Huddersfield to Penistone 29/06/19

14.8 miles, via Lockwood, Berry Brow, Honley (New Town), Brockholes, New Mill, 

 Jackson Bridge, Gate Head, Victoria Crossroads, Crow Edge, Catshaw Cross, 

  Millhouse Green, Thurlstone, and Bridge End.

I'm not sure why, but discovering that June this year had five Saturdays in it gave me a great sense of joy, as if it was granting me an extra weekend between my late Spring and early Summer breaks, which is completely ridiculous as the number of available weekends is pretty much a constant, but we have managed to be super-productive as this year's High Season has come on, and while we might have not had the best of the weather through it, we have a one day heatwave coming on for this occasion, spiking in the high 20s when we've seen no really hot days in the last month. So, an early start is due to keep ahead of it, riding out to Huddersfield to finally make a proper trip into the Holme Valley as our walking interest for the year starts to shift westwards, departing the station at a whisker or two after 8am, with early morning mist keeping the heat off as we strike on into the town centre, a landscape that still doesn't feel that familiar despite many transits through it, heading out across St George's Square and on to the main shopping drag along John William Street. Despite being an hour ahead of the shops opening, there's still plenty of people out and about, getting an early jump on the day as we press on, admiring some of the rather distinctive works of late 20th century modernism that loiter among the Victorian Parades, passing the Market Cross, the sole enduring feature of the 18th century town, and making our way southwards down New Street until we find our way blocked by the police, investigating shenanigans from the night before. So we have to improvise a detour, down through the arcade of Market Avenue to the parallel Victoria Lane, which turns out to also be taped off, which means a further excursion off route, around the curved terrace of the Piazza Centre, which circuits the town's Library & Art Gallery, before we head up High Street, past the Town Hall and Ramsden House, with its mosaic of Huddersfield's early industrial history before we can get back on track, down the end of New Street that must have looked all the rage in the 1970s. Meeting the Queensgate - Castlegate inner ring road marks the end of the town centre, and we cross to join the A616 Chapel Hill, which descends away swiftly, directing our eyes into the valley to come as we descend past the looming bulk of Kirklees College's campus, with the town's continuing industrial district filing out the plots to the east as we come upon the passages over the Huddersfield Narrow Canal and the River Colne in short order, and beyond the Folly Hall Mills, we've got a whole lot of fresh territory to explore.

Dodworth to Stocksmoor 22/06/19

17.5 miles, via Silkstone, Noblethorpe, Hoylandswaine, Oxspring, Roughbirchworth, 

 Sheephouse Height, Hartcliff Hill, Hill Side, Hornthwaite Hill, Thurlstone, Royd Moor, 

  Ingbirchworth Moor, Dearne Low Common, Piper Junction, Lane Head, 

   Shepley (Cliffe), and Stone Wood.

Summer lands, and the weather manages to actually look appropriately seasonal at long last, not that I'm full of the joys as the weekend rolls up, largely because I'm knackered after my first week of working at St James's Hospital, performing the same role as I did at the LGI but in a much busier office and at a much higher tempo that I've gotten used to, meaning I do seven hours of raw labour a day before sloping off home to crash hard, which means my weekly exile to the archive at Seacroft on Fridays feels like a useful respite after that. So we don't start as early as necessary as Saturday's trip gets underway, aiming at route that was virtually improvised in the preceding week as a few gaps and omissions were noted around the paths already walked and the excursions plotted for the future, and as the day promises to be in excess of 17 miles it makes sense to get it done while we linger at the top of the High Season, riding out to Dodworth on the fringe of greater Barnsley on a 142 Pacer unit that gets very crowded as we pass into South Yorkshire, to land at this most modest and minimalist of stations at a measure or two after 9.50am. Sunshine falls on us as we join the B6099 Station Road as it takes us northwards, over the level crossing and on along the boundary of the Fall Bank industrial estate, up towards the A628 bypass road, which we don't immediately join as a leafier road awaits, beyond the traffic island and The Fairway Hotel and Pub, following Elmhirst Lane as it skirts the Dodworth Business Park on the site of the Old Silkstone Colliery and on towards Silkstone Golf Course on the lofty edge of the Cawthorne Valley. We join a superseded green lane that pushes west, which I'd assumed was the original A628 route before the bypass was built, but judging bu its narrowness and considerable overgrowth, this route was diverted a long, long time back as the turnpike chose to avoid this steep hill edge, which allows us a quiet start to the day and teases some lofty views as we go, forwards towards Hoylandswaine's hillside and over the periphery of the Dove valley. Descend the lane to meet the road that I had been prepared to ignore, but Barnsley Road will lead us over some green gaps on my maps and cross some previously burned paths in this area so that's reason enough for me to dome this way today, pressing west as we lead into the shade of Silkstone Fall woods, before we meet the footpath-free Silkstone Bypass, which we'll follow with some wariness as that village centre doesn't really need to be seen up close again, so soon.

