Alone Beneath The Sky: Apperley Bridge to Queensbury 11/03/17

9.9 miles, via Idle, Five Lane Ends, Swain House, Bradford city centre, Great Horton,
Horton Bank, & Clayton Heights.

Three days off from work and after much busy-busy, with the much appreciated help and company of My Parents, we have all decorating and cleansing targets achieved, but there's not much enthusiasm left for a Sunday walk, and ultimately the weather will make the decision of if I wish to be outside or not, so a weekend drops out and we find ourselves further on into March, without any more Spring being felt in the air once it's time to get walking again. Still using the early season to explore Bradford, and the best way to get used to its many hills is to travel across it from one side to the other, which pretty much guarantees a couple of ascents and a few more miles on the clock as our days get longer and warmer, theoretically, of course. So off we go to Apperley Bridge station, for a 10.20am start as a 10 mile day still doesn't demand a super early rise, and once off the platform the panorama of the northern edge of Greater Bradford invites our exploration, but to get there we need to walk some familiar paths down Harrogate Road and past the pubs as yet unused as we make our way over the old Apperley bridge itself and the River Aire before the rural Apperley Road snakes its way on towards the canal, inviting a path into Thackley woods and still showing the muddy scars of December 2015's floods. The edge of the city is met once over the L&LC, suburbia spreading out to fill every available space among the farmsteads and the older houses, and the ascent out of the Aire valley comes on strong as Apperley Road ascends towards Leeds Road, offering views back to the many woodlands and not really offering any suggestion of where Apperley itself might have been. Cross over the A657 by The George, which might have an excellent view from its back rooms, and press on into the outer parts of Idle, where terraces and suburbs mix together, but don't get too close to the village centre as our path swings up the narrow and ascending Howgate in the direction of Albion Road for an even more increased sense of altitude and The Alexander presents itself as another pub with a fine aspect.

Thorpe Garth provides the main route and more illustrations of Bradford's confused patterns of development in the last couple of centuries, some of it looking it very proud indeed, and as the climb continues we get another offering of the previously promised railway walk through the eastern half of the city as the route of the GNR Laisterdyke - Shipley line crosses our path. A long retaining wall accompanies Bradford Road uphill past the ends of stubby terraces and the outer edge of Eccleshill's estates as the landscape suggests the presence of quarrying in its past as we rise towards Five Lane Ends, a false arrival coming by the island that leads to the shopping centre around the Morrison's superstore, an odd place to find a roadside van selling eggs. Still not far to the most famous junction in the city, where five old country lanes met high on the hill, with none of them actually going towards Bradford itself, these days a major traffic island with a pub, and six lanes radiating from it, making its name even more inexplicable to the outside observer. It's along the sixth lane we progress, through the Swain House estate, and still going uphill for a couple of hundred yards before we finally start the descent down into Bradford's valley, providing pretty leafy going on the way down to meeting King's Road and briefly gaining an elevated path downhill as it becomes even greener as the road slips on down below the hills of Bolton Woods and giving a fresh perspective over Bolton's sprawl that was first acknowledged two weeks ago. Views forward tease Lister Mills high on the hill above Manningham as well, and you know that will probably be much harder to observe up close when its day come, so for now it will be the sentinel over the city, as another raised path leads us above the road and below the broken terraced gardens of houses that seem to have turned their backs on the old front gardens. Soon suburbia brings us down to the Queen's road junction and the way across the A6177 leads us down into the valley proper, as industry and commerce dominate the floor as we drop down to meet Canal Road by the Gasometers of the gas works, and then it's hitting the beeline to the city centre, noting that superstores and car dealerships seem to have occupied every bit of flat land down here.

