Bonegate, Bailiff Bridge, Lower Wyke, Wyke, Moorside, Hilltop, Odsal, Bankfoot,
and West Bowling.
My traditional February break from work lands, and for the first time in five years I'll be spending it all at home, as previous years have had me away to visit My Parents, but with Dad having passed away last year and with Mum having some Winter sun in Malta this, I've got all of it to use for my own entertainment, getting my ninth season of walking going by firmly welding it to the terrain of 2019's wandering as we build an early season framework in the eastern edge of the territory that I intend to explore over the coming nine months. Thus we hit the first Saturday of the year, where sunshine still pours through ahead of Storm Ciara bringing on all the Winter weather that we haven't experienced over the last six weeks, landing ourselves at Huddersfield station at a little after 9.50am, thanks to some strange train alignments, marching ourselves boldly across St George's square with a trajectory to the north in mind, leading us past the very closed George Hotel and onto John William street, where we pace along to the old Empire cinema, and meet Viaduct Street, which leads us along the elevated railway that leads into the station from the north. It really is the hidden engineering marvel of the city, far too easy to not acknowledge properly as you travel, which we follow out behind Tesco to the inner ring road, which we cross at the Castlegate - Southgate junction to join the side of the A641 Northgate, as we strike away from the town centre, past the car dealerships and under the noticeably widened railway bridge above, where our path becomes the Bradford Road, which already announces our destination for the day as we start our rise, among the terrace parades on the way up through the urban district of Hillhouse. More stone terraces and low-rise flats fill the roadside beyond the Halifax Old Road corner, leading us on towards Fartown where the Railway Inn announces the proximity of the old MR Newtown Goods line, the contemporary Birkby - Bradley greenway in its Heckmondwike-esque cutting, all located a short way below the Fartown Green corner where we bust through my circular route around the town from last year, and hit the real rise of the road as it pushes out through Huddersfield's suburbia. Less than two miles out and the banks of woodlands that apron the hills to the north start to make themselves apparent, filling in the roadside around Ash Brow Mills and the Asda superstore on all the sections of land that have proved too steep for suburban development, where we take our last looks back into the Colne Valley, before we rise on, to meet the ancient Fell Greave woods, where the Kirklees brought us back in 2014, beyond which the suburban and literal top of Huddersfield can be found at Bradley Bar.
Here we cross over the A6107 by Villa Farm and trace the last ribbon of houses to Huddersfield's extremity, beyond which we crest out of the Colne valley and get the reveal of middle Calderdale and the path to come beyond the open fields on the declining face of the valley side, sneaking a view in the direction of Wainhouse Tower, near Halifax, to the west before we drop down to pass over the M62, where our footway runs out as we enter Calderdale district, as if they don't want you walking this way alongside a dual carriageway that cannot be easily crossed. So pace along the verge until we land on the outer suburban edge of Brighouse, at Toothill (I'm pretty sure we're not in the neighbouring village of Rastrick), where the long and steep descent through suburbia starts in earnest, with proud Victorian villas filing out the western side of the road, facing the rising sun, while the back gardens of the Woodhouse estate fill out the eastern side, with sun-traps aplenty facing the roadside decline of the better part of a mile. This ends pretty suddenly as we collide with Brighouse, having had little indication of its taller buildings or its general proximity from above, landing by the railway station, and then continuing on to pass over the River Calder, and the channel of the A&C Navigation, right by where we started and ended the Calderdale Way so many years ago, before untangling ourselves from the main roads as they bypass the town centre, sticking to the isolated stretch of Bradford Road as it passes between the shops and the old town hall before crossing the main drag of Commercial Street. To cross the bypass road of Ludenscheid Link, we must use the subway by the George Inn, to pass under it and regain the route north, meeting the A641 again by Venue 73 in an old cinema, where we set off northwards through Bonegate ward, up the valley formed by Clifton Beck, with terrace ends and suburban dwellings providing the landscape on the rising lands to the west, with the valley floor being filled by Wellhome Park, various playing fields, and a spread of light industry around the bottom of Thornhills Beck Road, where the railway viaduct on the former Pickle Bridge line can be spied beyond the foliage-free trees. It's not immediately obvious where Brighouse ends, as there's no green space of note between it and Bailiff Bridge, the next village up, but the ribbon of light industry continues all the way up to the road junction of the A649, with three mills complexes still standing largely intact opposite the terraces, semis and and its small commercial centre, where we pass outside the loop of the Calderdale Way, after our brief stay inside it, rising with the road past the village memorial gardens.
