13.6 miles, via Thunder Bridge, Kirkburton, Thorncliff, Emley Moor, Emley,
Emley Woodhouse, Bretton Common, West Bretton, Great Cliff, Crigglestone,
Kettlethorpe, Milnthorpe, and Sandal Castle.
Spring finally lands, according to the calendar at least, but I'm not really feeling the joys of it just yet, and as my next week off work lands, my plans very nearly get off to a very sticky start as Northern trains decide that despite being freed of strike actions, they can still cancel useful Saturday morning services on a whim, and then run their next train through Morley 20 minutes late so that I have less than a minute to make my connection in Huddersfield, which I do make but still feel irritated that they are making me start late and getting me exercised. Having already made my first acquaintance with the Penistone line, and having multiple unseen stations to visit along its length, it would make more sense to walk to them for a first visit, but after last weeks trip of walking west into the prevailing winds, I'd much rather walk with the wind behind me, which is why first contact with Stocksmoor station is made by rail at 10.30am, certainly one of the quainter ones on this rare line of village halts and only one town of note. We are thus in the western portion of Kirklees, as we strike east, not in the dynamic cleft of the Holme Valley but above the next one along, which doesn't seem to have a clear identity, or even a river with a consistently applied name, and we leave with the village behind us on the high fields of Stocks Moor, putting the village hall and the Clothiers Arms in our wake as we join Birks Lane and hit the long meandering walk downhill below the bare trees towards Thunder Bridge. It's immediately a trek that I'm glad didn't get scheduled for the end of the day, and as we roll up to this hamlet around the river crossing, the rural picturesqueness can be absorbed with joy, as most of my trekking in 2019 hasn't dropped me anywhere this pretty yet, as rural cottages cluster around Thunder Bridge Dike and the Woodman Inn, all dropped in below the high, wooded banks of the valley. A nice spot for a hotel getaway, and not really that far removed from the wider world, is a thought to ponder as we depart it, along the long angled slope up the eastern side of the valley, completely under the cover of trees all the way up to Penistone Road, where we will dash across the A629 by the dynamically shaped road sign and join the lane that leads up towards somewhere we have been actually before in these remoter feeling parts.
That would be Kirkburton, seen on one of 2014's trips across the heart of Kirklees, which left a lot of terrain unseen in my analysis those three straggly excursions some five years later, and thus our stitching together of these unrelated locales continues as scoot up Riley Lane, getting sight to Storthes Hall and the remains of its namesake hospital that weren't seen or even acknowledged when we burned a way to Holmfirth though the woods below. There isn't much of a view to the far north from this high bank beyond a number of well placed houses, but there's a fine view across the dene towards Highburton as our path shifts from north to east as we set a course towards Emley Moor, with the masts sitting above the next rise along, but before we can get there, we've got to descend into Kirkburton, away from the lane of country dwellings and down into the houses that have grown on the west side of Dean Bottam Dike, which we reach by passing the cricket field and note that surely the mill life of the settlement once lay here. We rise again, far below All Hallows church as it perches above the village, crossing the main road by the Co-op in the old Royal Hotel, and then hitting the long rise out of the village to the east, up Turnshaw Lane past the village library and the old school sat atop a lofty rear wall, up through the leafiness that surrounds Croftlands House and on to the suburban parade of semis and terraces on the level fields above the valley, leading us up to the Junction Inn. The village peters out as we ascend on up Laneside, passing the last farmsteads in the settlement as we move on with Hallas Lane, into the fields and on a seemingly direct route up to Emley Moor as the masts loiter on the horizon, though we have got to pass though the scattered farming district of Thorncliff before we get there, with farmsteads and rows of cottages sitting quite far off the road as it rises still, giving sight down to Huddersfield and Castle for a while. Lose the footway as we pass the Naboth Vineyard cottage, and start a proper road walk as Jagger Lane passes the Thorncliff Green Top terrace and farmstead, settling onto a twisty uphill track that needs care to traverse as space on the road is at a premium, and traffic awareness is key as the view west opens out, revealing the distant shapes of Meltham Moor, Holme Moss and the moorlands above the Don valley.
