Nearly two weeks into May and it still isn't feeling warm yet, further enhancing the feeling that the seasons of 2019 could well be broken, though things are looking a little better for the weekend than they had during the prior few days of persistent rain and temperatures in single digits, and this lingering chill is what prevents me getting out early for a pre-9am start, even when I have a 16+ miles day to look forwards to, my first properly long trek of the year. The surprise of the day probably has to be the fact that I've never walked from Deighton station during all my years of wandering, as it lies on the local service out of Morley and provides a handy jumping off point in Huddersfield's eastern suburbs, and it's here we'll alight after 9.25am, with a course prepared across the heart of Kirklees district, an area we've largely neglected during these weeks of wandering in its eastern quarter. The first thing to not here is the branch from the railway that forms the branch to Kirkburton, on which the modern station stands, with its bridge under Whitacre Street still in situ, and the next to note is the view up the Colne Valley, in which Huddersfield mostly hides, with its high banks thickly coated in woodlands despite the urban growth of the town. Despite having never travelled to or from this station before, we're hardly in unknown territory, as we're only a short way up from Leeds Road and the Huddersfield Broad canal, and only a little way down from the Birkby-Bradley greenway, which we cross as we head north into some very randomly developed suburbia and up to the green that was once the middle of rural Deighton village. It's all a very different prospect now, and we'll not be taking the direct route to the crossing of the River Colne as there are more roads to be seen than the shortest possible route, and thus we'll strike a path up Keldergate to pass through Deighton's council estate, a mass of bungalows and modest semis that end abruptly as the lane slips through the lower reaches of Bradley Gate wood, which lead us into Bradley, naturally. There's even more council houses down here too, and a lot more painted stucco as well, giving it a look like that of Nether Hall, the estate local my old corner of Leicester, though it has a lot more greenery and leafiness to give it some visual flair before we run out onto the A6107 Bradley Road, where we head east, on among the stone terraces and rural outliers that have been consumed by the town.
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| The Colne Valley view, from Deighton Station. |
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| Keldergate and Bradley Gate Wood, Deighton. |
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| The ancient hidden corners of Bradley. |
This leads us down to the White Cross junction, back on a familiar sort of locale, where we note the L&NWR marker that sits above Bradley Tunnel, which runs directly beneath the converging roads, before we cross Leeds Road and join the B6118 Colne Bridge Road, which leads us among various industrial and commercial units, most of which seem to be owned by Mamas & Papas, and then over the railway, the canal and the River Colne in short order. This corner on the south bank calls itself Colne Bridge, but there's not much to it aside from the considerable mill remnants and the Royal & Ancient pub, and we'll leave it by hitting Bog Green Lane for a sharp uphill ascent, around the grounds of Heaton Lodge, which names the railway junction below, and over the path of the Calder Valley Greenway on the former MR line between Mirfield and the Newtown Goods depot, soon arriving in the sloping fields above Dalton Bank, which give us an increasingly expansive view over the Colne and Calder valleys below. Signage indicates Bog Green as our next destination, but it's not enough of a cottage and farmstead cluster to be worthy of note, and the views back are more interesting as the middle Calder valley opens out with the Kirklees Priory site directly to the north and the M62 visible crossing the viaduct east of Brighouse, and the familiar high points at Gawthorpe and Ossett piercing the eastern horizon while we ascend further towards the proper hamlet above the sharp edge of Dalton Bank. This is Upper Heaton, rendered distinctive by its tower at the edge of the farm closest to the bank's edge, and cottages and terrace cluster right up close to the road as we pass on through, having risen 100m up from the river, high enough for an expansive view across the whole northern horizon, but still close enough to greater Huddersfield to witness a bus pile up on the tight New Road corner. Upper Heaton Lane leads us on further uphill, revealing the view west as the top edge of Kirkheaton arrives ahead of us, giving as a view across the Holme and Colne valleys, with the highpoints of Castle Hill, Holme Moss and Meltham Moor prominent above Huddersfield, which we'll peer into with the binoculars that I've finally remembered to pack to espy things hidden around the town, gaining a particularly remote view of the huge but well concealed Lockwood Viaduct.
