Morley South-East Circuit 20/06/20

10.9 miles, from Morley Hole, via Troy Hill, Town End, Birks, Tingley (Upper Green & 
 Baghill), West Ardsley (Beggarington Hill & Common Side), Woodhouse lane, East Ardsley, 
  The Fall, Thorpe on the Hill, Ardsley Junction, Sissons Wood, West Wood, Owlers, Gillroyd, 
   Low Town End, and Corporation Street. 

My calendar tells me that this Saturday is the first day of Summer, though I'm sure that it isn't due until the following day, meaning that the seasons might have shifted around without having informed me, not that anyone seems to have informed June of what season it is meant to be either, as we experience three days of chilliness that might have you thinking about putting the heating back on before promising an increase in warmth and brightness for the weekend that never quite arrives, and thus I'll look again to local paths as I'm still feeling wary about striking further afield despite the relaxation of lockdown. There's another three loops to do around Morley for now, and we'll start out at 9.05am at Morley Hole and pace that usual route out to the bottom of Queen street, where we split off between Body & Sole and Tasty Balti to ascent the flight of steps up to Troy Hill, a right of passage for many local school kids back in the day, which elevates us onto the seventh and last of the local hills, where we pace around the tree shroud that conceals the still derelict shell of St Mary in the Wood, before heading onto Commercial Street, the town's back lane of interest which hides away such features as the Congregational school, the public library, and at least three other chapels in this famously non-conformist town. Beyond Peel Street it takes on the industrial landscape of mills and factories, while also concealing an animal hospital and a Thai restaurant on the way down to the Commercial inn, where we slip over Fountain Street and head up High Street, to pass the former Sycamore Hotel, as my interests turn to locating Morley's lost pubs, leading us up to the top of Magpie Lane and the island at the bottom of Chartists Way, where so many of this last month's paths have piled up, hitting the rise onto Bridge Street by the site where the Albion inn used to reside. This route out of town seems all a bit familiar, as is the way with doing a lot of local walking, but we sneak our views off towards Leeds to the north as we hit the top of the Aire-Calder ridge, as well as noting the VW Beetle dressed as Herbie in one back yard, tallying off another former chapel opposite the Mormon Temple and emerging by the now completely refitted Tingley Mills, where we cross the tangle of the A650 junction at Tingley Bar, or Birks, before we join the A6029 Rein Road, that suburban lane that sets off from town with great purpose but then never really goes anywhere.

The Troy Hill steps, from Queen Street.

Morley Public Library, Commercial Street.

The Sycamore Hotel (former), High Street.

Tingley Mills.

Heading south, we meet the passage over the M62, where the grand views to the southwest emerge briefly, before we settle into the spread of suburban Tingley, I assume despite the local school being the Woodkirk Academy, and the lane rolls its way down to where the Beeston - Batley railway line used to cross over to find the smallest shred of vintage, non-semi-detached living ahead of the Dewsbury Road junction, where we cross the A653 and finally start off on a new pavement as we are lead on to Syke Road, where the runs of redbrick council houses butt up against suburban bungalows, ahead of the one farmstead that remains at the roadside. This lead us neatly into the Upper Green end of greater Tingley, where terraces and rural outliers cluster at a road junction, and it seems rather familiar despite having not walked here before, largely due to the Wakefield bus sometimes coming this way, and we'll follow the lane on as it descends its way down Bag Hill, where the swelling suburban ribbon doesn't yet obscure the view over towards Hanging Heaton and Gawthorpe, with the road descending down to bottom out at Baghill Beck before rising to meet the Batley Road. We'll not walk the field route of the Leeds Country Way from here, instead sticking to the road as we elevate eastwards up through the old cluster of Beggarington Hill, so that I can share the small revelation that West Ardsley does not exist on the old OS map, despite having joint billing in the parish, only being scattered hamlets that the modern world has absorbed with suburbia, which we walk along the face of as we look over to the horizon that features Ossett parish church and Woolley Edge upon it, features of Wakefield district which we weren't intending to be seeing up close this year. Meet the Common Side end of the village, with the scattered farmsteads and the Methodist chapel on Haigh Moor Road, where we shift onto the LCW path properly to retrace steps from 8(!) years back along the field path that shadows the run of pylons eastbound, meeting a walker with a dog that has far too much enthusiasm for greeting a walker that he could easily barrel over, following the gentle decline of the field that's actually quite sticky after the midweek rains, before disappearing into the foliage that surrounds the way down to the beck crossing on the watercourse below Ardsley reservoir.

