Halifax to Apperley Bridge 29/05/21

12.7 miles, via North Bridge, Claremount, Stump Cross, Northowram, Stone Cross, 

 Shelf Hall, Shelf, Beck Hill, Buttershaw, Wibsey Park, Wibsey, Brown Royd Hill, 

  Little Horton (Chapel Green, Holme Top, & Little Horton Green), Bradford city centre, 

   Wapping, Park End, Undercliffe, Eccleshill, Greengates and Dyehouse Fold. 

Out with the old Boots #7,
and in with the new Boots #8!

As my Spring Jollies at Home week ends, but my Ten Day Weekend concludes, there are some feelings of frustration to be had as we shift back into the regular scope of walking from home, firstly, is that fact that the 20+ miles of walking time lost due to horrid weather conditions over two days at the start of the month have resulted in my missing the opportunity to breach my first 5,000 mile target of my walking career this weekend, standing at only 33 miles distant as we open out today, meaning the chance to gather the family, or at least have Mum stick around at mine for another day, to force a celebration of sorts, is gone. Equally annoying is the fact that Pair of Boots #7 have given up the ghost quite spectacularly, with the extensive gluing applied to their uppers in the late portion of last year having failed to prevent their demise in the face of the all the mud and wetness that they have encountered since being revived a month ago, when I'd hoped that they too would see me past 5,000 miles, and thus Boots #8 has to be purchased, going back to the suede and mesh styles of my initial pairs, after encountering the poor wear of the uppers on Mountain Warehouse's all leather styles, as well as being put off by their suddenly increased cost. I've no idea at all if these Storm boots will endure like their 5,000 mile sole guarantee suggests they ought, or whether I'll have bust them up by the end of 2022, but they're £40 less expensive than a like-for-like replacement and are going to need a breaking in walk as my feet have gotten used to rigid uppers and heavier soles over the last few years, and thus we'll have to adapt our walking plans around the risk of blistering or other foot trauma, meaning urban walking is the order of the day, allowing us a more limited route mileage and multiple opportunities to bolt from the trail, if needs be.

The theme of traveling over the Calder - Aire watershed is maintained as we ride out to Halifax, feeling like we might be overdressed for the weather as the heat blooms with the oncoming Spring Bank Holiday weekend, as I'm still anticipating the heat, or lack of it, that we had last week as we alight at 10am, under the bright blue skies that illuminate this town in the best of lights, while we find ourselves immediately struggling to find a new route to burn away from the station, as the way up Square Road, Smithy Street and Winding Road heading north is one we've already seen a good few times. Same with the passage past the Halifax Vue and the way up Northgate to the passage over North Bridge, though the view up Dean Clough, up the Hebble Valley and beneath the A58 flyovers is always scrapbook worthy, with a new route only found at the bottom of the A647 Haley Hill, where we hit the path around the Burdock Way traffic island and rise to the terrace at the severed stub of Range Bank, to then press east past the suburban enclave in front of St Joseph's school, at the bottom edge of Claremount, or the top end of Charlestown, pondering the passing of the urban district from this hillside as we scratch Prospect Road and New Bank again. Rise to meet Lister's Bridge, and our closest proper call with Claremount, before we descend down The Incline to meet the side of the A58, as Godley Lane digs through the cutting at the top of the hillside watershed, keeping us on the sunny side of the road as we come down the castellated gatehouse and chequer-board effect stone walls at the edge of the Shiben Hall estate, which is promoting its links with Anne Lister, a past resident who's rediscovered personal history as a prominent lesbian in the first half of the 19th century has placed Halifax, of all places, on the list of significant British LGBTQ locales. Cross here to descend the Old Godley Lane, below the stone retaining walls of it successor road, feeling that we ought to have some countryside to cross at the park's boundary and beyond the town, but find a number of older suburban housing blocks down here, around the Shibden Grange site, ahead of the rise we take back to the side of the A58 at Stump Cross and immediately cross over by the tollhouse and ahead of the A6036 junction, to join Hough, the mononymous old road to Bradford. 