Having switched sides on the valley above Wyke Beck, the suburbia switches to the eastern side of the road as we push uphill, past the playing fields where the local kids are getting exercised, before we pass under the old L&Y railway line, with its bridge abutments rising over the road as we enter Bradfort district and meet the hamlet of Lower Wyke beyond, rising with the road to the A58 junction by the Wyke Lion inn, with the stub of Wyke viaduct sitting just down the hillside, and the view of the embankments rising to Pickle Bridge junction opens out as we rise onwards. We also get our first elevated views back to the Calder-Colne hills before we slip into Wyke proper, which has grown in a suburban style to fill most of its hillside, and despite doing a trek along a trajectory unseen today, we still have old routes to cross over, passing over the Irish Sea Trek path from 2015 as it comes down past St Mary's church, and we rise on through the stony landscape of the older village, passing the Halfway House inn before we stay with the A641 as it bypasses the heart of the old village and comes up past the prominently located Appleton Academy, where we cross another old path, the 2017 western half of my Bradford circular routes. Woodside Road lives up to its name as it takes a tree clad and surprisingly shady declining route around Wyke, passing the Delph Hill estate and the few green fields that try to keep it distinct from Greater Bradford, but it's going to be de facto big city from hereon in, as we recombine with the old road by St Mark's church in Moorside, the western edge of Low Moor, where an industrial band still spreads to the east, beyond the Harold club, opposite the memorial of a flywheel from a beam engine on the corner of New Works Road. It's uphill from here, which is unwelcome surprise, though the clue should dwell in Low Moor's name, and the fact that there are two railway tunnels that access it, and there's a drag to take along this main road, passing through Hilltop between the British Queen and the Drop Kick inns, which at least advertises the proximity of Odsal stadium before the roadside gets a little underpopulated as we come up past the Low Moor club and the long drag up to Odsal Top starts, among the runs of semis where a look back to the southern horizon makes you uncertain if you are looking at distant hillsides or a bank of dark clouds. The new Sedbergh Leisure centre has grown among the fields to the east of the dual carriageway, ahead of the Huddersfield Road rising to the island interchange with the A6036 Halifax Road, where using the subways and footbridges is an eminently more sensible than attempting to cross the trio of converging lanes, emerging us by the Top House inn at Odsal Top, upon the visible northern limit from so much of the lands to the south of here.
