Middleton & Cross Flatts Parks Circuit 27/02/21

11.1 miles, from Morley Station, via Newlands, Owlers, West Wood, Middleton Park 

 (via The Urban Bike Park, Middleton Wood, Belle Isle railhead, Broom Pit, The Lake, 

  The Carriageway, The Rose Garden, Wood Pit, & Park Wood), Cross Flatts Park, Beeston,

   Millshaw (& the playing fields), Broad Oaks, and Daisy Hill. 

Throughout this pandemic, it had been a small point of pride to me that I had managed to not be unwell through it's first 11 months, but that long streak came to end this week as I somehow got afflicted with a head cold, despite all the personal precautions that have been taken, which blighted my working Thursday and knocked me out of Friday completely due fierce sneezing and a persistently running nose, leaving me feeling rather flat but not showing up any symptoms that could be a harbinger of something worse once the weekend rocked up. So I might be only feeling about 80% charged on Saturday morning, and the impetus to rise with the lark isn't there either, but we need to get some oxygen back in the blood for a few hours and thus we start out a bit late, hopeful that the afternoon will bring the sunshine that isn't apparent as we descend down to Morley station for the 10.40am jump-off on my next parks circuit, targeting the major pair in South Leeds, with our route starting us off out of the valley and up the steps flight to Albert Road. From there, we immediately we start our track eastwards, through the small industrial zone that has grown on the site of Morley Main colliery, and then on among the houses that have recently been developed over the sites of the old spoil tips and alongside the estate that arrives as we merge in with the end of Peel Street, turning with the lane corner to meet a local pavement that oddly hasn't landed below my feet before, down to Wide Lane between the nursery in the former Low Common End farm and the recently rebuilt Newlands Primary school. Meeting the B6123 by the Gardener's Arms, we're on to the red route out of town soon enough, between the Newlands and Owlers estates, and into the fields that development hasn't claimed just yet as we run on to meet the Mcdonalds by the roundabout on the A653 Dewsbury Road, which we have to cross to get onto the track of West Wood Road as it descends among the fields to pass over Mill Shaw beck before rising to meet the railway bridges, both contemporary and former. We split from the track here to take the rough path up through West Wood, which feels more familiar now after last year's visits, rising though the tree cover and getting a better look at the lost GNR line thanks to the lack of foliage before we emerge out into the pasture on the western fringe of the Middleton estate, where no horses seem to be grazing today, which at least opens it up for the locals for some free dog running, as trace our way around its perimeter, tracking north until one of the few formal paths into the estate appears to send us eastwards again.

Albert Road, Morley.

Newlands Primary School.

Millshaw Beck.

The West Wood Pasture, Middleton.

The Middleton estate feels like its own separate ecosystem when regarded from without, and still feels rather alien to me despite several passages through it, largely due to its vast size and thorough mix of 20th century vintages, with this western portion along the Bodmin and Helston Roads being the grayest and least aesthetically pleasing results of 1970s era council house development, though it does enjoy the loftiest views to the west and northwest, which can be glimpsed as we rise up to meet the Middleton Ring Road, just as the morning glumness starts to finally burn off. That completes possibly the shortest direct foot route to Middleton Park, our main target of the day, which we enter via the Leeds Urban Bike Park, which we visited on our sole family get-together of 2020, and is doing just as much trade today, still open to all as a public facility despite the ongoing lockdown, with riders of all ages travelling in all directions as we head down the main path between the pump track and BMW course on on side and the beginners track on the other, getting free entertainment from the skilled and unskilled riders doing their thing. Having not been mown down by anyone cycling down to the extensive off-road tracks to the north, we arrive in the park proper, meeting the hard track the access road that runs around of the heart of the parkland, joined by the Rose Garden and leading us eastwards above the passage of the old tram lines and tracking around the open park space that had once been a golf course, and feeling so much happier now that the sunshine has arrived to illuminate the landscape below the canopy of trees, as winter walking in the woods is such an enjoyable experience. Gradually descending, we meet the path that leads through Middleton Wood, shadowing the flow on the stream downhill, and enjoying the persistence of the wild and ancient woodlands, where fallen trees by the track have become features and locals from the estate are out in force, while acknowledging the fact that the path we are on is part of the early industrial waggonway that served the many bellpits which were dug from the late 17th century onwards, to feed the growing city of Leeds with coal, the many scars of which are still visible in the undergrowth to the keen-eyed.