Push on as interest is drawn up the hillside previous ascended off to the east, and find some impressive derelict buildings in the Conditioning House and Cape Street mills that really look like they ought to have some sort of revival, and Canal Road then leads us on among more of the factories and warehouses that I thought hadn't survived the 1960s, though these look somewhat sadder and in need of a revival. Soon enough, we are at the top end of the Broadway centre, and the path along Kirkgate leads us around the apron of Forster Square station, the Midland Railway's terminus that has also been horribly brutalised and cut down, though this one suffered in the supposedly more enlightened age of the 1990s, but that's an investigation for another day, as we carry on into the throng of Bradford's shoppers. The feeling that Bradford is unfairly maligned as a city comes around, as we move along Market Street, past the Wool Exchange, the city's Gothic-cum-Moorish masterpiece, and wander into the Town Hall square, to admire the massive Gothic pile and take in the developed City Park as a spot to consume lunch is found by the fountains of the Mirror Pool, so much has been done in the last 15 years to undo the mistakes made in the 1960s, so now Bradford ought to be considered no worse than any other major city in this land. The roads are still nightmarish, mind you, the wide A6181 inner ring needing crossing before we make a path between the beloved Alhambra theatre, and the derelict New Victoria cinema, unused for 17 years and probably the qualifier as Bradford's new Great Shame as such a prominent building and location deserves so much better. The first steps onto Great Horton Road have the feeling of it being uphill for the remainder of the day, moving up towards the University and student land (visited in 1994 and not seen since), the original Technical College and the library opposite being the best building in the complex, and interest can also be found among the villas on Claremont, where Fredrick Delius was born, though certainty of which house the composer (and notable British child of immigrant parents) actually dwelt in in his younger days is far from clear, #4 has the plaque, to clarify (or muddy?) the waters.

Push on past student terraces, the leisure centre and the surprising intrusion of industry, and the road declines before the long ascent starts proper, and the thought starts to crystallise as the path is made uphill, towards the A6177 section, about the identity of Bradford's legendary curry mile. I don't actually know where it actually is, but passing among the many takeaways and restaurants that seem to occupy every other building on this stretch has me pondering that if it isn't on Great Horton Road, then it must pretty damn special elsewhere. The path previously travelled makes a lot more sense once seen for a third (!) time, and it can be hoped that the Tour de Yorkshire might one day send its cyclists up here as elevation just keeps on coming as we press on up to Great Horton itself, drawn along by the tower of the old Congregational school and the spire of the church of St John the Evangelist. Great Horton is a townlet in its own right, with pubs and a mill, as well as the Old Hall by the roadside, illustrating well the fact that Bradford district seemed to have a thing about letting its villages grow at significant elevation before the city grew to consume them, the spread of terraces along the main roads makes sense to me as we continue up to Horton Bank, but the appeal of suburbia up here makes much less sense as seasonal and foul weather is sure to come on hard at this elevation. Deviate off the A647 to hit the harshest stretch of the ascent, as Old Road leads up to the top of the Horton Bank, giving us a lung bursting push that makes it obvious why the main road got moved, as well as providing a great view back to the city would be even better on a nicer day, and there's more of those odd little bungalows up here too. Re-joining the main road by Horton Bank park, in the site of a former reservoir (?), we press on towards and through Clayton Heights, finding more remote mills and many pubs in among the suburbia, with Highgate and Old Dolphin providing interesting little complexes, whilst 200+m of ascent and the view over Asa Briggs park (not named after the historian) gives the first suggestion of the city finally coming to an end.

It's kinda amazing to have found so much city out here, and I'll happily retain the capacity to be amazed, especially that the city of Bradford could have failed to drop onto the cultural radar as paths were made across West Yorkshire, and it may be early days, but so far, it's offering a lot of interesting things to see and new perspectives to be stretched (though its frequently glum weather still hasn't rewarded me too well, but that is one of those clichéd beliefs of mine that will probably take a very long time to shift from my mind). Sure enough we soon meet the edge, gaining a view across the fields off to the north looking towards Clayton, Thornton and the west of Bradford, and the rise continues to moorland altitude, over 300m up, as we arrive in Queensbury (Bradford's Morley?) where the Victorian villas faced the harshest climatic conditions and modern suburbia continues to grow in the local vernacular style. Of course, there are a lot of terraces up here too, built to house the miners who served the collieries that brought the town here in the first place but interest is drawn downhill to the old station triangle way down below, and the loss of the GNR lines is still one that stings, though the path down to the station is one I'm glad we won't have to walk today. Press on through a landscape that feel slightly out of time, formulating future plans in Alpine Bradford as we pass Victoria Hall, the community centre, day care facility and swimming baths all rolled up in one Victorian package and then take a trip down the Brighouse Road to see if it possible to walk around the extensive site of Black Dyke Mills, and it seems not, and it seems to be more way more industrial and a lot less like a shopping outlet than I had expected. So last steps are made back to High Street and on to the bus stop at the heart of the town, just shy of Holy Trinity church, and away from the temptations of a beverage on the Ring o' Bells, with the day done at 2.10pm, extremely happy to have done an almost 10 mile stretch in under 4 hours, especially when so much of it was uphill, good to see that my legs are still in tune, even if the rest of me might be toiling with work and whatnot...

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 2613.1 miles
2017 Total: 48.1 miles
Up Country Total: 2386.3 miles
Solo Total: 2357.8 miles