Manchester Road will lead us in into Bradford, which starts to become visible in the valley below, which leads the eye on to Rombalds Moor beyond the flanking sides at Manningham and Wrose, all lit in the best kind of Winter sunshine, but eyes are also lead over to the Richard Dunn Leisure Centre, that familiar shape on the horizon that's part tent, part armadillo, which seems to be out of use now, and will probably be redeveloped out of existence in the future, to leave a mental scar in the local landscape for years to come. It's a longer stretch than expected to get down to the Ring Road interchange, taking us past the Woodman and Red Lion inns and St Matthew's church before the terraces of Bankfoot lead us to the A6177 Mayo Avenue crossing by Matalan and Morrisons, where the transit is just as complicated as it was three years back, with the descent into the city coming on more sharply as we pass the Emsley (Alfred) Memorial recreation ground and the long parades of shops on the western side of the wide lane. All Saints church in Little Horton provides the horizon feature as we scoot downhill, among the terrace ends of West Bowling, before we come upon the dynamic footbridge complex of Trident Way, which rises high above the and the over-designed bus shelters below, before we come around to the Ripley Street corner, where the GNR's Manchester Road station once sat below the lane, now completely obliterated from view, just to the north of the Dixons City Academy campus that I don't recall seeing in 2017. The residential tower blocks that fill the city's horizon ride to the west of the road, as we press on with attention drawn to the industrial landscape to the east, where the largest warehouse block is being redeveloped by the nearby schools, and fragments of the city's lost industries remain among the current ones, like the gates of the once vast Mitchell Brothers worsted mills, and the remains of the city gasworks at the top of Gower Street, where we've also been before, as the road leads us down the last stretch of the A641, passing more tower blocks and the Lahori Gate Indian restaurant with its space age conservatory, before we finally depart it. Drift over Croft street and down Nelson Street. where some demolitions have taken place in the last three years in the vicinity of the Interchange complex, before landing on Hall Ings, opposite Bradford City Hall, which is very well illuminated for a February afternoon, passing the NCP, the cycle shop with the fun maps in the windows and the Bradford Hotel, which still looks like its built out of cardboard, before making the turn onto Bridge Street to pass St George's Hall and the Great Victoria Hotel on the way up to Bradford Interchange, where our first walking day of season #9 wraps at 1.30pm, which shows up a pretty rare turn of speed in cold weather, and after the off-season, which bodes well for the coming year, I'd hope.
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4277.4 miles
2020 Total: 10.9 miles
Up Country Total: 3814.4 miles
Solo Total: 3963.2 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 2871.2 miles
Next Up: Heading back South once The Storm has passed.
My traditional February break from work lands, and for the first time in five years I'll be spending it all at home, as previous years have had me away to visit My Parents, but with Dad having passed away last year and with Mum having some Winter sun in Malta this, I've got all of it to use for my own entertainment, getting my ninth season of walking going by firmly welding it to the terrain of 2019's wandering as we build an early season framework in the eastern edge of the territory that I intend to explore over the coming nine months. Thus we hit the first Saturday of the year, where sunshine still pours through ahead of Storm Ciara bringing on all the Winter weather that we haven't experienced over the last six weeks, landing ourselves at Huddersfield station at a little after 9.50am, thanks to some strange train alignments, marching ourselves boldly across St George's square with a trajectory to the north in mind, leading us past the very closed George Hotel and onto John William street, where we pace along to the old Empire cinema, and meet Viaduct Street, which leads us along the elevated railway that leads into the station from the north. It really is the hidden engineering marvel of the city, far too easy to not acknowledge properly as you travel, which we follow out behind Tesco to the inner ring road, which we cross at the Castlegate - Southgate junction to join the side of the A641 Northgate, as we strike away from the town centre, past the car dealerships and under the noticeably widened railway bridge above, where our path becomes the Bradford Road, which already announces our destination for the day as we start our rise, among the terrace parades on the way up through the urban district of Hillhouse. More stone terraces and low-rise flats fill the roadside beyond the Halifax Old Road corner, leading us on towards Fartown where the Railway Inn announces the proximity of the old MR Newtown Goods line, the contemporary Birkby - Bradley greenway in its Heckmondwike-esque cutting, all located a short way below the Fartown Green corner where we bust through my circular route around the town from last year, and hit the real rise of the road as it pushes out through Huddersfield's suburbia. Less than two miles out and the banks of woodlands that apron the hills to the north start to make themselves apparent, filling in the roadside around Ash Brow Mills and the Asda superstore on all the sections of land that have proved too steep for suburban development, where we take our last looks back into the Colne Valley, before we rise on, to meet the ancient Fell Greave woods, where the Kirklees brought us back in 2014, beyond which the suburban and literal top of Huddersfield can be found at Bradley Bar.