Meet Highfield House at the ascent's top, situated for one of the grand panoramas in the district, which further confirms my belief that Emley Moor might be the secret top of the world, and after absorbing the view from whence we cam and beyond, we can turn our attention to the Masts, as there are plural of them since I first came up here, a 317m tall temporary guyed lattice mast having been assembled next to the familiar concrete tower last year to allow repairs and upgrades to the tallest freestanding structure in the country. It's a joy to be up close to its massive 330m height and I do ponder if my second career as a blogger could convince Arqiva to grant me access to it, but for now we'll just have to admire it at a remove again, in more sunshine than on my first trip, although it's really badly placed in the sky for intensive photography, not that that stops me. Move on, and stop looking back as the view to the masts is lost behind Moor Head plantation, and now focus on the road to Emley village, while also taking in the panorama to the north and east that makes more sense than it did in 2014, as we look to Wakefield sitting on our forward horizon, while looking around over Ossett to the high fringes of Leeds and somehow pick out Morley Town Hall among the distant haze, as my 'Secret Top of the World theory' is strongly reinforced as we sit miles further out than we did on the A642 two weeks ago. Past the Westfield farm corner, and the Springfield terraces, we strike into new fields, towards Emley village, which briefly settles onto our horizon before the road settles into a deep groove, passing the Emley Business Park and eventually opening out again at the Chapel House corner, where we drop down and then rise up towards a skyline of suburban houses that does little to show the quality of one of the definitive villages of Kirklees district. We elevate with Chapel Lane to get the views back over the moor, meeting the White Horse inn with its rustic terraces around it, and carry on to the village centre, where stone built houses and stores surround the famous village cross, which is only a stump, that has been re-rendered and whitewashed so many times it looks like an amateurishly iced wedding cake. A lane of stoney houses and cottages leads north to St Michael's church, the other sentinel on this ridge between Calder and Dearne, but our path will lead on east down Upper Lane, where things look a bit more mundane, passing among red brick council houses and 1980s suburbs as we push out of the village, looking over to the rustic and ancient looking Thorncliffe farm and forwards to our passage over Bretton Common, obvious ahead of us, retaining a footway all the way forwards to Broom Hall farm.
Then we have to take care with traffic along the way on to Emley Woodhouse as we go on, with the masts on the reverse horizon, looking north to Flockton and south to High Hoyland, dodging the many cars that charge along this back lane, eventually running into the hamlet of farmsteads that still has the rustic smell that was so pungent here when the Kirklees Way brought me here, and the declining lane beyond gives us a good view of the Woodhouse villa that gives the settlement its name. Downhill we head, towards the A636, but before we can get there the landscape around Bentley Grange throws up the best sort of local interest to stoke my imagination, where extensive fields on both sides of the lane, especially to the south, are filled with medieval bellpits where Cistercian Monks mined ironstone from the 12th to 16th centuries, and their workings have somehow endured until the present day, immediately visible to my eyes, but otherwise just looking like lumpy fields filled with sheep and gorse bushes. Descending to the end of Woodhouse Lane has us bidding farewell to Kirklees district once again as we tangle up with the path of the Wakefield Way and enter the district again as we cross the Denby Dale Road, not setting a new southern boundary this time around, but tracing the border as we retraces 2015's path, off road and uphill on the path up Bower Hill, my first stretch of soft going on the season, which as me wishing that I'd not brought Boots #6b out for the occasion as they're not really cutting it for grip and support among the gooiness. Onwards and upwards past Bower Hill farm, which hides well away from the road, taking looks back to Emley Moor and the Dearne Valley as we aim into the plantation at the hilltop, finding the going to be a complete contrast to my previous trip up here, crossing over the track into Bretton Park and carrying on through Wilderness Plantation, while not feeling the close proxouty of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park or the A636 beyond the bare trees on either side of here. This runs us out to the side of the A637, just to the west of West Bretton which we approach past the terrace of rather lovely cottages in rustic red brick and the field of Highland Cattle by the derelict Toll Bar farm, and we split off the Huddersfield road to walk down the lane by the village school and the parade of council houses and opposite the village hall to find the picturesque Old Manor house and farm on the Sycamore Lane corner.