Old School Suburbia on Rein Road.

Tingley: Upper Green.

West Ardsley: Beggarington Hill.

Field Walking the LCW route.

I hadn't quite prepared myself for the field walk beyond, steep and muddy whilst also being unsuited for the light boots that I've chosen for this passage, and I can't take too much in the dam off to the north, upstream, as there's a cattle field to traverse too on the way up to Blind Lane, but it's that sort of tame herd that won't be distressed as I make my way over to the hard surface, to press east past the local farmsteads and the Sugarich food recycling plant, and also finding that we've got a pretty good horizon view from up here too, ranging from Meltham Moor on the western side around to the city of Wakefield ahead of us. Emerge onto Woodhouse Lane by the rural cluster than could be regarded as a virtual hamlet, and this time find the field path that I missed on the LCW back in 2012, directing us eastwards and not directing us up to the lane's eponymous farm on a wonky detour via a track that isn't actually there anymore, and our very proximity to the border of Leeds district as we join the paths beyond, which indicate that the Wakefiled Way now seems to come this way, despite being on the 'wrong' side of the M1, probably because West Yorkshire Police don't want people approaching their training compound at Carr Gate, I'd guess. Having come up close to the motorway, we can scope out the district beyond, with Kirkhamgate and Alverthorpe easily located to the southeast, and as we take our northwards turn, along a track that hasn't stayed in the memory banks since I first encountered it in what was alien territory many moons ago, we get another look to Wakefield and it's recognizable quartet of towers before the foliage takes over the path side as we wend our way towards East Ardsley among rough fields of grazing horses behind the local cricket field, encountering more stiles than I'm happy interacting with before we meet the hard track of Pilden Lane, which leads us into the village and onto the A650. Cross the Bradford Road here and find that St Michael's church is still located at an awkward location for a passing visit, instead pacing away down to the Chapel Lane corner, where the former chapel resides, naturally, from where we join Main Street  and start our rise away from the Calder side of the ridge that we've been wandering abouts on this circuit, landing in a suburban landscape that replaces the wonderfully named Great View terrace, and feeling the need of a bench so that I might take elevenses at the day's apex.

Not disturbing the cows at Blind Lane farm.

Finding the field path from Woodhouse Lane.

Hammering the path up to East Ardsley.

Pilden Lane lands us in East Ardsley.

East Ardsley's most interesting feature lies ahead, in the form of the Old Hall, displaying a vintage of 300+ years that seems incongruous among the landscape of industrial era terraces and suburbia that have grown around it, which we'll pace on among as the Aire-Calder is traversed once more, passing the village community centre and the Bedford Arms, as well as the cottage with Masonic symbols upon it before we get a view directly up Airedale to the slab of Rombalds Moor, which is a nice viewpoint discovery to make before we pass the village school and the new suburban developments around before we head downhill into the the settlement that all maps call The Fall. Sadly there's not a single sign anywhere to pose by to do a Mark E. Smith tribute (or a Jean-Paul Sartre one, if you'd prefer) and it's another industrial era settlement in the countryside, composed of terraces stretching off Fall Lane at many angles, away from the old Co-op store and St Gabriel's church, constructed to service the ironworks that has redeveloped out of existence beyond East Ardsley Fall woods to the northwest, which we steeply decline beyond to cross the railway line between Leeds and Doncaster, where residential closes have claimed the Ardsley yards and engine sheds, as suburbia marches on. Rise with the lane to touch base with the LCW route again, and meet the terraces at the lower half of Thorpe on the Hill, well illustrating the number of men who were once needed out here to work the industries that filled this landscape in the 19th century, and then we'll join Station lane as it shadows the M62 westbound, heading down to the site of Ardsley station, which is due consideration for revival surely, and then join the previously traversed path that skirts around the goods yard site, where the stump of the crane shaft is still in situ, before we are lead underneath the motorway. I'd have thought that the greatest challenge passing thorough the former Ardsley Junction goods yard would come from negotiating the muddy tracks between the steepling piles of reclaimed stone that have grown massively since coming this way in 2015, but it turns out to come from the workmen present, not because I'm trespassing or getting in their way, but due to me taking pictures, to which they vocally object and thus a long and overly angry confrontation occurs, resulting in me being sent on my way feeling chastised and with the images deleted, scurrying up the access road to Thorpe Lane with the mental note to never approach that particular path again.