Calderdale Industrial Museum, Square Road, Halifax.

Halifax from New Bank

Shibden Hall gatehouse, Godley Lane.

The Toll House, Stump Cross.

Press on uphill, sharply ascending the valley side, among the cottages and raked terraces, ahead of a long run of cobblestones, where the light traffic on this lane gives a calming sort of rumbling sound as the tyres run over the setts as we rise to the views across to Shibden Hall, well concealed in it parkland,  as we press uphill and around the tight curve at the top of the wooded slopes to slip into Northowram on its hilltop, the largest settlement still unseen in the county, where suburban infill has grown all the way down around the Windmill inn. The bulk of the stone village to be found further along, located in scenic little clusters around Park Square, the Heywood chapel and the Shoulder of Mutton inn, and there's some properly old stuff hidden away in the yards and side streets up here, hidden from view along Towngate unless you deliberately came up the old road to see it, which makes this an immediatley better choice than walking the main road, ahead of the more suburban aspect returning, beyond the old school and The Club on the Northowram Green corner, by the memorial garden, which we propel ourselves along. Onward past the Ebeneezer chapel and the grounds of Northowram Hall, which are still partly a parkland, noting some rather sypathetic subrban developments ahead of the village petering out on the Landermere Syke corner, which leads to the rising lane up Score Hill, where the open fields form the largest open green space that we will be crossing today, where the wildflower meadows are still in active agricultural use by Landmere farm, or maintained for bucolic views towards probably the only available angle on uppermost Shibden Dale from the Robinsons Farm Shop's staring window. The brief rural trek is soon in our wake as we meet the outermost edge of greater Bradford, the suburban enclave of Stone Chair, with us having risen to Hud Hill and come down upon the A644 by the Duke of York inn, and that's us back on the Calderdale Way route again, as we're still in that district, and aside from noting the actual stone chair, and what looks like the brewery extension added to the pub, there's not much else about this stoney corner beyond the Brighouse and Denholme Gate Road to jog my memory of our passage this way nine seasons back. 

The Cobblestones  of Hough, Northowram.

The Shoulderof Mutton, Northowram.

Landmere Syke and Score Hill. 

The Duke of York, Stone Chair.

So we drop past its long terraces on West Street to transition into Shelf Hall beyond Cock Hall clough, the stream draining across this high urban landscape, soon bringing us up past the local Junior & Infant school, and Broad Ings farm, still active while surrounded by the suburban growth, where we pass across the route from last Saturday, beyond the Belle Vue terrace and along Shelf Hall Road, in front of the stone built council estate, and behind the featureless backs of the terraces built to face the new road, which is met beyond the Bottomley's Arms inn. So that was a fun detour away from the A6036, which we are compelled to join as Wade House Lane drives us into Shelf proper, separated from its neighbour by a mere gate's width of fields and a bank of trees ahead of the Milcourt school, occupying the sole surviving old building of Victoria Mills, with the old terraced houses along the main road having a distinctly Bradfordian flavour to them as we rise up past the community centre in the old chapel and the Duke William inn, to pass inside our previous passage this way, around the city of Bradford. Break for lunch in the memorial garden on the Shelf Moor Road corner, and then continue north-east on the last notable trajectory in West Yorkshire that hasn't been paced yet, rising with the elevated pavement as it passes the Westfield Hill terraces, as we as a run of those unique-to-Bradford low single-storeyed terrace dwellings, ahead of us meet the Bethel chapel and the Shoulder of Mutton in, where we split from the A6036 again and rise with Carr House Lane, above the Prince of Orange inn and the parish church of St Micheal & All Angels, on the road to Odsal Top below. Also pass above the new Lidl store, and despite having been in its urban reach for a while, we finally get to properly enter Bradford once the Calderdale boundary is passed over at Blackshaw Beck, passing the local urban park and the tall chimney of the former chemical works as Farfield Avenue sets us on a course for the city, above the old terraced hamlet of Beck Hill, where our altitude gain on our rise to towards the Calder watershed is revealed by looking southwards, while to our north sits the huge extent of the Buttershaw estate, acres upon acres of council houses on the wide, flat hilltop about as high and far away as could be developed from the city to the north.

