Hebden Bridge to Keighley 19/06/21

12.4 miles, via Nutclough, Wood End, Spring Wood, Pecket Well, Duck Hill, Small Shaw Hill, 

 Robin Delph Flat, Bedlam Hill, Leaning Grooves, Cock Hill, Lord's Allotment, Dike Nook,

  Oxenhope Cemetery, West Croft Head, Oxenhope (Upper Town), Royd House Mill, 

   Haworth Brow, Lees, Cross Roads, Whins Wood, Hermit Hole, Ingrow, and Low Mill. 

With one 5,000 mile target passed, we're soon enough back on the trail to get to the next one, and back where I'd intended to be in my schedule before May caused everything to get shaken up, carrying on a lot further down Calderdale to carry on with my tilts from Calder to Aire, leaving two railway stations and three branch valleys in our wake, which will have to be returned to as the high season progresses, but for now, as close to the longest day as we can get, we return to the moors, and the highest viable road in the quarter, hopeful that it's not too dangerous to attempt to walk. We'll get back to the 12 miles of the valley that we've skipped before we're too deep into Summer, but for the last weekend of Spring we'll alight at Hebden Bridge at 9.15am, with skies looking like June isn't going to be as flaming as it was couple of weeks back as we start out, down Station Road and across the Calder and the Navigation as we rise up to the A646 Burnley Road and pace it west, before peeling away by the Machpelah terrace to rise above the town along Commercial Road, with the A6033 being our route of choice all the way to the Worth Valley. So the rise starts as soon as we're past the market place and the White Lion inn, taking a gentler ascent than we experienced on our last passage out of the valley from here, but still rising rapidly, up the eastern side of the Hebden Water valley, soon rising us above the channel of the river that is far wider than might be expected, tracing the footway of the road as it sits on a ledge between high retaining walls above and below on the elevation up to Nutclough, where we find ourselves among the tall terraces familiar to the area, and passing around the Nut Clough Mills and its own curved feature terrace. Keighley Road rises past the Nutclough Inn, and the terraces continue up the hillside, either clinging to the narrow plots by the roadside or reaching down into the valley as the town recedes behind us, before we find the plots of later suburban growth, which allows for views and gardens at hugely inconvenient angles, before we pass the old Co-op store on  the Lee Mill Road Corner, and the split off to the 'low' road up the valley as Midgehole Road drops away, and we reach the top of the town, with the footway leaving the road far earlier than expected.

Joining the A6033, Hebden Bridge.

Elevating above Hebden Water.

Among the high terraces on Keighley Road.

The long drag up through Spring Wood will this be spent on the roadway, keeping close to the wall on the 'wrong' side of the road as we carry on uphill, almost completely deprived of views as we pass below the dense canopy of leaves, with the ground falling away sharply to our left side, though we feel safe thanks to the fact that traffic is light and not crazy on the long rise, even where the wall is low or the roadway kinks, and it's not like there's a mass of alternatives to scaling this valley side, where a brief reveal shows us to be as high up as the church in Heptonstall, to the west. It's a good quarter hour long walk through the woods, with its bus stops to nowhere and horrifying road curve ahead of its uppermost reach, where we get sight directly uphill towards the mill at Pecket Well, and emerging to the westerly view across the merging wooded valleys of Hebden Beck and Bridge Clough, with the Wadsworth Memorial rising like a miniature Stoodley Pike above them, with the Walshaw Moors rising above them, while Pecket Well village arrives ahead of us, where the Calderdale Way brought us by many moons ago, beyond the stray houses with a view. Pass the Toll Bar cottage on the corner of Akroyd Lane corner, the last junction we'll be seeing in a while, as we sneak among the houses of this most remote feeling village on the A6033, where the narrowness of the twists by the old Co-op store, the Robin Hood inn and the old chapel complex have cause most of the traffic issues on this high lane, which nonetheless brings the vies again as we come around past the mill, easily mistaken for the larger one at Old Town to the south, and admire the fact that its vintage character  has endured, virtually untouched by suburban arrivals. We might honestly be too elevated for anyone wanting to really get away from the town, as the bleakness of the coming passage starts to come on as we pass above the  village, as the dark tops of Wadsworth Moor rise across Crimsworth Dean, and the landscape interest is found behind us as we get Stoodley Pike rising on the reverse horizon, while it looks like the high farmsteads up here are still mostly tending these marginal fields, right on the edge of moorland altitude, where the Duck Hill terrace feels like the last outpost of civilization.

Ascending through Spring Wood.

Above the converging wooded valleys of Hebden Water.

Pecket Well village.

Duck Hill terrace and the moorland beyond.