Helston Road, western Middleton.

The BMX track, Leeds Urban Bike Park.

The Circuit Track, Middleton Wood.

The Colliery Waggonway, Middleton Wood.

We eventually meet the merging in main path through the park, previously traveled in 2014 and join it as it crosses the old access road to Middleton Colliery, ahead of us meeting the railhead station of the Middleton Railway which it superseded, where we break for elevenses, and contemplate the original and now lost industrial village-let of Belle Isle to the north, now lost below the pitches of the John Charles Centre for Sport, and hope that the preserved line has not suffered a horrible financial crisis that has afflicted so many heritage railways during this pandemic. From our apex point of our tour of the park, we'll need to use the map I downloaded to trace our way across the extensively landscaped eastern portion of the park, picking my way along the clearest rough paths and tracking between them where necessary to elevate ourselves up to where main body of Broom Pit, and the neighbouring brickworks, operated until the late 1960s, now replaced by rough fields and plantations, along a track that rapidly loses the purpose that it started out with. It's predictably impossible to get an historical feel for this post industrial parkland landscape after so much reclamation, and compared to business of the woodlands to the west, this really is the place to be if you want some acres of parkland to yourself as no one else has ventured into this sector, despite the ease of access from the Belle Isle estate and the availability of elevated sight-lines to the city centre from between the trees, which probably has a lot to do with it being muddy as it comes, and lacking the obvious appeal that comes with the woodlands. The south eastern corner of the park, below the Manor Farm block of the Middleton estate is largely open pasture, and it seems to be here that the local horses have been left to graze, and we've got some vague but direct paths to trace get us back towards  the exciting parts of the park, followed as they lead us below the looming wooded hilltop on which St Mary's church stands, and after finding so many useful information boards around the park, it's frustrating that the one that would explain the history of this particular corner has gone missing.

The Belle Isle railhead, Middleton Railway.

The dirt track to Broom Pit.

The view to Leeds from Broom Pit.

The South-Eastern Pasture, Middleton Park.

Back into the woods and the populated parkland we return, tracing a rapidly improving path as it leads us up towards the bandstand and the visitors centre, which is doing a roaring trade for brews for the folks out to enjoy the sedate path around the Lake to observe the bird life, which we trace away from the kids who are out to make best use of the playground, and it's heartening to see so many people out, as I'm sure people from the estate have come to really appreciate the proximity and availability of this parkland during all these months of lockdown that we have experienced. We get back to the main circuit path as it rises up towards the Town Street entrance, around the parklands of the old Middleton Lodge, which offers a fine view or six as we elevate ourselves above the bowling greens and tennis courts, laid out when it became a public space in the 1920s, and dodging the traffic that is attempting to find a spot to park in the frankly tiny car parks, which feels like a deliberate piece of  bad planning to ensure an amount of exclusivity, and to maintain it as a local park for local people. At the top, the park's southern entrance, we meet the Carriageway, the long driveway to Middleton Lodge, laid out to offer the best in 18th century picturesque vistas on the way to the estate house which belonged to the historical families that fired the industry and established the parkland which we have been touring around, a route that has become much wilder over the last century, as it falls and rises around the western extremity of the old park, with only the Urban Bike Park lying beyond, and our loop comes towards its conclusion. We need to briefly detour before we are done though, as we need to visit the Rose Gardens, the only formally laid out remnant of the old estate, which had the Lodge house at its northern end until it was demolished as recently as 1996 after suffering many years of decay, but its vista has been preserved thanks to the Nick's View viewpoint, offering seating to look directly eastwards over the park and the old golf course, beyond the treetops towards the far downstream passage of the Aire valley, another fine spot to pause to recharge and refuel.

The Lake, Middleton Park.

The Tennis Courts, Middleton Park.

The Middleton Lodge Carriageway. 

The Rose Gardens, Middleton Lodge.

