Morley Roads: South-East Circuit 13/02/21

12.7 miles, from Morley Hole, via Valley Mills, White Rose, Topcliffe Hill, Tingley Common, 

 Birks, Bruntcliffe, Gildersome Street, Gelderd Road, Farnley Junction, Beeston Royds, 

  Cottingley Hall, Millshaw, White Rose, Broad Oaks, Daisy Hill and Morley Station.

Arriving at the concluding weekend of my week off, the need to start the proper push on the walking year comes along with it, but as we look to longer mileages, the sunshine that shone through the previous days has been lost, and is replaced with glumness, while the penetrating sub-zero temperatures remain, and coupled to the enforced local trails, there's little impetus to try to do anything toe exciting, and to instead to look to some raw mileage on the local main roads, as there is a pair of local circuits that advertise themselves obviously. The challenge they present is no more complicated than picking where to start out on their circular routes, and so we commence out from Morley Hole at 10am, to initially draw a line across my earlier parks circuit, down the groove that divides the town in half, traversing Brunswick Street to Morley Bottoms and on down Station Road along the hidden and culverted route of Cotton Mills Beck down to the railway station, where last year's Social Distancing Circuit can be met and traversed for old times sake. This leads us down Valley Road, to the town'd gasworks site, and the Valley Mills, which we move around on the footpath, where the cold weather has caused the natural spring that regularly moistens this path to turn into an ice sheet that turns the descent down to the footbridge into a slippery slope par excellence, ahead of us striking east on the muddy paths to the south of the railway which have frozen into hard and uneven going, as the absence of trains along the way is noted thanks to the reduced lockdown timetable. We are thus lead to the edge of the White Rose Centre's site, where the southern portion of its woodland walk  need to be approached for the first time, as it meanders its way downhill alongside the circuit road, matching the boundary of the sewage works site that it now occupies before we are dropped out by the overflow car parks, and our way is made out onto the Dewsbury Road, right by where Morley's concealed stream emerges, flowing under the A653 towards Millshaw Beck. Join the footway alongside the dual carriageway as the road circuit proper starts off southbound, rising steadily up this small valley, which West Wood on the Middleton fringe looms over as we pace on along one of those sections of roads that I have very little reason to encounter, on foot or otherwise, as we head up towards the Wide Lane roundabout, the familiar transit point out here, where my instinct from last year to the Harvester's seemingly imminent demise proves to have been correct, as it's been replaced by a Macdonalds, which doesn't really feel like a massive social upgrade in my eyes. 

Old Mill, Station Road.

The Ice Slick behind Valley Mills.

The White Rose Centre from the Woodland Walk.

The Wide Lane island, Dewsbury Road.

Dewsbury Road continues uphill, aiming between the hillside rises on which the Dunningley and Topcliffe farms reside, while showing up some of the heavy engineering which came with its widening as it gouges through layers of exposed rock below the woodland on its west side, as it rises up towards the Aire-Calder ridge, where our route will be headed as we come up towards the Capitol Park office park, on the West Ardsley Colliery site, ahead of the old railway passage overhead towards Tingley Station. The Tingley Common traffic interchange looms, as we make a familiar passage under the M62 before taking our turn onto the A650, changing to a westwards course that take us out of the teeth of the persistent southerly breeze, and keeping to the north side of the dual carriageway as we rise over the Tingley junction site and pass up over the Motorway again by the Village Hotel and the Available Car yards and showroom, as we are drawn back into Morley's southern suburban edge, around the factory blocks beyond Topcliffe Lane. It definitely looks like part of Beacon Works is getting the residential redevelopment treatment, to math that of Tingley Mills, just up the way, were join the passage of Britannia Road beyond the Bridge Street - Rein Road island and the Tingley Bar fisheries, before we set off uphill with the rising ridge road, which offers no southern aspect as yet, mainly because it's obscured by the council houses of Birks, spoiling the views from the villas on the north side of the road. We drift in below the buildings which enclose Hembrigg Park, and switch sides to the southern pavement as we pass below the end of High Street and the Stump Cross inn, meeting a problem that will start to become common as we pace onwards, meeting a water run-off at the end of America Moor Road which has been kept solid by the low temperatures despite continuing to created a frightening ice-slick which needs to be carefully crossed on the way on to the Cross Keys and the ASDA superstore. 