East Ardsley Old Hall, Main Street.

Fall Lane, The Fall.

Stanhope Road, Thorpe on the Hill.

Ardsley station Good Yard, with Crane Stump.

So land on the A654 with my walking enthusiasm for the day shattered, wondering why I didn't take the alternative route that was available under the motorway, but feeling fortunate that we are right on the cusp of the inbound leg of this day's circuit, and can leave that experience in our wake as we hit the Middleton fringe path, aiming us homeward as it skirts the back of the gardens of the Sissons Road estate houses and then keeps on with the higher route, which we missed when coming this way in 2018, above Sissons Wood, away from the old railway seen so recently seen as we come around to land behind the Bodmins. Get the prime view over to Morley from the passage opened for the overhead electrical wires into the estate, before getting back onto the path from a couple of seasons back, through the woodland bank to come around above the angled meadow where the horses graze, whom I think might be actually local as they're a bit far from a road if they do belong to travelling types, and then we make our next inbound turn, to seek the end of Mill Lane, which somehow got erased from the landscape having historically linked Morley and Middleton, only properly located and surface once it leads down below the railway lines lost and contemporary on the way down to Mill Shaw Beck. Rise with the gravelly track from the lost Mill Farm to meet the A653 Dewsbury Road again, crossing the dual carriageway by the Harvester restaurant that looks like its been closed for much longer than the Corona Virus lockdown, and meet the end of Wide Lane as it rises through the fields of Owlers, a green space that I'm sure will be gone within a decade, as the eponymous farm site has been claimed by redevelopment recently, and the edge of Morley is met with the outer edges of the Newlands and Topcliffe estates, making it feel like the day is close to its end, when there's still a lot of footfalls to come beyond the corner by the Gardeners Arms. There really shouldn't be more than another mile of trekking to come from here, but there really is as we pace on with the lane ahead of the council estate fronts to meet the long sweep of the Gillroyd Terrace, built to service the mill that used to endure down the hillside to the south, describing a pattern of urban development that it would be easy to overlook in the normal passage of things, as would the prominently placed cafe on the corner where the old lane splits off from the conditioning Middleton Road, which wasn't designed and built with the intention of occupying its site as well as it does.

The Middleton fringe path, above Sissons Wood.

The lost Mill Lane under the modern railway.

The still green end of Wide Lane.

The Gillroyd Mill terrace, Wide Lane.

The new alignment of the B6123 sets course for town with such purpose that it's hard to imagine that it's not a older route, which we pace on to meet the Clough Street crossing and the passage out of Lewisham, marking the end of a retraced route of 6 years vintage, beyond which we meet a strange part of town among the terraces, chapel and factories at Low Town End, somewhere that I've never passed in all my years in Morley as foot paths, car rides and bus routes have all failed to bring me this way, and that's an odd feeling to have, albeit briefly before we land at the end of Fountain Street by the Commercial inn again. Continue on with this road, figure 8-ing today's circuit as we continue up past the pizza restaurant, the New Pavilion theatre and the Fountain Inn at the crossing of queen Street, finding that the section of the lane by the Methodist chapel and Sunday school (the seventh such seen in town today), and the sight line up Hunger Hill to the Sportsman Inn, have both failed to fall onto a local walking route, and we'll rise with the road still to the Fountain Street roundabout, by the Morley Top goods shed, the Working Men's Club and the medical centre to make our turn onto Corporation street to pass St Francis of Assisi RC church and the fire and police stations. The last leg beyond Queensway has us heading down the same route as last week, but keep with the run of semis right to the bottom of the lane to meet the A643 Bruntcliffe Lane by the Fielding Mill site before turning down towards Morley Hole to see the socially distanced queue gathering at Hillycroft Fisheries, feeling physically great as we close the day's loop at 1.05pm, and though I ought to be elated at getting my first 10+ mile trip done on the nose of 4 hours, but in reality I am exhausted beyond belief, with all my mental energy burned. Let's be real for a moment, I really, don't need weirdness being thrown my way when I am trying to use my walking experiences to get away from the weirdnesses of the world, and right now, in these pandemic times,  I really, really, don't need aggression and abuse coming my way when out doing my own thing (and if I am in the wrong in what I do when walking on private property, politeness will go such a long way to resolving things with me); indeed I return home still feeling shaken up, and after a shower and lunch, I'm done with the day at 3.30pm, ready to retire to bed and seriously reconsider the wisdom of ever coming out of it again.