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| The Upstream Colne, at Colne Bridge. |
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| The Colne-Calder view from Bog Green. |
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| Upper Heaton, above Dalton Bank. |
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| The Castle Hill - Colne Valley view from above Kirkheaton. |
Pass above Kirkheaton as the road temporarily crests, with Moor Top farm occupying the hilltop to the east, as we come around the Blacksmith's Arms as what feels like the town's outer limit, before we tear off among the high fields, feeling the heat of the early going whilst looking to the north-western skies that seem to be full of the threat of rain, which wasn't on the forecast, but always feels like it should be a risk when this close to the Pennines. Sunshine still rules on the B6118 though as Highgate Lane leads us up to the Coxley Hill farm cluster, before Bellstring Lane continues on, landing on ridge that's narrow enough to offer vantage points to the west and east, further confirming my view that Kirklees really is the secret top of the world, with a few steepling edges appearing down towards the Shepley - Dalton river valley that doesn't have a proper name before we meet the former pub on the corner that tells us we really aren't that far from Mirfield, where we could have started today's trek if we hadn't been feeling so adventurous. Liley Lane takes us on, past the Stoneroyd and Benroyd houses that were well located for their elevated views, while the view ahead rises Whitley Park above the surrounding landscape, and that'll be our target as we pass through the Dransfield Hill farmstead cluster, with the ominous cloud starting to encroach on our sunny day as we come up to meet the Hare & Hounds inn and the Liley Hall farm cluster, which was our very first point of contact in this landscape some five years back, though the view west is much less pleasing this time as rainfall greys out Huddersfield. The high ascent to Whitley Park's edge follow, past the corner of Tanhouse Lane, straight up the sharp edge of the hilltop, which I don't recall from having walked down it in 2014, taking us past the gateway that once lead to the long lost Whitley Beaumont House, and I almost pass on visiting the last notable picaresque landscape feature of its park, but do so when I pause by the footpath that leads across the old parklands which takes us up to The Temple. It's also known as Black Dick's Tower, and stands at over 200m up, built in the 1750s but now derelict, and purportedly haunted, this former summer house commands a fine view towards the Colne valley, the town and the hills for my breaktime, or an impromptu barbecue and booze session in its circular basement judging by the collection of rubbish below, though it doesn't offer much shelter as the drizzle passes over and the promise of a properly sunny day passes.
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| The Blacksmith's Arms, Kirkheaton Moor Top. |
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| The Coxley Hill farmsteads, Bellstring Lane. |
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| Whitley Park from Liley Hall. |
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| The Temple, Whitley Park. |
Worth the detour even if it adds an extra half mile to my day, we'll return to the lane as it skirts the estate site and heads up to the top of it hillside, offering views over Thornhill to the east, and also into the trees that surround the former quarry within the old parkland, which is a riot of bluebells, even if the best portion of their season may have turned by now. The sunny weather has returned once we pass between the Nineveh Plantation and Coxley Wood, where the estate falls away to the west and the elevated view east is superb, revealing Outwood and Wakefield, beyond the middle Calder, as the lane sweeps around Paper Hall and Upper Rakes farms towards Grange Moor. This village is definitely an oddment, looking both like a rural accumulation of farmsteads and cottages, but also looking like it had an industrial sort of style from a century or so back, while lacing an old centre and any suburban growth sense from later years, it's a place where looking at it doesn't alleviate my confusion as we pass the village school, St Bartholomew's church and the village green, none of which have any suggestion of particular vintage. Still, it has a shop and a pub, and more restaurants than you'd think, as well as industrial estate on a colliery site, which may have been as extensive as its boundaries back in the day, but it passes behind us as we leave the B6118 at the Grange Moor roundabout, where we cross the A642 and pass the Blacksmith's Arms again (from a previous trip, not the one in Kirkheaton) meeting the top of the A637 Barnsley Road, and join the turnpike road as it takes us into Dearne valley. We are soon sweeping downhill with the Emley Moor masts in our locality at last having spent a couple of hours on our walking horizon, and they'll loom beyond the rapeseed fields as we gain a new horizon towards Woolley Edge as we head down to Palace Wood where we pass over a small tributary of the river before rising again past Palace Farm and the remotely situated Zion chapel, and looking down to that Six Lane End junction below, on the way into Flockton. This is a village that certainly has ancient appeal, as various farmsteads sit at its west end, and it still has all the flavour of an old ribbon settlement despite the new suburban arrivals filling in the unoccupied plots, and it's clear that the main road is entirely inadequate for contemporary traffic use as it squeezes through a couple of calmed and light controlled sections on either side of the Sun inn, which explains why the signs all round demand a bypass for it be built.