The widened Dewsbury Road approaching Tingley Common.

The Village Hotel by the M62

Tingley Bar and the rising Britannia Road.

The America Moor Road Ice Slick.

Pass the Mermaid fish restaurant, which is starting to show the lack of business hanging on its fabric and pass the Britannia mills site, which brought the town out this far, down the length of Fountain Street, before we pass over Scotchman Lane by the Halfway House, just that bit to far from the hill crest to the south, as the road starts to trace more north-westerly uphill towards St Andrew's church and the way to Dartmouth Park, where a grand landscape reveal southwards feels like it ought to be available across the grounds of Thornfield House. We get no such view as the Bruntcliffe Road tops out, as I've already noted that all the available fields between the A650 and the M62 have now been claimed by residential estates, with houses now occupying all the grounds around the covered reservoir at the hill top, with all the panorama that might have visible from the villas now lost behind more roofs and walls, and thus giving us no green spaces on any kind along here as we meet the West End industrial estate and the Cliffe Park business park on the site of Victoria Colliery. Beyond which we run into Bruntcliffe for the umpteenth time, meeting the crossroads with the A643 by the club and the Toby Inn, which would have been the easiest point to join this circuit from our start line, and to keep things different we stick to the south side of the lane as we cross Clough Road and walk on past the thoroughly made-over Thorn Farm, and finally get that look to the snowbound hills and highlands of Kirklees and Calderdale on the south-western horizon, before we cross over the M621. Passing the edges of the Gildersome Spur and Turnberry Park business parks, I wonder if I'd ever properly acknowledged the few suburban houses that hide out here to the east of the older and actual settlement of Gildersome Street, where more fields by the motorway are being claimed by development, where the Plantation Services have now gained a petrol station and a Starbucks, and are doing more business than you'd expect during a national lockdown, located at a nonetheless inconvenient corner ahead of Junction 27, where you really wouldn't want to come off the M62 unless you really had to. 

The Halfway House, Scotchman Lane.

The covered reservoir, Bruntcliffe.

The distant Snowbound Southwestern Horizon.

Plantation Services, Gildersome Street.

Anyways, meeting the bisected island here means that it's time for our next turn, onto the A62 Gelderd Road to get onto the north-easterly trajectory of our tour, to the west of the town, passing over the railway tunnel approach and the old station site on the Ardsley - Laisterdyke line, now hidden by the Prospect Place industrial estate, and opposite the Street Lane playing fields at the bottom reach of Gildersome, before joining the pavement on the north side by the Bath Store and the Caterpillar tractor factory. Tracing all of the old Leeds to Huddersfield road from here to the edge of the city feels like it's going to be a novel experience, but we've actually travelled most of it in seven different sections, and thus we get a number of old sights reviewed and re-sequenced as we pace alongside Morley's western neighbour village, and pause when it feels like break time, to find that my new flask has only just kept my tea warm after two hours out in sub-zero heat, and that the oncoming wind ensures lunch will have to be aborted quickly as it's too cold to eat with my gloves off. Past the edge of Gildersome, and the quick route home down Asquith Avenue, we pass the Woodlands Hotel and the old school, ahead of the road making its long dive downhill between the fields of Gilead House and Bell Royd farms, through the green space between the settlements that has avoided having suburbanisation fill them out, as we observe the site of other lost village station on the Leeds New Lines, where the Rooms Lane bridge can be spied beyond the very lost site of Philadelphia colliery, ahead of the AWM plant at St Bernard's Mill. There's another impressive ice slick along here too, as water fails to run into Farnley Beck and instead freezes up the roadside, and it's worth noting that so much of the A62 seems to have been bleached by aggressive salting, especially as it undulates plenty and still attracts traffic as we hit the rise by the Cottingley Springs caravan sites and the extensive Jewish Cemeteries beyond the Smools Lane bridge, with the railway embankment looming behind them, and the presence of several industrial plants not robbing us of the rural feel so close to the city. 

Street Lane playing fields, Gildersome.