Middleton Road, Low Town End, previously unseen!

Hunger Hill and the Sportsman Inn.

Descending Bruntcliffe Lane to Morley Hole.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4450.2 miles
2020 Total: 183.7 miles
Up Country Total: 3987.2 miles
Solo Total: 4130.9 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3044 miles

Next Up: Probing the Morley - Batley boundary as we keep things local.

~~~

Pandemic Thoughts: Week 15

The good news, though, is that I'm not broken, just frustrated and irritable, as I'm guessing many are in these times, still wondering where we are at with the COVID-19 situation in this country, where the death toll has now exceeded 42,000, and passing on through another week of seeing what's going on as the formal relaxation of lockdown started on Monday 15th, reviving the general retail sector, and on this matter I can only really report what  see from my very limited perspective, noting that the morning trains have not markedly increased in business with seats and space available in all carriages, with the station only feeling busier because certain service decant their passenger simultaneously. It still looks like services aren't all running, though, as it appears that we're still ten or so services lighter per hour than we used to be, and the evening seem to have more people on than earlier, not least because some people just have to hit the town to get some clothes shopping done, as they probably feel the need for a new Summer outfit after having not been out in three months (though we can buy thing online now, you know?), and I can't give any impression of what the city is looking like otherwise as no venture was made by myself further than the Bond Street Tesco for another light re-supplying. Also along the course of this week we saw competitive sports revive, mostly to get the 2019-20 football season concluded, which passed completely un-noticed by myself, illustrating just how far something can fall from your consciousness when otherwise preoccupied, but it has brought joy to many, which does have my cynicism and inner Juvenal coming out when I think about placating the population with Bread and Circuses, when so much of what constitutes healthy human interaction is still so far beyond reach for many.

Otherwise, getting used to wearing a face mask at work and on public transport is the challenge for the week, having secured a regular supply of surgical quality ones to use, with it taking more than two days to work out how to stop them fogging up your glasses, and longer to maintain comfortable breathing when hurrying around the railway station (it's the reason they are worn by so many not covering their noses), while never quite getting to the bottom of the problem of being rendered semi-audible in conversation, and also partially deaf as I'd never realized just how much lip-reading actually goes on in regular discourse. Still, along with the passages of work, it's nice to be able to drop in on my former colleague and good friend OB, having not seen her in months, to see how she and her family have been getting on through all this situation, and 'well enough' is the answer, with her having shifted her working patterns around and her little ones having started out the lockdown enjoying the new adventure of staying home all the time, only for things to grow more complicated as time wore on, meaning she's happy for them to do even the most limited return to schooling now, as she opines that while loneliness for the single occupant might be horrible over a period of many weeks, families being put though way more forced proximity and interaction than they have ever been used to under normal circumstances is another matter entirely. It's always good to see her again, as it's never good to become a stranger and she's one of several people for whom I've managed to take on the role of adopted Weird Uncle to their families (a position that is mostly unintentional, I assure you), and it would be great to offer a hug after so many weeks without one but we all presently need to behave in a sensible and secure manner, so we'll adopt the elbow bump as a substitute for now, as we part ways hopeful that the world might not rob us of the chance of dropping by more often than every three months.