Retrace steps to the circuit path, and seal the loop that I've spent the last 90 minutes burning, seeking the path that will lead down into West Wood, but locating it proves to be a challenge, even with a terrain map in hand, as the risk of getting tangled up with the mountain bike routes seems rather strong, and thus we have to walk to the stepped path down to the tramline route, retracing another 2014 path, as if this corner of the park is deliberately baffling, before tracking back to find the information board that describes the medieval dispute that fixed a boundary through this dense wood back in 1209. The ditch that it created isn't visible to me as we hit the rough path through the woods, but a little further along we can find Wood Pit, where a colliery bloomed in the early 19th century, where get indications of where the remains of the structures were, now little more than banks and depressions in the woodland floor, which require a lot of imagination to interpret, but was once the largest pit in this quarter, feeding the distant railway via waggonways that have now vanished completely from view. It's illuminating to remember how industrial activity can pass into and out of a landscape that seems to be completely untouched as we carry on through West Wood, following the sketchy path as it tracks the edge of another stream flow north-easterly through the woodland, tracking close to the boundary with the South Leeds golf course, and the playing fields of Cockburn School, while useful indications painted onto trees warn travellers from not making choices that could easily have them sliding into the boggy waters below the path. Cross the stream to rise under the canopy of trees, past the path entrance that leads in from the suburban enclave of Beeston Park Side, into quite the most primordial feeling forest, where even the presence of a clear and wide track has you feeling that getting lost out here could be very easy if you didn't have a feeling for your location, and as we approach the park boundary by the equestrian centre, some dead-reckoning is still needed to locate the descending track, among more bellpits to find the way out at its northernmost corner, and pause to reflect and to regard what a gift to the City that Middleton Park really is.

The Tramway route, Middleton Wood.

Wood Pit, West Wood.

The boundary path, West Wood.

West Wood, with Bellpit.

A wide and damp track leads us out of the park, between the back of the Westland Road industrial estate and the edge of the equestrian fields, and the immediate concern to my brain is the foul smell wafting over the area, which is almost enough to make me disregard the fact that we've landed on a railway walk, the only enduring section of alignment of the GNR's Hunslet Goods line east of the Beeston Park road, with its concrete boundary posts still in situ ahead of it completely vanishing under the South Leeds Stadium and beyond. We split onto another path, rather than landing on Middleton Grove by the sport centre, thinking that it will lead us around the car park to cut a corner off, but it instead keeps going, not following any right of way but definitely forming a viable path as it wanders below the industrial estate to its west and behind the packaging plant along two sides of its boundary as the path turns to pass below the extensive plots of allotments gardens on the south side of Dewsbury Road. Landing back on the pavements, we are on another old route, from 2018, as we rise up to meet the A653 again, out of the industrial zone by the parkside, but find that the crossing by the Dewsbury Road Social Club (and the first bus stops that I used when I first started working in Leeds) is a bit of a challenge due to roadworks, which really has been the theme of the last twelve months in the city as every highways project seems to have gotten underway simultaneously,as if to challenge those of us who've worked throughout this pandemic. Still, we're heading into Cross Flatts Park again, like we did three years ago, but venturing onto the paths where I started my walking life again under much brighter climes than we had on that snowbound day, this time tracing the western side below the back gardens of Cross Flatts Avenue, and some of the smartest houses in South Beeston, rising with the tree lined path to the transitional path across the middle of the park, below the tennis courts to get both the south-eastwards views downhill, back towards Middleton's woodland horizon, and as close to my old house on Harlech Avenue from 1998 as I'm ever likely to willingly get. 

The GNR Hunslet Goods Line.

The secret path, avoiding Middleton Grove.

Dewsbury Road Up, by the Social Club and Cross Flatts Park.

The Western Promenade, Cross Flatts Park.