Out of the village we soon head on Bretton Lane, recalling this as being one of many slopes and drops from my drip down it on the #96 bus, and the fun starts once we've passed Maltkiln farm and the Town End houses, settling into the shadow of the looming Woolley Edge to the south of us and looking forwards to Wakefield as it sits in the distance to the east, while the expanding view north show up a fire beyond the horizon of East Ardsley, which spouts a column of smoke into the sky for some time as we march on and descend. Glad to have a footway along this lane, as the descents start to get sketchy in places, dropping us down towards Stag Royd and Well Spring woods which we pass through to meet the charmingly located Wood End Cottage, and new views forwards towards Dennington hill as it rises above Wakefield's outermost suburban enclaves as we press on down another descent past Birch Laithe farm, looking north to espy Calder Grove viaduct again and forwards to see the railway cottages that endure by the line down to Barnsley. We pass over the line and see that the site of the L&YR's Crigglestone West station still endures with its main building intact at the trackside, and as the road starts to ascend uphill towards Great Cliff, we pass the enduring Station hotel, that still does business despite having not seen trains since 1965, rising on to meet the outermost parts of Wakefield and finally finding a bench to sit for a late, late snack and watering session. On into Great Cliff, which hasn't lingered in the memory despite passing through it on a railway walk in 2015, and its terraces and chapel should look a bit more familiar than they do, isolated on the western side of the M1 which we pass over at great height while taking in the view north west to the aligned towers and spires of Ossett and Horbury, before carrying on into Crigglestone, perched on the ridge above the Calder than conceals the old railway tunnel beneath it. We won't be seeking that out on this occasion despite it being close enough for another look, passing on through this rural and industrial feeling suburb that surely once had a colliery hiding somewhere within it (under the business park according to the old OS map), taking in its many faces of various vintages as we pass on down past the Methodist church, the nursery school; and the Working Men's club before landing on the crossing of Durkar Lane which has us within a mile of last week's route still, while maintaining a completely different aspect on the locale from up here.
Standbridge Lane takes us on, past Crigglestone cemetery and the Wakefield crematorium as the open fields on the northern side of the road give us a clear view to the city to the north and on towards Sandal Castle, where our path really has to take us, and those evolving views stimulate the mind more than the estates of Lego Houses that still seem to be growing the borough of Kettlethorpe, another of those places that you only know from the buses that go there, expanding on to the south of the road. Our descending ends as we land by the local high school's all-weather playing field, where overweight older dudes are still trying to play football, crossing the lane by St Peter & St Paul's RC church, and soon getting myself tangled up in the road junction by the Asdale Road corner and the entrance to the retail park around Asda, finally locating the right way forward over Owler Beck by the Star inn, and follow the A6186 into the suburbian edge of Milnthorpe up to the junction of the A61. We could beeline to the finish line from here as we pass Sandal RUFC and the Walnut Tree inn, but seek out the interesting alternative by turning up Milnthorpe Lane, away from the main road and in front of a long parade of expensive houses that are probably worth the view they have towards the distant crinkles of Kirklees to the far west of here, giving us the feeling of a private road as we walk on into the fields of Castle Farm, where plenty of other people seem to be familiar with the paths that are only vaguely illustrated on the OS map. Sandal Castle is our target and that sits some 50m above the plains around the Calder, so a route march uphill is in order, looking up to its prominent motte and bailey and down to the lakes of Pugney's Country Park as the day's sunshine and warmth start to fade, arriving on the high promontory to find a healthy crowd of visitors on the site, making best use of the paths and moat ditch for their exercises. I'll circuit the site to take in a landscape that I now know a lot better than I did five seasons ago, taking a gander over the terrain, and the city, that has entertained me so thoroughly in the opening portion of this season, and then it's time to move on, not taking a warming brew at the castle café, and instead landing on Manygates Lane and seeking out the path that leads on to South Drive where the suburbia feels expensive and there are as many detached houses as semis. It's a pattern that continues as we trace the edges of Castle Drive and Sandal Avenue, where late Victorian leafiness would rule if the trees hadn't been so aggressively trimmed, and this brings us to the A61 Barnsley Road, which we cross to trace our way up Agbrigg Road to close the day at Sandal & Agbrigg station at 3.35pm, and feeling like we've travelled a much greater distance than we actually have over the course of our excursion.
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 3729.4 miles
2019 Total: 79 miles
Up Country Total: 3336.3 miles
Solo Total: 3443.1 miles
Miles in My 40s: 2323.2 miles
Next Up: Staying closer to Home while My Mum comes Up Country for a visit.