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| The Middle & Lower Calder view from Liley Lane. |
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| Grange Moor, where the question is How Come? |
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| The Emley Moor masts, beyond the Rapeseed fields, from Barnsley Road. |
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| The Narrow A637 squeezed through Flockton, by the Sun Inn. |
It's stony buildings and inspired vistas could even warm the heart of a city boy like me, at least until the sunshine starts to vanish and it gets chilled down as we pass around the corner by St James the Great and the CofE church, where the old village ends and redbrick terraces and new builds fill the lane towards Flockton Green, and we quit the road to press south again, down Pinfold Lane, past suburban closes and along the side of Flockton Beck. I feel like I might get stuck following a little girl out with her teacher on her first pony ride on the roads, until they take off at a canter as the gloom gathers, with the lane taking us around to the Flockton Mill site, where we almost touch the Kirklees Way route, before pulling uphill and revealing the length of the village that we failed to see as we rise up past Highfield House and Kirkby Wood before cresting at the Kirkby farmstead group at the bank top. The threat of rain now feels imminent as the reveal of Emley village comes along, atop the next ridge down, so that means another descent with Clough Lane, down to Clough Bridge and the passage over Out Lane Dike, and then we rise towards the village, contained by tree cover and thick hedges as the rain comes on, and as we touch base with Emley at the top of Rectory Road, we split off on the farm track that will lead us to the east of the settlement, towards Thorncliffe Farm. The waterlogged way forwards, puddling deep enough to be troublesome across the width of Cross Lane, isn't even the worst of our problems as we head south on Thorncliffe Lane, as the heavens open aggressively and we carry on at a field's remove from the residential village, cursing the fact that I haven't got my waterproof in my bag, and feeling anxious that the amount of precipitation might fritz out my camera like it did in Upper Wharfedale last year. So bailing feels wise as we land on School Lane, on the lesser suburban edge of the village, where a bus could easily be gained, but the horizon suggests that this rain may pass so we pace on to where the lane ends and becomes the green path of Tipping Lane, which splits us down to Upper Lane, one field beyond the village, where the downpour reduces to drizzle and the passing traffic doesn't make for the standing puddles as I wait to cross to Hag Hill Lane.
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| Near Flockton Mill, on Pinfold Lane. |
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| Ominous Clouds over Emley, from Kirkby farmstead. |
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| Puddling and Rainfall, by Thorncliffe Farm. |
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| So Much Rain, in Suburban Emley. |
So the worst passes as we rise with the lane to Hag Hill farm, where we crest the ridge and start the steep descent down towards the Dearne valley proper, with the rain pressing on over Hoyland Bank and the skies to the west over the watershed hills looking somewhat clearer, and keeping clear of the motorist feels like the key priority as the lane wanders off the ridge, past Owler Wood and the lanes to Emley Old Hall and on around the woodlands that sit on the site of Park Mill colliery, which once fired the industrial growth of Clayton West. It's been a long way down to meet the A636 Wakefield Road, which we cross at the very northern extremity of Clayton West, where we take the grassy path to pass over the 18th century packhorse bridge on the River Dearne, right opposite the site of Park Mill itself, now replaced by an stylistically busy housing development, with only a couple of vintage houses enduring, and Whinmoor Drive leads us to the bridleway beyond where we can assess the route up Hoyland Bank. There's 120m of ascent to come from this muddy lane, starting the climb from behind the Adare SEC works, initially up a contained footpath among equestrian fields that eventually leads us up onto a number of field boundary walks, up to meet the Kirklees Way route as it comes across from Clayton Hall farm, where we gain enough altitude to see the next wave of rain coming over Emley Moor, mere minutes distant from us. So gaining the woodland cover is the next target, cursing the grassy paths that aren't getting my legs and boots any drier, though the expected lashing of rain is nowhere near as bad as it might have been, and a mad dash uphill isn't necessary as we pass into what feels like a plot of thick reeds, or even bamboo, before we meet the bottom edge of Hoyland Bank woods, where our path become obvious, leading directly uphill though the trees, and ignoring the lateral paths along the way. We get a burst of extra colour through the middle of the wood, as bluebells add to the greenery, but the rain hasn't made the dirt path any friendlier, which makes for some slow ascending to avoid the risk of slipping, and it would feel like a haul of the sound of the lane atop the ridge wasn't so close, and even then, the last pull of all to make the top is so little fun it might be enough to discourage me from off-roading uphill for a while.