Tracing the eastern path uphill, below the terraced houses with the bay windows that get the best parkside aspects, it's good to see that the local are out here to make the best of the midday sunshine, having it looking busier than I ever saw it 2+ decades ago, as we pace up past the playground and bowling greens, before switching side to leave the park at its northwest corner, and noting that the Spring flowers have started to come on, as the Daffodils and Crocuses start to emerge into a riot of seasonal colour, a few weeks early. Cross the Beeston Road, and instead turning for home, we allow ourselves one more short detour, along the boundary of Holbeck Cemetery on its hilltop plot, and on to the path that follow the ends of the terrace block of the Nosters and Marleys so that we might get that elevated West Leeds view that we didn't quite get when a wintery mist obscured it in 2018, giving a horizon from Cottingley and Farnley Wood, across Wortley and Armley, and around to Cookridge and Headingley, with Elland Road stadium in its foreground, one of the best urban views in the city. Via Marley Terrace, we return to Beeston Road to start our route homewards, heading directly into the low sun as we go, past the Sunnyview residential home and the long run of terrace ends along the Cross Flatts block, before running up alongside Beeston cemetery, also perched on the edge of hillside and surely forming the closest pair of parish cemeteries anywhere in the county, ahead of us coming up by Beeston's shopping parade, of which only the Co-op is doing business today, and the pair of churches at the top of Wesley Street, St Mary's and the Methodist Chapel. This gets us back on the route of my pre-seasonal circuit from getting my vaccination at Elland Road, and it's all a lot brighter than it was five weeks back as we pass the Old White Hart inn, the Memorial gardens, Beeston Primary school and the Whistlestop inn on our way along Town Street before we take the turn downhill, off Beeston's wholly urbanized hill and down the pre-turnpike road as it passes over the Leeds - Doncaster railway line where every cog of the imagination has to be ground to visualise the location of place the site of Beeston station on the metals below us. 

Blooming Crocuses, Cross Flatts Park.

The view to Elland Road, and beyond, from Beeston Hill.

St Mary's Beeston.

Beeston Station site, allegedly.

Descending the valley floor, and entering the industrial band that flanks the A6110 Ring Road Beeston, it's still hard to imagine that settlement of Mill Shaw used to be found down here, and the eye has to make note of the workshops on the this side of dual carriageway, as well as the former school (I assume) and the stray terrace end at the bottom of Elland Road's ascent of Churwell Hill beyond, so as not to assume that Millshaw has always been an industrial estate in the shadow of the Cottingley hall estate, and nothing more. We turn for home away from the A643 by tracing the actual right of way and formal footpath through the Millshaw playing fields, which is located between the football pitches and passes over Farnley Wood Beck, as it flows through its trash accumulating channel before disappearing into its culvert, ahead of us tucking back into the muddy path below the railway embankment, behind the scaffold-clad DHL dept and up to the passage below the line via the cattle creep, with the low sun illuminating it immaculately as a Nova unit runs over it, Leeds bound. We also get the sunshine directly into our eyes as we slam the long field boundary path uphill to Broad Oaks farm, making us wish it were possible to only travel northbound at this time of year, but it's south that we are heading home, over the hill crest and downwards into The Valley via the now visible field path and then up the other side, finding that all the problems of iciness from two weeks ago have been replaced with muddiness today, ensuring some late day filthiness as we land atop Daisy Hill. That's us back into suburban Morley, taking in the winter horizon of the town ahead of us before pacing down to the top of New Bank Street, where fresh roadworks have arrived too, as if to prove the point that I made earlier, and dropping down the close of  King George Croft to meet the stepped path down to the railway station, closing the loop on the day at 3.00pm, still standing, and with me lungs and head feeling clear at the end of a very satisfying trip, and a good month of lockdown walking too, having found plenty of new things to see while still having obeyed the rules and stayed local.

Millshaw school (former, I think).

Millshaw Playing Fields.

The ascent to Broad Oaks farm.

The Morley horizon, from Daisy Hill.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4782.7 miles

2021 Total: 40.6 miles
Up Country Total: 4319.7 miles
Solo Total: 4456.1 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3376.5 miles