Spring finally lands, according to the calendar at least, but I'm not really feeling the joys of it just yet, and as my next week off work lands, my plans very nearly get off to a very sticky start as Northern trains decide that despite being freed of strike actions, they can still cancel useful Saturday morning services on a whim, and then run their next train through Morley 20 minutes late so that I have less than a minute to make my connection in Huddersfield, which I do make but still feel irritated that they are making me start late and getting me exercised. Having already made my first acquaintance with the Penistone line, and having multiple unseen stations to visit along its length, it would make more sense to walk to them for a first visit, but after last weeks trip of walking west into the prevailing winds, I'd much rather walk with the wind behind me, which is why first contact with Stocksmoor station is made by rail at 10.30am, certainly one of the quainter ones on this rare line of village halts and only one town of note. We are thus in the western portion of Kirklees, as we strike east, not in the dynamic cleft of the Holme Valley but above the next one along, which doesn't seem to have a clear identity, or even a river with a consistently applied name, and we leave with the village behind us on the high fields of Stocks Moor, putting the village hall and the Clothiers Arms in our wake as we join Birks Lane and hit the long meandering walk downhill below the bare trees towards Thunder Bridge. It's immediately a trek that I'm glad didn't get scheduled for the end of the day, and as we roll up to this hamlet around the river crossing, the rural picturesqueness can be absorbed with joy, as most of my trekking in 2019 hasn't dropped me anywhere this pretty yet, as rural cottages cluster around Thunder Bridge Dike and the Woodman Inn, all dropped in below the high, wooded banks of the valley. A nice spot for a hotel getaway, and not really that far removed from the wider world, is a thought to ponder as we depart it, along the long angled slope up the eastern side of the valley, completely under the cover of trees all the way up to Penistone Road, where we will dash across the A629 by the dynamically shaped road sign and join the lane that leads up towards somewhere we have been actually before in these remoter feeling parts.
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| Stocksmoor Station. |
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| Thunder Bridge. |
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| The Road sign by Penistone Road. |
That would be Kirkburton, seen on one of 2014's trips across the heart of Kirklees, which left a lot of terrain unseen in my analysis those three straggly excursions some five years later, and thus our stitching together of these unrelated locales continues as scoot up Riley Lane, getting sight to Storthes Hall and the remains of its namesake hospital that weren't seen or even acknowledged when we burned a way to Holmfirth though the woods below. There isn't much of a view to the far north from this high bank beyond a number of well placed houses, but there's a fine view across the dene towards Highburton as our path shifts from north to east as we set a course towards Emley Moor, with the masts sitting above the next rise along, but before we can get there, we've got to descend into Kirkburton, away from the lane of country dwellings and down into the houses that have grown on the west side of Dean Bottam Dike, which we reach by passing the cricket field and note that surely the mill life of the settlement once lay here. We rise again, far below All Hallows church as it perches above the village, crossing the main road by the Co-op in the old Royal Hotel, and then hitting the long rise out of the village to the east, up Turnshaw Lane past the village library and the old school sat atop a lofty rear wall, up through the leafiness that surrounds Croftlands House and on to the suburban parade of semis and terraces on the level fields above the valley, leading us up to the Junction Inn. The village peters out as we ascend on up Laneside, passing the last farmsteads in the settlement as we move on with Hallas Lane, into the fields and on a seemingly direct route up to Emley Moor as the masts loiter on the horizon, though we have got to pass though the scattered farming district of Thorncliff before we get there, with farmsteads and rows of cottages sitting quite far off the road as it rises still, giving sight down to Huddersfield and Castle for a while. Lose the footway as we pass the Naboth Vineyard cottage, and start a proper road walk as Jagger Lane passes the Thorncliff Green Top terrace and farmstead, settling onto a twisty uphill track that needs care to traverse as space on the road is at a premium, and traffic awareness is key as the view west opens out, revealing the distant shapes of Meltham Moor, Holme Moss and the moorlands above the Don valley.