The Old Lane junction offers the last chance to take the alternative route, up Crimsworth Dean, but the road passage along the A6033 has not proved to be fraught at all and so we stick with it, keeping on the wrong side of the road beyond the footways that lead us through Pecket Well and beyond, with a usefully wide strip of secure tarmac keeping us out of the way or traffic as we rise up Small Shaw Hill, not getting much of a feel of the moorland cap to the east of us but getting a fine view evolving to the west, ahead of the reveal ahead as the road levels out to cross Robin Delph Flats. There's quarry remnants to be found here, as is a turning circle for the buses on the B3 route, where they might escape if the weather conditions over the top got too severe, while an horizon scan reveals the hills on the Yorkshire - Lancashire watershed, peeking over the local horizon, reminding us that for all our wandering hereabouts, we're still absurdly close to the western edge of our walking field, which will have to be extended as this season continues, a view that recedes as quickly as it arrives as we carry on up towards Bedlam Hill. A better feel for the moorland we are upon can be had by looking back, as the road falls away below Clattering Edge, and we gain a very new surface as the road takes a sweep around its perch on this moor tracking northeasterly as the falling depression of Rams Clough gets in the way of our passage and we trace our way about it after we acknowledge more appearances on the distant horizon, from Blackstone Edge, around to Lad Law and Boulsworth Hill before we hit the passage across Leaning Grooves Edge. As attention is drawn towards the crest of the road ahead, our height oddly doesn't bring the views to the south of us, obscured by the rolls and angles of the moor, and thus we put all our attention ahead, spying crests above Airedale, and the summits of Ingleborough and Pen-y-ghent, before we've even met the University of Bradford's Oxenhope Field Site, with its prominent mast at the top of Cock Hill, with the Calder - Aire watershed and the Calderdale - Bradford boundary to both be found beyond, barely five miles out from where we started.

Crimsworth Dean.

Robin Delph Flats and Clattering Edge.

Leaning Grooves Edge, and the way to the summit, from Bedlam Hill.

The Bradford University field site, Cock Hill

It makes a change from all those 10 mile hauls up to watershed that we had to the east of here, and there will be a greater distance travelled in Airedale on our way down, with our passage down the Worth Valley awaiting, with Rombalds Moor now forming our distant horizon, with the fringes of Wharfedale appearing around it, including Almscliffe Crags in the distant north east, as we pace across the moorland of Lord's Allotment, widening our horizon from Keighley Moor to Ovenden Moor as we start our decline, before breaking for lunch at elevenses time at the other bus turning space. It seems wise to walk against the ascending traffic as we come down over what was once shooting moor, passing the sole house up here concealed  by its bank of trees which is named Keeper's Lodge, before coming down to meet the depression formed by Great Grough Hole, which offers us the arrival of Leeshaw Reservoir in the valley landscape below, as well as the high moorland drain passing across the clough, and under the Hebden Bridge Road, beyond which the wrong side of the road offers the walkable pathway again. So views north come with the risk of being clocked by passing traffic come on as we start to shed height in earnest, coming down to the Dike Nook farmstead, opposite which the Waggon & Horses inn stands, looking rather worse for wear after many months of pandemic enforced closure, but not feeling nearly as remote from the world when approached on foot, compared to the isolation it presents when seen from the bus, not that it's a place to even contemplate walking to from the village below, once the footways end again. Walk against the traffic once more as we decline down to the low moorland drain, to ponder the fascinating prospect of where these conduits actually lead, and pass around the wooded enclosure of Oxenhope cemetery, sitting at a remove above the village on the closest available level plot, on the fringe of moorland altitude, with the 300m barrier passing as we head back into the landscape of manicured fields and local farmsteads, meeting the bottom of Hill House Edge Lane as it drops in steeply from the south and clearly advertises why the main road to and from Halifax was never designated along its trajectory.

Cresting into the Worth Valley.

The High Moorland Drain, Great Grough Hole.

The Waggon & Horses inn, Dike Nook.

The open road, above Oxenhope.

As we drop down further, the road sheds more altitude via some sharp kinks ahead of meeting the top end of Oxenhope at Well Croft Head, where we finally meet roadside houses again, as well as finally regaining a proper pavement to walk on again, at right about the place that the Millennium Way landed us in 2013, next to the parish church of St Mary the Virgin, at the southernmost extremity, before we rejoin an urban landscape, albeit a rather old one, among the houses and terrace ends of Uppertown, passing the Bay Horse inn (with marquee), and the fields of Oxenhope cricket club. It gets a bit more suburban below, as we scoot past Oxenhope CofE primary school and come down to the crossroads by the memorial garden, with the east side of the valley looming ahead, where Station Road is crossed and the road bottoms out as it meets the concealed passage of Leeming Water flowing below, before the Keighley Road rises onto the eastern side of the valley, finding its perched level beyond the long terrace and the woodlands that surround the Manorfields hospice, where we make our passage over the Bronte Way route as it descends Harry Lane. Across the way from the railway, where we see no action on this occasion, we'll follow the main road as it settles in above the fields that drift down to Bridgehouse Beck, where there's a lot of work going on around the sewage works, and our lofty position gives us a downstream view through the mass of greenery, towrdas the northbound kink of the valley, as well as a good look across to the rising path previously traced up to Bents farm, and back to the reverse abgle of the moorlands at the lower flank of the valley, which really gives this landscape a picturesque dynamic. Meet the road corner by Royd House mill and its surrounding woodland, with the road rising slightly as we come away from greater Oxenhope and on towards greater Haworth, with the latter village starting to make its presence known to the northwest as we track past Springfield house and the only enduring industrial building on this lane, with our prior route clearly revealing itself among the fields and farmstead above the western side of the valley, as signage welcome us to Haworth with the arrival of semis and bungalows by the roadside that offer a very deliberate view across to the village.