Next Up: A Whole Year of (mostly) Un-Walked Saturdays Awaits!

~~~

Pandemic Thoughts: February 2021

It seems bizarre that at the start of the past month, when we are nearly 11 months into this global pandemic, that this should be the time that HM Government should start to discuss the wisdom of imposing travel restrictions into and out of the UK, as new variants of Covid are found to have come into the country from abroad, and to also lament that a travel ban wasn't imposed almost a year ago when the opportunity was there, instead preferring to employ as 'business as usual' strategy until it became painfully apparent that it wan't the right plan. It's deeply perplexing to realize that at no time since lockdown restrictions first came into play, has international travel been formally restricted, preferring to pursue a strategy of safe passage corridors to less affected countries, coupled to quarantines and fines, instead of imposing large scale bans, which makes the head hurt further when you remember that those who would govern us are the types who would blather on and on about 'taking back control of our borders' to prevent immigration, but seem so reluctant to be so decisive in the grip of a health crisis. It does make you wonder who's doing all this travelling, seeming as there isn't a holiday industry in business at present, and so much commerce can be done remotely, as the rest of us find ourselves restricted to our own localities, and the options of support bubbling don't seem so wildly appealing when faced with wintery conditions that would keep anyone wise in their homes, and even our train services have markedly reduced again, losing a quarter of the services running into Leeds and combining the local TPE service with the Manchester-Hull express. That proves to not be great for the social distancing if the train is short-formed, but at least the frustrating one-way system at the city station has been amended to keep the flow going that bit quicker, while those who are staying home ares seeking the options of regular walking exercise when it wouldn't have occurred otherwise, as even My Mum starts to burn daily hours around her corner of East Leicester, initially matching my totals over multiple days, while one of my colleagues takes a week off and actually manages to get down more miles around East Leeds than I managed in Morley during my own.

Still, you have to look at the bigger picture as it continues to unfold, noting that the death toll in the UK has passed the 120,000 point at the end of the month, and also seeing that the infection and hospitalization rates have started to decline markedly, as they should after eight weeks of lockdown restrictions and massively reduced amounts of social interactions, not that it's a uniform improvement, as many cities in the Midlands and the North remain relatively hot, as if there's an amount of unavoidable activity going on that is still feeding the problem. This is why we find ourselves pinning our hopes on the vaccination programme, which is still progressing at a remarkable rate, with the target of 15 million people having received a first dose by the middle of the month, and the total continuing the bear down on 20 million by the end of it, which shows up the gargantuan effort that has gone on by the NHS and its associate agencies to get this operating at such a pace, which could almost have you believe that it has nothing to do with the operations of HM Government at all. Still, there's still such a long way to go with the process, as only a third of the population has received a first injection of the two needed, which means that it will still take another ten months, basically the rest of the year, to ensure everyone nationally is fully inoculated, and getting the younger and more cynical generations on board with the vaccinations might prove to be a challenge, and we really ought not pretend it's been plain sailing so far either, as at least two friends of mine with extremely clinical vulnerable relatives are still waiting on them getting appointments for their first jabs. In truth, it really looks like we are going to be living with the risks presented by Covid for a while, as the opportunity to arrest its worldwide spread has long since been lost, and the three known variants that are floating around, from Kent, South Africa and Brazil, and the natural concerns about the effectiveness of the vaccines, developed to combat the initial strain, against them in the future, could mean that we'll have to travel forwards regarding it in the same way as influenza, a disease risk requiring a fresh jab every winter, while getting used to the idea of wearing a facemask in public places as a matter of course.

So when you find yourself feeling like this, it's immensely frustrating to find that after being somewhat pessimistically optimistic about the stance of HM Government with regards the easing of lockdown restrictions over the coming months, with them refusing to be drawn on any particular developments, and keeping to a mantra of 'Data, Not Dates', that when the time came for the press conference to announce the strategy for going forwards, it proved to be little more than a long sequence of dates for the total ending of National Lockdown by June 21st. Immediately it feels like May last year all over again, as if after six weeks of the lockdown process they start to get bored and seek to get everything back to normal as quickly as possible, only this time around, they know that a second wave came along by way of their actions, which resulted in the deaths of more than 75,000 people (and counting), and all because of their desire to re-fire all economic and social activity, while resisting the re-imposition of lockdown restrictions because of their perceived negative impacts, in the face of rising infection rates. They can claim all they want that the restrictions will endure if the rates were to not continue dropping, but all so many people will hear is a promise that the effects of the pandemic will be over by the summer and will thus act with the lack of care appropriate, or be enraged if the lockdown is forced to continue because another bad promise was made, and when they seem so focused on getting schools back in, from 8th March, their apparent concern for their educational prospects seem to ring rather hollow when measured against the very real health risks. I hope that the vaccination programme doses hinder the prospect of a third wave, but we'll be only midway through it by the time that lockdown scheduling is due to end, and we all know that there's a whole mess of variables to come, as there's a lot of activity going on internationally that we have no means to plan for as of now, and thus we look forward with trepidation once again, feeling that we're another course of blind optimism, when a path of cautious pessimism is the correct route, and a small crumb of comfort can be gleaned from the fact that many senior government scientists feel exactly the same way.