Barnsley to Holmfirth 15/06/19

17.2 miles, via Shaw Lands, Dodworth, Silkstone Common, Berry Moor, Four Lane End, 

 Oxspring, Spring Vale, Penistone (Bridge End), Scout Dike, Ingbirchworth, High Flatts, 

  Birds Edge, Lane Head, Snowgate Head, New Mill, Lydgate and Town End. 

As we progress into the 2019 High Season, the long days ought to invite the possibilities of starting early, but the appeal of getting on the trail before 9am is diminished by the fact of it refusing to get particularly warm even as we alight on the last weekend of Spring, and even then getting out early is going to be a non-starter when the body isn't willing to get going a work o'clock on a Saturday morning, having not had any rest time over the preceding six days. Factor in the discovery that I'm being reassigned at very short notice at work, and have thus just completed my last shift at Leeds General Infirmary after 20+ years on that site, it's hardly a surprise that my brain is all sorts of haywire as the weekend lands, and all my walking gear has to be gathered at the hurry up to get me out to Barnsley with another South to West Yorkshire stretch in mind, disembarking the train at 9.10am, as the morning's sunshine start fades to be replaced by a light covering of cloud that will persist for the whole day. Third visit of the year, and I'm already starting to get a feel for Barnsley town centre, though its main drag of shops is yet to be seen as we depart the Interchange onto Eldon Street which takes us past the Parkway cinema and the Civic theatre before we take a turn up through the Victorian Arcade, which does its best to culturally elevate its rather humble residents and tenants, as we rise to meet Market Hill and the way past the Town Hall once again as we land on Shambles Street. We shadow the back of the main shopping parade along here, as well as passing below the buildings seen on our previous passage through the town, getting a fresh angle on the Sixth Form college, the Borough Council offices and the Lamproom Theatre in its former chapel before we drop down past the Premier Inn to meet the Townend Roundabout, which offers vistas over southern Barnsley to stimulate interest for a future walking season before we eventually pick out the route that will take us westwards. Dodworth Road, the A628, will take us on into another district of proud townhouses that have probably seen better days, stretched out beyond the soon to be former Marlborough inn, looking like it might have once been on of the town's most desirable residential streets, with only the accumulated centuries of soot staining making it look like the coal town of history, though a peer down a couple of side streets gives some indication of the much more modest terraces that grew with the collieries in the area back in the 19th century.

Shepley to Darton 09/06/19

14.9 miles, via Shepley Marsh, Lane Head, Piper Junction, Dearne Low Moor, 

 Whitley Common, Whitley Height, High Bank, Thurlstone, Penistone (Bridge End), 

  Hoylandswaine, Cawthorne, and Kexborough. 

