city centre, enjoying the winter sunshine as we move down to Mill Lane, by the pub with the car on the roof, taking a look down to the railway bridge and the signal box that stand by what must have been the entrance to St Dunstan's station, now completely vanished, where the GNR's lines to Leeds and Queensbury diverged. It's an odd sort of site, one that's hard to understand in the modern industrial landscape, and a second view comes from Bolling Road above the bridge over the third arm of the GNR's triangle to connect the two lines (but not to the L&YR line to Halifax), and a third perspective comes from Ripley Street, as access road to the St Dunstan's business park illustrates just how well the closed lines have been landscaped out of existence, and a will to trespass and a keen eye is needed to spot the infilled remains of the bridge and tunnel where the Queensbury line dove beneath the railway and the road.

Continue along Ripley Street, the lined cutting having once run down below, an alignment visible by checking out the green space at the terrace ends on one side of the road, and then along the car parks and yards of industrial buildings on the opposite side as the road kinks, with the road named Stone Arches providing a reminder of the railway feature that once stood at the east end of Manchester Road station. Zero race remains of said station above ground, buried below the Royal mail depot and a petrol station, and we cross over the dual carriageway of the A641 to pass along Pakington Street past St Joseph's and the community centre to regain the alignment on Park Lane as it passes below Lidl's car park, with the retaining wall at the top of the cutting still visible on the north side. St Luke's tunnel took the railway below the hospital of the same name, and thus there's nothing to see aside from more Bradfordian terraces on the way along Holme Top Lane to Little Horton Lane, where All Saints church, with its slender spire, is the prominent local landmark. We rejoin the alignment parallel to Horton Park Avenue, actually walkable though not at track level on an infilled section that used to be a car park, but hasn't been used in a while, which leads to Laisteridge Road, where the bridge sides remain in place. Beyond is the site of Horton Junction, where the City Road goods line once branched off, now sitting below the Al-Jumia Suffa-tul-Islam Grand Mosque (built slightly off the perpendicular alignment, which gives me a headache), boldly pink stoned with many minarets and domes, and still not finished despite having being under construction for a long time, due to Islam's distaste for usury. Horton Park naturally draws attention, off to the south, but we keep with the railway, where Horton Park station and its yard once lay below the car parks of the Mosque and the adjacent health centre, but then we can press on uphill towards where the railway passed under Great Horton Road, and the alignment now forms the car park for the Mumtaz restaurant.

Beyond the Mughal medical centre, we gain a short stretch of alignment between the terraces, at actual track level and with a tarmacked path along it too before it slides downhill to the bridge abutments of the missing crossing of Farnham Road. If the Cannon Mill Sunday market were open, we'd be able to get a lot closer to the alignment, the elevated stone apron of the Great Horton yard is clearly visible across the car park, but with the gates locked, we'll have to take a long detour around via Spencer Road, only getting a closer look by detouring again down escort lane to see more high bridge abutments. Meet Beckside Road and ascend up past the extensive works that now dwell on the station site, rising to pass over the alignment via the infilled bridge and to get a real impression on just how much engineering was needed in constructing these lines in alpine territory. The path of the day leads from Westcroft Road into the rougher parts of Brackenhill park, finally allowing us to get the boots dirty as we rise and fall along part of the alignment before it settles at a lower level along the edge of contemporary factories as we pace the edge of the playing fields, before we scratch around among the dead brambles to get a close look at Hollingwood Lane bridge, the first substantially intact structure on the whole line. As the Chesapeake Packing factory on the other side of the line has been recently demolished, it give as a chance to trespass again, down into the cutting to the actual track level to get an even better view of the bridge, before we clamber back over the fence to meet Clayton Road as it passes through the wonderfully named district of Paradise Green. Make a detour into the close of Dene Crescent which gives another crossing of the line, built over in this quarter, before we meet Paradise Farm, now a pub, and pass through its car park to meet the path down to Pasture Road, where large and broken bridge abutments stand on both sides of the road.

As we meet Clayton though, the railway retreats from view completely, as suburbia has completely devoured the alignment, but at least the roads make its path vaguely traceable, so onwards to Penny Hill Drive and Pentland Avenue, where my least favourite style and vintage of suburbia resides, keeping an eye open to the older houses on both sides which indicate that they arrived before the railway disappeared. The keen eye spots the old boundary wall and the access footpath that indicate the long lost site of Clayton station, and as we leave this corner we meet Station Road, which gives the game away, a bit at least, and there's more suburbia to come as Oakleigh Avenue rises above where the east portal of Clayton Tunnel has been buried. Passing out of the edge of the city and into Alpine Bradford doesn't mean that the tunnel is completely beyond our view however, as we can slip into the long field that runs above it, thankfully free of cattle but still home to grassed over piles of construction spoil and the capped top of air shaft #2, and I'd hoped that we might get into the field beyond Baldwin lane that is home to shaft #1, but the lack of a gate and the height of the wall means that path is a no go. So retreat to the outer edge of Clayton once more and depart down Brook Lane as far as fall Top farm before joining the southbound footpath that lead us cross country to arrive above the spoil heap above the approach cutting and the west portal of Clayton tunnel, and some more steps of trespass are needed to arrive within the railway alignment once again. Catch sight of the portal way below us, deep in its rock cutting, but we won't be getting any closer than this elevated view as infilling in the approach has resulted in a particularly steep path for anyone who wants to gain access, and I'm not feeling as bold as the urbex-ers and marijuana farmers who have been down there (no, really). I'm happy to finally tag this 1,000+ yard bore before we push on down the alignment to get closer to track level, passing under the iron footbridge and the station house at the eastern end of the Queensbury station triangle, and this would be a prime opportunity to walk the northern third of it, aside from the fact that the viaduct above Hole Bottom Beck is now absent.

So we return to familiar territory, wandering up close to the north portal of Queensbury Tunnel, thankfully still intact with its future uncertain, unfortunately, and after a lunch pause, it's time to press on to the day's end, joining the Great Northern trail as it pushes north over Brow Lane and onwards to Cockin Lane offering going and views that are much less snowbound than they were in 2013. Altogether greener looks are to be had as Thornton rises in the landscape and sun shines over the quarried hillsides and fields that bound the valley leading back towards Bradford, and this is all a track seen before, and thus shouldn't warrant too much extra description, but we need a detour to see the cattle creep below the High Birks embankment, previously missed in the snow, and to later depart the railway path at Headley Lane so the steep downhill path can be taken down from Upper Headley farm towards the golf course and Thornton Beck, so that the impressive eastern profile of Thornton Viaduct can be taken in, its 14 arches snaking across the valley and providing a view worthy of many photographs. Ascend on the path that leads through someone's house to meet Thornton proper, rising from Alderscholes Lane and up Chapel Street to meet the main road, and this particularly stone-y satellite of Bradford will have to wait a bit longer for an future explore as I'm feeling done for the day, and I'll resist the temptations of a brew at the Great Northern Coffee House (with a GWR King on it signage) as the ride home is going to be a long one. Thus we push on to the site of the old Thornton station, hidden below the primary school, completing my first of hopefully many trips through Bradford, having found much more of the old GNR line than I might have initially hoped to and arriving at the bus stop to await the #607 at 2.05pm, a rather slow day for a sub 9 mile route with a really a few too many digressions (a bit like this blog posting, if we're really being honest).

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 2594.5 miles
2017 Total: 29.5 miles
Up Country Total: 2367.7 miles
Solo Total: 2339.2 miles