Oxenhope Uppertown.

The Station Road crossroads, and the Memorial garden, Oxenhope.

Downstream below Oxenhope, with Bridgehouse Beck.

Looking across the valley to the Bronte Way and Old Haworth.

Haworth Brow is really its own settlement, above the spread of the Victorian growth of the village at the valley floor and up the eastern side, which has clearly done a lot to grow around the aspect that it offers, with the views to the old village, with its church at the top of it, limited to what can be glimpsed between the stone terraces and houses, ahead of the road taking another easterly shift, with Brow Moor rising above us and the valley taking its kinked course off towards Oakworth, ahead of our next village advertising itself with some vintage signage, as we enter Cross Roads with Lees. Lees is a name I've never acknowledged on the map, despite the presence of nearby Lees Moor, and the run of the A6033 in its run up to the B6142 Lees Lane corner gets absurdly cramped by the blackened terraces to the point of us losing the footway, before we meet the road up from Haworth and the run up to the Cross Roads junction, where the village reveals its surprising extent, as we pass the village school with its prominent spirelet, the concealed Methodist chapel, a close of almshouses, the parish church of St James, and a shopping parade of surprisingly bold scale. Meet the A629 at the Cross Roads crossroads, by its eponymous inn, meeting the contemporary road from Halifax as we make our northbound turn down the final stretch of the Worth valley, passing down among the darkened terraces that flank the road, noting the repurposed chapels among them and pondering just where we landed on these pavements when we first came this way in 2013, or if we could carry that 'Bradley Manor' replica nameplate home from one of the local antique shops. It's familiar going from beyond the 2 miles to Keighley milestone, as we pass below the close of semis with a view, over the north portal of Lees Moor tunnel and down to the K&WVR line, where a lineside fire is being fought, north of Oakworth station, at the last point where an expansive view can be had over the valley before the long downhill run commences, with the western views disappearing as we pass though the terraced hamlets of Whin Wood and Hermit Hole, behind walls of houses and banks of trees as we move down to the outer edge of Keighley, met beyond the road's kink around an old brewery site and over the passage of the lost GNR line, almost completely concealed by Spring foliage.

Haworth Brow, suburbia with a view.

The Shopping Parade, Lees.

The descent of Halifax Road, Cross Roads.

Hermit Hole, Halifax Road.

Having arrived among the terraced ends of Ingrow, we level out as we lake our way into the town, passing below the Kennedy House tower block and between the Worth Valley and Great Northern inns, possibly the closest together pair of railway taverns in the county, with the K&WVR and the river Worth passing below the A629 as we make our way on into the town, past the largely intact Ingrow Mills complex and below St John's church, before we are led past the enduring industrial band at the riverside and on down South Street towards the Hope & Anchor inn and the looming bulk of Knowle Mills. A new route needs to be sort through the town centre once we're past the Woolpack inn, so that we don't always go down Worth Way, and thus we carry on as the A629 carries on north, through the industrial - residential band to the west of the commercial district, not the most scenic of locales as we are drawn past the Kings Head inn and the Percy Vears ale house and the tower blocks that loom above it, but improved as we come down past the curved parade of shops on Church Street, leading the eye up to St Andrew's and us across Bridge Street to pass the Albert Hotel. Around the High Street roundabout, we meet North Street, which offers a statement parade of Victorian vintage stores that doesn't quite seem to have been adapted to modern usage, with most of Keighley's commercial district having migrated into the Airedale centre to the east of us, as we are led up to the Town Hall and the War Memorial gardens on the edge of the municipal district, before we break for the last leg down Cavendish Street, with its own characterful shopping parade, whose more modest scale sees it in a better place than its near neighbour. Landing on the A6035, just shy of the station, we have to take a detour up Low Mill Road, as there's some finally railway action to be had, passing around the mills and over the river Worth as far as the overbridge as 5820, the ass-ugly USATC S160, is taking the 1415 departure south on the K&WVR, while 43924, the century old MR stalwart of this line, is on local manoeuvres, both of which need to be photographed extensively before we run ourselves back to Keighley station for a 2.20pm finish, honestly a bit too early for concluding the last trip of the Spring.

The Great Northern inn, Ingrow.

South Street, Keighley.

North Street, Keighley.

43924 on manoeuvres, Low Mill Lane.

USATC 5820 on the 1415 to Oxenhope

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5024 miles

2021 Total: 281.9 miles
Up Country Total: 4561 miles
Solo Total: 4692.4 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3621.8 miles

Next Up: The last push from Calder to Aire (sorta), via a long stretch of the Pennine Way!