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| Highburton |
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| Kirkburton and the Co-op in the old pub. |
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| The Junction Inn at the top of Kirkburton |
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| Ascending to Emley Moor via Thorncliff. |
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| The view to Holme Moss and Meltham Moor. |
Meet Highfield House at the ascent's top, situated for one of the grand panoramas in the district, which further confirms my belief that Emley Moor might be the secret top of the world, and after absorbing the view from whence we cam and beyond, we can turn our attention to the Masts, as there are plural of them since I first came up here, a 317m tall temporary guyed lattice mast having been assembled next to the familiar concrete tower last year to allow repairs and upgrades to the tallest freestanding structure in the country. It's a joy to be up close to its massive 330m height and I do ponder if my second career as a blogger could convince Arqiva to grant me access to it, but for now we'll just have to admire it at a remove again, in more sunshine than on my first trip, although it's really badly placed in the sky for intensive photography, not that that stops me. Move on, and stop looking back as the view to the masts is lost behind Moor Head plantation, and now focus on the road to Emley village, while also taking in the panorama to the north and east that makes more sense than it did in 2014, as we look to Wakefield sitting on our forward horizon, while looking around over Ossett to the high fringes of Leeds and somehow pick out Morley Town Hall among the distant haze, as my 'Secret Top of the World theory' is strongly reinforced as we sit miles further out than we did on the A642 two weeks ago. Past the Westfield farm corner, and the Springfield terraces, we strike into new fields, towards Emley village, which briefly settles onto our horizon before the road settles into a deep groove, passing the Emley Business Park and eventually opening out again at the Chapel House corner, where we drop down and then rise up towards a skyline of suburban houses that does little to show the quality of one of the definitive villages of Kirklees district. We elevate with Chapel Lane to get the views back over the moor, meeting the White Horse inn with its rustic terraces around it, and carry on to the village centre, where stone built houses and stores surround the famous village cross, which is only a stump, that has been re-rendered and whitewashed so many times it looks like an amateurishly iced wedding cake. A lane of stoney houses and cottages leads north to St Michael's church, the other sentinel on this ridge between Calder and Dearne, but our path will lead on east down Upper Lane, where things look a bit more mundane, passing among red brick council houses and 1980s suburbs as we push out of the village, looking over to the rustic and ancient looking Thorncliffe farm and forwards to our passage over Bretton Common, obvious ahead of us, retaining a footway all the way forwards to Broom Hall farm.
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| The Emley Moor masts |
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| The view towards Wakefield from Emley Moor. |
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| The Springfield Terraces. |
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| Emley Village Cross. |
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| Broom Hall. |
Then we have to take care with traffic along the way on to Emley Woodhouse as we go on, with the masts on the reverse horizon, looking north to Flockton and south to High Hoyland, dodging the many cars that charge along this back lane, eventually running into the hamlet of farmsteads that still has the rustic smell that was so pungent here when the Kirklees Way brought me here, and the declining lane beyond gives us a good view of the Woodhouse villa that gives the settlement its name. Downhill we head, towards the A636, but before we can get there the landscape around Bentley Grange throws up the best sort of local interest to stoke my imagination, where extensive fields on both sides of the lane, especially to the south, are filled with medieval bellpits where Cistercian Monks mined ironstone from the 12th to 16th centuries, and their workings have somehow endured until the present day, immediately visible to my eyes, but otherwise just looking like lumpy fields filled with sheep and gorse bushes. Descending to the end of Woodhouse Lane has us bidding farewell to Kirklees district once again as we tangle up with the path of the Wakefield Way and enter the district again as we cross the Denby Dale Road, not setting a new southern boundary this time around, but tracing the border as we retraces 2015's path, off road and uphill on the path up Bower Hill, my first stretch of soft going on the season, which as me wishing that I'd not brought Boots #6b out for the occasion as they're not really cutting it for grip and support among the gooiness. Onwards and upwards past Bower Hill farm, which hides well away from the road, taking looks back to Emley Moor and the Dearne Valley as we aim into the plantation at the hilltop, finding the going to be a complete contrast to my previous trip up here, crossing over the track into Bretton Park and carrying on through Wilderness Plantation, while not feeling the close proxouty of the Yorkshire Sculpture Park or the A636 beyond the bare trees on either side of here. This runs us out to the side of the A637, just to the west of West Bretton which we approach past the terrace of rather lovely cottages in rustic red brick and the field of Highland Cattle by the derelict Toll Bar farm, and we split off the Huddersfield road to walk down the lane by the village school and the parade of council houses and opposite the village hall to find the picturesque Old Manor house and farm on the Sycamore Lane corner.