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| Hoyland Bank from Hag Hill Lane. |
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| The Packhorse Bridge on the Dearne, Clayton West. |
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| Damp Field Walking to Hoyland Bank. |
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| Bluebell Carpet in Hoyland Bank Woods. |
Back on firmer and familiar surfaces as we land by All Hallows church, where the yard again invites a watering break, and the view into South Yorkshire from the hilltop looks a lot different under such changeable weather, though it's a whole lot less alien than it was a mere three weeks ago, and there's still 5 miles to come over the Cawthorne valley, so we'd better get a move on, by striking down Church Lane to High Hoyland village, past the Hall and its farm before switching on to Upperfield Lane to seek our southwards track. This we meet past Globe Farm, following the hard track down to the local waterworks, and then off-roading it again into the woodlands of Cawthorne Park, or Margery Wood, depending on where the boundary might be, just as blue skies emerge again behind us and as we pass under the high canopy of deciduous foliage, the sunshine starts to filter through once more, which warms the soul as we enjoy the peace of being the sole walker among the many trees. The descending path passes out of the woodland for a while, tracking its boundary downhill, where we can look west towards Deffer Wood, and Cannon Hall, where the farm park is both visible and audible, but the house itself hides from view, and then we pass through the lowest extent of the forest at Hood Wood, which shows up more conifers than its neighbour up the hill, before we drop out onto the grassy fields toward the valley bottom. There's not much to trace with the eye as we head along the boundaries of the fields of Cinder Hill farm, but our route maintains a direct line through the livestock-free pasture before we meet a stream crossing, our passage of Cawthorne Dike, the main watercourse of the area, and the rising path beyond can give us a visual location, below the woods and the High Hoyland bank, while we rise again, with the thought that it's all uphill from here to the finish line. Allotments appearing by the path, followed by rooftops looming on the nearby horizon herald our arrival in Cawthorne, the main village in the valley and our first proper settlement visit since Flockton, arriving by the Methodist chapel on Darton Road, which we join to admire this stoniest of villages, which displays a colour in its stonework that's quite different from its neighbours further north, passing the Beatson House restaurant before joining Church Street by the village Post Office and Sweet Shop and the cottage clad in so much lavender.
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| Cawthorne Park Woods. |
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| The Sunshine Returns, in Margery Wood. |
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| The footbridge on Cawthorne Dike. |
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| The Lavender House, Church Street, Cawthorne. |
Deliberately Picturesque is a good way to describe this place as we carry on south, passing All Saints church at a remove and the Spencer Arm Inn up close before landing on the triangular green where the A635 bypasses the village, which we'll cross to gain Silkstone Lane to press south, past the big houses with views at the village's perimeter, and our pace has to be picked up to get a good aim for our potential rides home. Views east put us on the latitude of north-western Barnsley, which allow us to trace last week's path though Barugh and Higham while also picking out the Stanhope Colliery site on this side of Hugset Wood, though hedges give us no westward views at all as we pass the Norcroft farms on the suddenly descending road, which runs entirely against my expectations, leading down to Banks Bottom Dike. Silkstone village lies beyond, initially looking like a suburban enclave beyond Barnsley, but it soon gets distinctive as we pass the council house built with medievally scaled stone blocks on the rise up to the Barnsley Road corner, where we meet the church of All Saints and St James, the so-called Minster of the Moors, and then pass on along High Street past the church terrace and vicarage before descending on among terraces of a more industrial vintage. We pass between the two local pubs, the Red Lion and The Bells, before we land ourselves on the A628 corner, where a memorial to the Silkstone Waggonway of 1809 stands, a colliery line that had previously escaped my notice but appears pretty obviously on the map as it runs north to the former canal wharf at Barnby, and we'll store that thought for another day as we depart the village over the main road and over Silkstone Beck before the final push of the day. This leads us up Cone Lane, a pretty unrelenting climb up the lowest edge of the Cawthorne valley, where we feel like we might be racing the rain again as we pass among the fields up towards the former common land beyond Silkstone village, where a grand but grey view can be had before we arrive in Silkstone Common, where an independent settlement grew with the collieries and the railways arriving in the 19th century. We arrive amongst its suburban houses, before we pass under the railway that keeps to the high valley edge between the Dearne and Dove for much of its passage between Barnsley and Penistone, joining the B6449 Knabbs Lane by the Station Inn and following it along to the remaining station house before ending the trek on the level access walk onto Silkstone Common station, closing out the day at 4pm, ahead of the weather and the train that will carry us the long way home.
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| Higham, Hugset Wood, and the Stanhope Colliery site, from Silkstone Lane. |
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| The Church of All Saints & St James, Silkstone. |
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| The Silkstone Waggonway memorial. |
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| The Cawthorne Valley in the gloom, from Cone Lane. |
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| The Station Inn, Silkstone Common. |
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 3822.9 miles
2019 Total: 172.5 miles
Up Country Total: 3429.8 miles
Solo Total: 3532.4 miles
Miles in My 40s: 2416.7 miles
Next Up: Spring Jollies, and the Long Walk to Leicester resumes between Don and Derwent.
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