Walking plans for Saturday are junked when the rain comes on hard, continuing June's pattern of frustratingly inconsistent weather and temperatures that are unbecoming for this point in the season, and thus we shift our trip to Sunday, a much clearer looking day, with a more modest mileage scheduled after last weekend's distance, only picking my route minutes before leaving home after trusting my ability to get a 15 mile trip down in a fixed 5 hour 45 minute window. The transport issues are what make Sunday tripping so frustrating, and the 40 minute layover at Huddersfield while awaiting the Penistone Line train is no exception, even when it does allow an extensive trainspot, but despite having only one job to perform, Northern Fail can't get it done, and we don't get underway until 15 minutes after the scheduled departure time as they can't shunt their unit into place among all the TPEs. Thus we arrive at Shepley, right at the western edge of this year's walking field, at 9.40am with my error margin for the day lost already, and thus we set off knowing that no display of urgency will be necessary at all as we strike off southbound on the rising Station Road, which illustrates well how the village gradually grew down the hillside to meet the railway, rising through a century's worth of suburbia to meet the Kirklees Way route by the Old Hall of 1608 (and the replacement New Hall is notable by its absence). Past the Jos Lane corner, we are rapidly off to establish another new southern boundary to my field of walking experience, which has been done so often this season that it's barely worth mentioning, and then it's downhill to meet the village Co-op and the Black Bull inn at the corner of Marsh Lane, and then it's onward uphill again, past the former Sunday School and the church of St Paul and carrying on among the formerly rural cottages and farmsteads that sat at the old top end of the village. Pass the Farmers Boy inn, another one for the fantasy career as a publican and carry on through the ribbon of suburban houses that has grown to meet the formerly separate enclave of Shepley Marsh, arriving in the fields above the village with the looming mass of Nabscliffe rising above, and we'll be heading over that, after a fashion, splitting off onto the rising Row Gate by Marsh Cottage and following a small pony being taken out for their first road walk, and getting some grand views that match some of those from the nearby vantage point from last week, but this time we have sunshine aplenty as we look over the valley of Shepley Dike and beyond, while rising to meet the A635 Holmfirth Road.

Barnsley to Huddersfield 01/06/19

18.4 miles, via Old Town, Gawber, Redbrook, Barugh Green, Cawthorne, Daking Brook, 

 Nether End, Dunkirk Crossroads, Denby Dale, Upper Cumberworth, Lane Head, Shepley,

  Shelley, Kirkburton, Highburton, Fenay Bridge, Almondbury, Moldgreen, and Aspley.

Having made four trip to Barnsley over the years, by four rather tangled and straggly routes from the north, it's time to definitively add South Yorkshire's closest major town to my field of walking experience by blazing a trail from it through the heart of Kirklees District to that borough's administrative centre, a long trek that will probably be the longest of the season, and one that has felt like it might just be that bit too far as Huddersfield doesn't sit all that proximately in the mind. It's a good one for that start of the High Season though, as we start our burst of trails in the hinterlands of hills and valleys around the Dearne, the Don and their various branches, and despite the distance on the slate we don't get an early start, not landing at Barnsley until 9.10am as despite the lengthening days of June being afoot, this one looks like it'll have little by way of sunshine in it. So we set out by passing through the Barnsley Interchange bus station, which sits on the site of the former Barnsley Court House station, where services on the Midland Railway's metals used to stop before they were combined into the enduring L&YR/MS&LR Low Town station in 1960, and as we cross Eldon Street we pass the court house itself, now a branch of Wetherspoons, before we ascend Regent Street, where the Town Hall stands at it head, dramatically. Pass around this impressively huge pile in Portland Stone, leaving the town's early morning shoppers behind, as we move onto Westgate, which passes into the town's legal and administrative district as it passes the Police station, the law courts and the district council offices, before we make the dynamic turn onto Sackville Street by the Lamproom Theatre and the Premier Inn to enter the Old Town. Barnsley is so mentally synonymous with the coal industry that it's hard to conceive of it having a part that looks like an upscale district for the Victorian Mercantile classes, but endures here as we pass among smart stone terraces and the odd urban villa before we pass over the railway line to Penistone and beyond, to meet more bold terraces in stone and brick on the rising Gawber Road beyond. It's definitely going to be a day of up and down on this trail, as we land on the high crest on this corner of town, moving among much more recent estate buildings as we pass Barnsley Hospital, aka the District General, which is not a building to inspire love, but one that sits large and distinct on its hillside on the site of the former Union workhouse, a very 1960's edifice facing the most 1950s of council estates, where the sole hint of rural vintage is the Gawber Road WMC in the former Halfway House Inn.