 |
| Huddersfield's hidden railway viaduct, Viaduct Street. |
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| Bradford Road, at the Halifax Old Road corner. |
 |
| Bradford Road ascending beyond Fartown. |
 |
| Bradford Road bisects the Fell Greave Woods. |
Here we cross over the A6107 by Villa Farm and trace the last ribbon of houses to Huddersfield's extremity, beyond which we crest out of the Colne valley and get the reveal of middle Calderdale and the path to come beyond the open fields on the declining face of the valley side, sneaking a view in the direction of Wainhouse Tower, near Halifax, to the west before we drop down to pass over the M62, where our footway runs out as we enter Calderdale district, as if they don't want you walking this way alongside a dual carriageway that cannot be easily crossed. So pace along the verge until we land on the outer suburban edge of Brighouse, at Toothill (I'm pretty sure we're not in the neighbouring village of Rastrick), where the long and steep descent through suburbia starts in earnest, with proud Victorian villas filing out the western side of the road, facing the rising sun, while the back gardens of the Woodhouse estate fill out the eastern side, with sun-traps aplenty facing the roadside decline of the better part of a mile. This ends pretty suddenly as we collide with Brighouse, having had little indication of its taller buildings or its general proximity from above, landing by the railway station, and then continuing on to pass over the River Calder, and the channel of the A&C Navigation, right by where we started and ended the Calderdale Way so many years ago, before untangling ourselves from the main roads as they bypass the town centre, sticking to the isolated stretch of Bradford Road as it passes between the shops and the old town hall before crossing the main drag of Commercial Street. To cross the bypass road of Ludenscheid Link, we must use the subway by the George Inn, to pass under it and regain the route north, meeting the A641 again by Venue 73 in an old cinema, where we set off northwards through Bonegate ward, up the valley formed by Clifton Beck, with terrace ends and suburban dwellings providing the landscape on the rising lands to the west, with the valley floor being filled by Wellhome Park, various playing fields, and a spread of light industry around the bottom of Thornhills Beck Road, where the railway viaduct on the former Pickle Bridge line can be spied beyond the foliage-free trees. It's not immediately obvious where Brighouse ends, as there's no green space of note between it and Bailiff Bridge, the next village up, but the ribbon of light industry continues all the way up to the road junction of the A649, with three mills complexes still standing largely intact opposite the terraces, semis and and its small commercial centre, where we pass outside the loop of the Calderdale Way, after our brief stay inside it, rising with the road past the village memorial gardens.
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| Cresting into the Middle Calder Valley, at Bradley Bar. |
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| Descending from Toothill, by Woohouse, to Brighouse. |
 |
| Bradford Road in Brighouse Town Centre. |
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| Bradford Road in Bonegate Ward, Brighouse. |
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| Bailiff Bridge. |
Having switched sides on the valley above Wyke Beck, the suburbia switches to the eastern side of the road as we push uphill, past the playing fields where the local kids are getting exercised, before we pass under the old L&Y railway line, with its bridge abutments rising over the road as we enter Bradfort district and meet the hamlet of Lower Wyke beyond, rising with the road to the A58 junction by the Wyke Lion inn, with the stub of Wyke viaduct sitting just down the hillside, and the view of the embankments rising to Pickle Bridge junction opens out as we rise onwards. We also get our first elevated views back to the Calder-Colne hills before we slip into Wyke proper, which has grown in a suburban style to fill most of its hillside, and despite doing a trek along a trajectory unseen today, we still have old routes to cross over, passing over the Irish Sea Trek path from 2015 as it comes down past St Mary's church, and we rise on through the stony landscape of the older village, passing the Halfway House inn before we stay with the A641 as it bypasses the heart of the old village and comes up past the prominently located Appleton Academy, where we cross another old path, the 2017 western half of my Bradford circular routes. Woodside Road lives up to its name as it takes a tree clad and surprisingly shady declining route around Wyke, passing the Delph Hill estate and the few green fields that try to keep it distinct from Greater Bradford, but it's going to be de facto big city from hereon in, as we recombine with the old road by St Mark's church in Moorside, the western edge of Low Moor, where an industrial band still spreads to the east, beyond the Harold club, opposite the memorial of a flywheel from a beam engine on the corner of New Works Road. It's uphill from here, which is unwelcome surprise, though the clue should dwell in Low Moor's name, and the fact that there are two railway tunnels that access it, and there's a drag to take along this main road, passing through Hilltop between the British Queen and the Drop Kick inns, which at least advertises the proximity of Odsal stadium before the roadside gets a little underpopulated as we come up past the Low Moor club and the long drag up to Odsal Top starts, among the runs of semis where a look back to the southern horizon makes you uncertain if you are looking at distant hillsides or a bank of dark clouds. The new Sedbergh Leisure centre has grown among the fields to the east of the dual carriageway, ahead of the Huddersfield Road rising to the island interchange with the A6036 Halifax Road, where using the subways and footbridges is an eminently more sensible than attempting to cross the trio of converging lanes, emerging us by the Top House inn at Odsal Top, upon the visible northern limit from so much of the lands to the south of here.