Broad Ings farm, Shelf Hall.

Ascending to Westfield Hill, Shelf.

St Michael's, and the Prince of Oragne, Shelf.

The stione terraces of Beck Hill

There's quite a landscape contrast to be had as we pass the 19th century stone blocks on one side and the mid 20th century estate growth on the other, with a few even older rural outliers mixed in between, before we take a more dynamic shift to a more suburban aspect as the road angle shifts, heading northeasterly as the suburbs of Wibsey draw up to the roadside, with old Halifax - Bradford road adopting the identity of Wibsey Park Avenue, and another ornately decorated gate is noted at the eastern extreme of the Buttershaw estate. The demotion of the roads to local status means that it's not a landscape that travellers would do much passing through, but as we draw up to Wibsey Park, a detour needs to be made into it to pace the side of the duck pond / boating lake, and not for purely picturesque reasons, as I have a small amount of history with it, as longtime friends of My Mother once lived locally, and we came here multiples of times when visiting in the late 70s and early 80s, a scene from my childhood that was never forgotten, and is now reattached to my field of walking experience after four decades. Back on track, we rejoin the road by the Park View Mill complex and rise to the Beacon Road traffic island, at the western end of Wibsey's high street, noting again that those single storey terraces really are everywhere in Bradford (and nowhere else), and finding ourselves on the very crest of the Calder - Aire ridge as we join the top end of St Enoch's Road, with the decline into the northern catchment starting past the end of the long terrace at the hilltop, and gathering pace as it presses downhill, past the Brown Royd Hill Top urban hamlet, around the Dog & Gun inn. It's worth detouring off the main road here, as a descent down Brown Royd Hill doesn't just afford an opportunity to spy another old hamlet buried in the city, but it's a chance to see up close the real steepness of the hillside ridge that rings Bradford to the southwest, where even suburban spreadage cannot conceal its wooded banks, or the massive amount of embankmenting and elevation that civil engineers needed to apply to St Enoch's Road to make it traverse the hill at an angle viable for motor traffic, looking like the oldest flyover in the country as it rises above Carrbottom Road recreation ground.

Between suburban Buttershaw and Wibsey.

Wibsey Park Lake.

The Calder - Aire Watershed crest, St Enoch's Road.

Brownroyd Hill is as intense as it looks.

Meet the A6177 Southfield Road, and cross Bradford's circular avoiding road by the Brown Cow inn, and meet the end of Little Horton Lane as we go, starting its long plunge into the city, and it's a fascinating sort of path to walk to take us through some local urban history, demonstrating that there's a lot more to Little Horton than it's diminutive name might suggest, as at the top of this long ribbon of a settlement at Chapel Green, there's a lot of ramshackle houses along the roadside, seemingly developed randomly, and needing their own chapel and junior church, St Oswalds, at the hilltop. Progressing further down to Holme Top , we meet a more ordered landscape, where terraces were developed according to a plan, surrounding the mills that once sat at the city's edge, where Briggella Mills still stand tall, and the patterns of 20th century development can be traced, by replacing the slums with council houses in a mid century style, or attempting to revive and maintain an increasingly post-industrial landscape in later years, a pattern that is maintained all the way down to the passage we've sen before, above the old railway line and its lost tunnel. Meeting Little Horton Green, St Luke's hospital arrives on the eastern side of the road, the junior site of the local trust, but still a vital site at present as home to the city's main Covid testing site, and betraying a vintage that shows its previous life as the Bradford Union workhouse, located across the school district, whose buildings flank the parish church of All Saints, possessing possibly the proudest spire in the borough, and occupying a prmoinet location which advertises its presence well when seen from either direction on the lane. The city feels close after all that descent, but Little Horton still has to offer its best face as we come around past the Serbian Orthodowx church, and the lane enters that landscape of proud Victorian townhouses that were never going to adapt well to 20th century life, being too large for normal middle class living, and subsequently being turned in offices for solicitors and their ilk, or being divided up into flats and apartments, to serve the transient population of students attending the university just up the hill from here.