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| Emley Woodhouse |
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| Bentley Grange Bellpits. |
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| Bower Hill farm, with Emley Moor. |
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| Wilderness Plantation |
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| The Huddersfield Road terrace, West Bretton. |
Out of the village we soon head on Bretton Lane, recalling this as being one of many slopes and drops from my drip down it on the #96 bus, and the fun starts once we've passed Maltkiln farm and the Town End houses, settling into the shadow of the looming Woolley Edge to the south of us and looking forwards to Wakefield as it sits in the distance to the east, while the expanding view north show up a fire beyond the horizon of East Ardsley, which spouts a column of smoke into the sky for some time as we march on and descend. Glad to have a footway along this lane, as the descents start to get sketchy in places, dropping us down towards Stag Royd and Well Spring woods which we pass through to meet the charmingly located Wood End Cottage, and new views forwards towards Dennington hill as it rises above Wakefield's outermost suburban enclaves as we press on down another descent past Birch Laithe farm, looking north to espy Calder Grove viaduct again and forwards to see the railway cottages that endure by the line down to Barnsley. We pass over the line and see that the site of the L&YR's Crigglestone West station still endures with its main building intact at the trackside, and as the road starts to ascend uphill towards Great Cliff, we pass the enduring Station hotel, that still does business despite having not seen trains since 1965, rising on to meet the outermost parts of Wakefield and finally finding a bench to sit for a late, late snack and watering session. On into Great Cliff, which hasn't lingered in the memory despite passing through it on a railway walk in 2015, and its terraces and chapel should look a bit more familiar than they do, isolated on the western side of the M1 which we pass over at great height while taking in the view north west to the aligned towers and spires of Ossett and Horbury, before carrying on into Crigglestone, perched on the ridge above the Calder than conceals the old railway tunnel beneath it. We won't be seeking that out on this occasion despite it being close enough for another look, passing on through this rural and industrial feeling suburb that surely once had a colliery hiding somewhere within it (under the business park according to the old OS map), taking in its many faces of various vintages as we pass on down past the Methodist church, the nursery school; and the Working Men's club before landing on the crossing of Durkar Lane which has us within a mile of last week's route still, while maintaining a completely different aspect on the locale from up here.
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| Woolley Edge |
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| Stag Royd and Well Spring woods. |
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| Crigglestone West station (former) |
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| Great Cliff |
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| Crigglestone |
Standbridge Lane takes us on, past Crigglestone cemetery and the Wakefield crematorium as the open fields on the northern side of the road give us a clear view to the city to the north and on towards Sandal Castle, where our path really has to take us, and those evolving views stimulate the mind more than the estates of Lego Houses that still seem to be growing the borough of Kettlethorpe, another of those places that you only know from the buses that go there, expanding on to the south of the road. Our descending ends as we land by the local high school's all-weather playing field, where overweight older dudes are still trying to play football, crossing the lane by St Peter & St Paul's RC church, and soon getting myself tangled up in the road junction by the Asdale Road corner and the entrance to the retail park around Asda, finally locating the right way forward over Owler Beck by the Star inn, and follow the A6186 into the suburbian edge of Milnthorpe up to the junction of the A61. We could beeline to the finish line from here as we pass Sandal RUFC and the Walnut Tree inn, but seek out the interesting alternative by turning up Milnthorpe Lane, away from the main road and in front of a long parade of expensive houses that are probably worth the view they have towards the distant crinkles of Kirklees to the far west of here, giving us the feeling of a private road as we walk on into the fields of Castle Farm, where plenty of other people seem to be familiar with the paths that are only vaguely illustrated on the OS map. Sandal Castle is our target and that sits some 50m above the plains around the Calder, so a route march uphill is in order, looking up to its prominent motte and bailey and down to the lakes of Pugney's Country Park as the day's sunshine and warmth start to fade, arriving on the high promontory to find a healthy crowd of visitors on the site, making best use of the paths and moat ditch for their exercises. I'll circuit the site to take in a landscape that I now know a lot better than I did five seasons ago, taking a gander over the terrain, and the city, that has entertained me so thoroughly in the opening portion of this season, and then it's time to move on, not taking a warming brew at the castle café, and instead landing on Manygates Lane and seeking out the path that leads on to South Drive where the suburbia feels expensive and there are as many detached houses as semis. It's a pattern that continues as we trace the edges of Castle Drive and Sandal Avenue, where late Victorian leafiness would rule if the trees hadn't been so aggressively trimmed, and this brings us to the A61 Barnsley Road, which we cross to trace our way up Agbrigg Road to close the day at Sandal & Agbrigg station at 3.35pm, and feeling like we've travelled a much greater distance than we actually have over the course of our excursion.
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| The Homefield and Sandal mottes, with Wakefield panorama. |
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| The Star Inn, Milnthorpe. |
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| Castle Farm |
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| The ascent to Sandal castle. |
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| Pugney's lake and the way travelled. |
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| Suburbian Sandal Avenue. |
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 3729.4 miles
2019 Total: 79 miles
Up Country Total: 3336.3 miles
Solo Total: 3443.1 miles
Miles in My 40s: 2323.2 miles
Next Up: Staying closer to Home while My Mum comes Up Country for a visit.
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