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| The former Pickle Bridge line, at Lower Wyke. |
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| The Halfway House, Wyke. |
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| The would be leafy Woodside Road, bypassing Wyke. |
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| The Drop Kick, and the British Queen, Hilltop. |
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| Approaching the Odsal Top interchange. |
Manchester Road will lead us in into Bradford, which starts to become visible in the valley below, which leads the eye on to Rombalds Moor beyond the flanking sides at Manningham and Wrose, all lit in the best kind of Winter sunshine, but eyes are also lead over to the Richard Dunn Leisure Centre, that familiar shape on the horizon that's part tent, part armadillo, which seems to be out of use now, and will probably be redeveloped out of existence in the future, to leave a mental scar in the local landscape for years to come. It's a longer stretch than expected to get down to the Ring Road interchange, taking us past the Woodman and Red Lion inns and St Matthew's church before the terraces of Bankfoot lead us to the A6177 Mayo Avenue crossing by Matalan and Morrisons, where the transit is just as complicated as it was three years back, with the descent into the city coming on more sharply as we pass the Emsley (Alfred) Memorial recreation ground and the long parades of shops on the western side of the wide lane. All Saints church in Little Horton provides the horizon feature as we scoot downhill, among the terrace ends of West Bowling, before we come upon the dynamic footbridge complex of Trident Way, which rises high above the and the over-designed bus shelters below, before we come around to the Ripley Street corner, where the GNR's Manchester Road station once sat below the lane, now completely obliterated from view, just to the north of the Dixons City Academy campus that I don't recall seeing in 2017. The residential tower blocks that fill the city's horizon ride to the west of the road, as we press on with attention drawn to the industrial landscape to the east, where the largest warehouse block is being redeveloped by the nearby schools, and fragments of the city's lost industries remain among the current ones, like the gates of the once vast Mitchell Brothers worsted mills, and the remains of the city gasworks at the top of Gower Street, where we've also been before, as the road leads us down the last stretch of the A641, passing more tower blocks and the Lahori Gate Indian restaurant with its space age conservatory, before we finally depart it. Drift over Croft street and down Nelson Street. where some demolitions have taken place in the last three years in the vicinity of the Interchange complex, before landing on Hall Ings, opposite Bradford City Hall, which is very well illuminated for a February afternoon, passing the NCP, the cycle shop with the fun maps in the windows and the Bradford Hotel, which still looks like its built out of cardboard, before making the turn onto Bridge Street to pass St George's Hall and the Great Victoria Hotel on the way up to Bradford Interchange, where our first walking day of season #9 wraps at 1.30pm, which shows up a pretty rare turn of speed in cold weather, and after the off-season, which bodes well for the coming year, I'd hope.
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| The Richard Dunn Sports Centre (former), Odsal. |
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| The Manchester Road - Ring Road junction, ahain. |
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| The Trident Way footbridges, West Bowling. |
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| The Mitchell Brothers mills gatehouse. |
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| The Lahori Gate restaurant, and tower blocks, Manchester Road. |
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| The Bradford Hotel looks like a cardboard box. |
5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4277.4 miles
2020 Total: 10.9 miles
Up Country Total: 3814.4 miles
Solo Total: 3963.2 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 2871.2 miles
Next Up: Heading back South once The Storm has passed.
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