Chapel Green.

Briggella Mills, Holme Top.

All Saints church, Little Horton Green.

The smartest face of Little Horton Lane.

Reaching the bottom of the lane, we are soon enough upon Bradford city centre, almost losing the route that unusually hadn't been committed to memory ahead of travelling, as we tangle with the traffic island and the merging loop roads of the A647 behind the Bradford Ice Arena and the National Science & Media museum, which itself looms over the city centre, across from the Alhambra theatre, and we pass to its front to cross the A6181 Prince's Way to note just how quiet it all seems as we pass the Mirror Pool and the Magistrates Courts complex, and come down Hall Ings in the shadow of the City Hall. It looks like people are not out in droves, despite the Bank Holiday weekend warmth and the commercial centre being fully opened up again, wisely staying away as Covid infection spike again, and the whole city landscape going forward seems rather silent and devoid of normal life, as St George's Hall remains shut, the Telegraph & Argus offices have been vacated, sitting as they do ahead of the sad remnants of Exchange station, and while the Broadway Centre has had its footfall increased of late, its prominently located Debenhams store sits empty after the company recently went to the wall. Thus we conclude my first prime time city centre visit in a long while, as all my 2021 transits in Leeds have been in my working life schedule, and there's a whole other half of the greater city to see to the east too, and having descended into it from the southwest, our northeastern passage has us travelling uphill, finding the most direct route to our desired trajectory by ploughing up Vicar Lane and Burnett Street through the heart of Bradford's Victorian cloth warehouse district, another landscape that the modern world has't really found a use for, despite applying office and residential conversions upon many of them. Rise through the car park at the lane's top, and land on the side of the Shipley Airedale road, across from the Regency Hall venue and across from Paper Hall, the oldest house in Bradford that isn't Bolling Hall, approaching the latter over Barkerend Road as the A650 and the A658 have their tussle, and we eventually get across the junction to meet the old Otley Road as it rises further, between that trio of Y-shaped tower blocks and up among a visible attempt to restore some streets and proper housing to what was once a post-slum landscape.

The National Science & Media museum.

The Broadway Centre and Exchange station.

The Warehouse district, Burnett Street.

The old Otley Road, and the Y-Shaped Tower Blocks.

Meet the top of the longer but less steep path of New Otley Road as it merges with the old one by the Airedale inn and then continue up with the A658, immediately snaring the opportunity that comes for views on this side of the city, and again the urban horizon does not disappoint as we look back over the industrial rooftops of Wapping and carry on into the terraced district of Park End, which doesn't seem to have a more distinct identity as it sits south of Peel Park and around St Augustine's church, which looks like it was revived after being partially demolished. The road takes a long swing around the north side of Undercliffe cemetery, Bradford's main Victorian burial ground with its long wall completely filling the side of the road as the uphill push continues, until we meet the gate and retreat inside to take a watering break that really feels necessary in this heat that we've become unaccustomed to, before we rise on further, noting that every terrace and apartment building up to the Idle Road corner seems to have been built tall and with an aspect to the northwest, as if to maximise the best secret view of Airedale to be had. Rock on uphill to the road crest, beyond The Green Man inn to meet Undercliffe's main street ahead crossed by Northcote Road where we encounter the A6177 again, with the shopping parades feeling quiet ahead of us starting the long decline downhill towards the Aire valley, through this stoney and terraced settlement that the growth of Bradford completely consumed, with the suburbia being met by Leeds Road, where we get sight of the Bradford Industrial museum beyond the rooftops, ahead of meeting some more rural outliers. This puts us in the vicinity of Eccleshill, with the village appearing to the north up the reach of Moorside Road, while the suburban semis fill the landscape of Harrogate Road all the way down to St Luke's parish church, on the Pullan Road corner, where we can lament the passing of one of the few open green spaces left in east Bradford as the fields beyond have been consumed by a new housing development and another new Lidl store (surely one of the few companies having their business boom at present), ahead of us trying to spy where the old railway once passed overhead, above or below Harrison's Buildings, which we cannot immediately recall despite having previously traced it in detail back in 2017.