The Gildersome Arms, Gelderd Road.

The sweep of the A62, near Gildersome station (former).

The Jewish Cemetery, and the Leeds New Line.

There's more slickness at the road crest, with water runoff from the hilltop with the abandoned cemeteries atop it, flowing in both directions on the road as we pass the waste management plant on the Beeston Royds pit site, beyond which we meet the railway line, and take a brief detour around to get views of the flying Farnley Junction site at the end of the Leeds New Line, where the rising spur of the inbound line and the abutments of the elevated Heaton Lodge-bound bridge are as visible as they'll ever be thanks to the seasonal lack of foliage. The only section of Gelderd Road that is actually new to our experience lies beyond, as the lane meets the edge of The City  and the iciness vanishes with the arriving urban heat island, and we pace down among the Royds Farm industrial estates, where a sole abutment of the flying railway line oddly endures, despite the erasure of all the embankments, and our new roadside experience ends as we land by the old Wheatsheaf inn and take a right turn, away from Leeds, joining the A6110 Ring Road Beeston. We're back on a path from the end of my local touring from last Summer, and it oddly looks as grey as it did back in July as we pass around the electrical substation and the truck park ahead of the passage under the M621, and passing the Junction One retail park it really appears that many people are making trips to Lidl, B&Q and the drive in Burger King just for something to do during lockdown. So, southbound again, onto the last leg as the chill of the day starts to penetrate my otherwise well-thermalled self as we head back into the prevailing wind, pacing the pavement as the Ring Road tangles up with Elland Road, passing the Cottingley Hall cemetery, playing fields and estate, across from the Drysalters inn and the Sulzer plant, before continuing on along the A6110 as it passes the Millshaw Park industrial estate, noting the bridge over the concealed Millshaw Beck before we come on around the White Rose office park. 

The Gelderd Road bridges, Farnley Junction.

The flying junction remnant, Gelderd Road.

Junction One retail park.

Millshaw Road and the hidden beck.

Then we meet the White Rose Centre again, at it's northern corner and join the path that follow the edge of the lagoon which the beck has formed between it and the roads, which combine and tangle as they merge with the A653 Dewsbury Road, and the full length of the shopping centre and its car parks are passed before we roll up by the Starbucks, on the site of the Woodman Inn which I'd have sworn was still in situ the last time I passed this way, beyond which our loop seals as we cross over the southern access road. Homeward bound, we join the Woodland Path again as we retrace our steps uphill along its meandering route, over the false hill between the main road and the railway line, finding the footing to be icier than it was on the descent, and our path back splits off on the far side of the shopping centre to reach for the footbridge behind it, which takes onto the other portion of our Social Distancing Circuit as it leads us up to Broad Oaks farm, as we start to feel the chill worsen as we get wind blown across this hill top. There's also the low sun getting in our eyes as we drop onto the field path that leads downhill to The Valley, arriving so early in the season that the frozen soil hasn't had a clear route ground into it yet, and thence it's uphill again onto Daisy Hill, finding more slipperiness to traverse on the wild path, mostly because it hasn't had much direct sunshine falling on it over the last three months and every bit of snow and ice on the ground is resolutely un-melted as we arrive back in Morley by the old mill site on it's suburban edge. Only a short walk to the finish line remains, as we take in the town's elevated panorama and drop down with New bank Street to the short-cut path that arrives above the rock cliff and retaining walls above the south end of Morley station, where we can briefly train-spot  a TPE Nova unit making it's westbound cross-country trip, a journey path that we're currently forbidden from making, ahead of our descent to the Station Road corner, where our second loop sealing of the day can take place, formally wrapping the day at 2.30pm, and not too far from home and a reviving brew either, after the hours of intense cold that we've experienced.

The White Rose centre, from the north end.

Back on the Woodland Trail, again.

The icebound Valley, and Daisy Hill.

Nova at Morley Station.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4761.8 miles

2021 Total: 19.7 miles

Up Country Total: 4298.8 miles

Solo Total: 4435.2 miles

5,000 in my 40s Total: 3355.6 miles

Next Up: Circuiting the local Main Roads, Part Two, of Two.