St Augustine's church, Park End.

Undercliffe Cemetery.

Undercliffe High Street (at the hill crest).

Green Space loss, near Eccleshill.

It's further downhill than I'd remembered, just ahead of the playing fields and the junction at the top of the Ravenscliffe estate, where a community garden has been formed, and our path takes us into the shade of the trees as the edge of the parklands of Park House, are traced, looking like a school playing fields but actually home to the Inspire Business Park and the Eccleshill Community hospital, ahead of the leafiness continuing as we come down by the outer edge of the estates at Greengates, passing the half-circus, and meeting the Oddfellows Arms inn and Eccleshill Pool, opposite the Bank corner. It's a familiar run down from there, past the close of houses that look like literal boxes and down past the Matalan and Sainsbury's store ahead of the A657 New Line corner, where roadworks are causing all kinds of problems between the shopping parades as we attempt to cross over by the Memorial garden and Aldo's Italian to trace the unseen stretch of the A658 downhill further, past the characterful housing blocks on the old road alignment and beyond St John's church on its perch over the road, and the Dog & Gun inn at the roadside. Dyehouse Fold presents a terraced front to the road, which largely conceals the fact the most of the industrial buildings that sit behind it, aside from Dyehouse Mill, have since gone, replaced with apartments complexes, which seems to be a bit of a theme for the fields on this raised side of the Aire valley, as we descend to make our passage over the Leeds & Liverpool canal and landing in the low half of Apperley Bridge, which despite its proximity to the river seems to not be at risk of flooding, while also noting the foot crossing for horses across the main road, ahead. So across the Aire, and complete the trip from the Hebble valley on one of the most surprisingly urban walks I've ever managed, seeing the both of the local pubs, the George & Dragon, and the Stansfield Arms are looking super- busy, and reminding myself that if I'd wanted to make my fortune this year, investing in the marquee business would have been the best course, before making the turn to Station Approach and the long slog beyond the car park to conclude the trip at Apperley Bridge's skewed platforms, at 3pm, with hot feet but thankfully no new boot issues to report, just as the day's heat is lost by cloud covering the southern horizon of northeast Bradford.

Park House fields.

Traffic issues at Greengates.

St John's church, Greengates.

The River Aire at Apperley Bridge.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 4979.5 miles

2021 Total: 237.4 miles
Up Country Total: 4516.5 miles
Solo Total: 4647.9 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3577.3 miles

Next Up: Taking a big bite from the remaining distance up to my first 5,000 mile target.

~~~

Pandemic Thoughts: May 2021

At the opening of the month, it starts to feel like the Pandemic situation feels like it's all bit quiet as a feeling of no news is good news, from the perspective of this country at least, and attention starts to turn to matters beyond these borders, not least raising the idea of vaccine justice and getting the adult population of the world vaccinated ahead of the juvenile population of this country, or stockpiling doses for use in the autumn as a supplement to the regular round of flu shots for front line workers and the clinically vulnerable. It certainly makes a lot of sense to talk about such things when its considered that one of the leading vaccine producers in the world is India, and most of the stock produced there is for the export market when they are experiencing one of the worst second waves of infection anywhere on the planet, again giving us the reminder that there's still a global pandemic going on out there, which isn't going to resolve itself any time soon, regardless of the percentage of the UK population who've had a dose administered to them, or had their program completed. It does make you wonder why so much breath is wasted on the speculation of what destinations around the globe might be available for holidays and non-quarantined travel as the so-called Green List is announced, placing Portugal as the only country of note, beyond small island nation where outbreak might prove easily containable where vacationing might be plausible, illustrating the fact that many, many countries have problems worse than our own, and that the wisdom of going abroad is minimal, even after the lifting of more social restrictions in this country, mostly affecting the service industries, at mid month. I'm still not feeling a huge need to travel too far away from home, and have only just become amenable to the idea of working cross site in the Leeds hospitals again, transferring to work at St James site for some work assessment ahead of a potential change of roles, and even there, the Trust IPC group have made it clear that social distancing measures and mask wearing within our sites will remain in force until at least 2022, with no end date even being contemplated, so no one within any of our bodies will be allowed to be the slightest bit relaxed, or rather complacent about the risk management that we are still involved with, regarding Covid infection risks.

Of course, by the month's end a completely different sort of picture had unfolded, as multiple towns and cities around Britain had seen a rise in infections, particularly of the Indian variant, which had seen all of Leeds, Leicester and Bolton land on the list of worst potential hot-spots, meaning that no one in the family could really be feeling completely secure despite our vaccination statuses, as was shown by my nieces' school having multiple positive tests causing at least half of the student body to be forced into precautionary isolation. It would make you hope that HM Government would take a step away from their desire to declare the Pandemic over by June 21st, or to at least consider the wisdom of recommending local lockdown restrictions, but they seem to take a different view, so when the government website posts recommendations that travel in the worst affected regions be restricted, the news is not publicized for more than a week, and when it finally is made known, it's announced that it being posted was a mistake, and scapegoating someone to blame for posting sensible advice starts. Pointless arguing seems to be the order of the late month too, as that Clarence Boddicker-looking guy gives testimony to a parliamentary committee in which he absolutely slates the competence of Those Who Would Govern us, singling out the Prime Minster and Health Secretaries for their poor decision making and lack of strategic direction, none of which seems the slightest bit surprising, despite it all coming from a materially unreliable witness, having been fired from his advisory role last year and also personally responsible for one of the worst lockdown breaches of Spring 2020. All rather unedifying when a look at the infection rates suggests a pronounced upturn from their lows in lateApril, coinciding with the reopening of the hospitality sectors, and just like was predicted here, afflicting the young and completely un-vaccinated and making some people who'd probably thought they were invulnerable very ill indeed, possibly not in large enough numbers to trigger a third wave, and certainly not enough to make anyone reconsider their behaviors, but enough to make you reflect that we are very fortunate to be so far on with the national vaccination problem, as the numbers suggest a surge would be entirely plausible if more than half of all adults had their full dosage already.

Thus we might feel motivated to reflect on what good came out of the month, not least getting the family together for their first in-person meet since August 2020, braving the foul weather for a meet up at Leeds Urban Bike Park at Middleton on May Day Bank Holiday Monday, cramming the six of ourselves into their camping van for a theoretically outdoors picnic to exchange belated Christmas gifts, featuring winter outdoors gear for me that would have been most useful month prior, and to check up on us all to see how we're holding up, well enough we can conclude. Only a few weeks later, its possible to reconvene again, as Spring Jollies away from home had been feeling implausible even from the remove of many months, but holidaying at home seemed completely possible, especially when a route presented itself like it did, allowing Mum to travel up from Leicester and away from her enforced internal exile (for the first time since her trip to Malta in January 2020) and to act as my Parental Taxi while also being close enough to visit her friends in Skipton and My Sister in Bolton, without being to put out by the distances traveled. Getting away from home was such a boost for her, certainly more so than me travelling to spend a week with her, as a change of scenery meant so much for her mental health, being able to see people beyond her local circle in person for an extended period, while also having the opportunity to go out for a shop and a brew at Batley Mill with a kind of giddy enthusiasm, and to be catered for while staying at mine (giving me the chance to cook through the stuff lost in my freezer for too many months), and all at the cost of some driving and some aid with a necessary burst of Spring cleaning. Elsewhere, along the way, we might note Leicester City FC finally shedding their all-time worst record of four appearances and four defeats in the FA Cup final, on their first participation since 1969 defeating Chelsea 1-0 on 15th May to finally put a one in the win column, fulfilling the fantasy that every fan of the Foxes surely had, until it was put in the shade by actually winning the Premier League title in 2016, and then there's the small matter of having my Student Loans cancelled, with them having lapsed due to my never getting a wage high enough to put me over the repayment threshold for 25 years, a small personal adulting win for me, and one in the face of 1990s Conservative government higher education policy.