Halifax to Bradford (again) 30/10/21

10.7 miles, via North Bridge, Haley Hill, Akroydon, Boothtown, Booth Bank, Catherine Slack,

 Shibden Head, Ambler Thorn, Queensbury (Ford, West End), Low Fold, Hole Bottom, 

  Clayton (Bailey Stile, St John's, Town End, Pinnacle, Lidget), Paradise Green, Scholemoor, 

   Lidget Green, Lister Hills, Forster Square, & Exchange.  

Having done the walk over the Aire - Calder transition between Halifax and Bradford last weekend, it would seem to make sense to approach today's excursion as going back the way we came so as to vary things up a bit, but instead we'll be doing a repeat of start and finish points on consecutive weekends because I've had the road walk up the side of the Holmfield valley tagged as an ascent option since I first rode the bus up to Queensbury, and also because we have weather forecast to come on from the southwest all day, and I have no intention at all of walking into the teeth of that over the latter half of our trip. Dampness is already heavy in the air and thick on the ground as we alight in Halifax at 9.30am, seeking another fresh route to the north as we leave the Station compound and head up Horton Street once again, this time making our turn onto Market Street, taking us between the Piece Hall and the Westgate Arcade, and on between the Borough Market and the Woolshops centre, along with making another pass the Duke of Wellington's Regiment memorial before heading out onto Northgate, in the direction of the Broad Street centre and the bus station, which is finally in the grip of a remodelling to replace the 1980s styled pavilions, the last such in the county. Heading towards North Bridge, we turn onto Bowling Dyke to pass below it and the A58 flyovers to meet the crossing over Hebble Brook at the throat of Dean Clough, and tramp the pavements of Old Lane to meet the snicket that was famously photographed by Bill Brandt in 1937, where we'll rise up the steep and slippery cobbles to pass over the old GNR line between North Bridge station and Old Lane tunnel, both hidden by overgrowth in the cutting, and thence up the valley side on more setts to arrive on the side of the A647 Haley Hill, high above the valley side already, below the looming towers blocks on the Range Lane corner. The main road leads us up the valley's periphery, past the perched Lidl store and up to All Souls Haley Hill, the towering and spired pile that might be Sir George Gilbert Scott's crowning achievement in his speciality of Victorian Gothic revival churches, which lies below Ackroyd Park, home to the Bankfield museum and once home to Edward Ackroyd, the local employer and benefactor who developed the industrial suburb of Ackroydon in the 1860s which lies along the side of the rising road, a place to take a proper visual interest in on a nicer day than this one.

Halifax Bus Station, not much longer for this world.

Channeling my inner Bill Brandt at the Old Lane Snicket. 

All Souls Haley Hill and its concealing trees.

Boothtown Road, Ackroydon.

We're already familiar with the unrelenting pitch of the rising road from bus trips on the #576, and it illustrates well why Halifax has no notable spread to the east as we pass into Boothtown, seemingly clinging to the valley side above the fall of Ovenden Brook, with every available bit of land developed on the rise up to the Claremount Road, with all the land on either side too steep to even string terraces along, and the urban landscape abruptly ceases beyond the Booth Town mills, site of our prior passage to the east up here, pushing us beyond the town. It's still easy to observe across the fields as the Boothtown and Queensbury Road hangs onto the edge of the hillside as it declines down from Swales Moor, taking us by the hamlet-let of Booth Bank and the former Punchbowl Inn, which is now an extremely inconveniently located accessible furniture and scooter store, all the way getting a look across the middle of the town's urban spread, rising higher and getting clear scope on the weather as it comes on from the west, looking unrelentingly grim as it comes on over Warley Common from upper Calderdale. Indeed, keeping dry feels like it might be the challenge as the steady drizzle and the wash from passing vehicles diminishes the appeal of the ascent further, as we start a northeasterly drift, placing Soil Hill and the hillside on which Queensbury sits on our horizon, passing above Holmfield and Illingworth before we come around to meet the top of Crooked Lane, another passage point on this hillside, where we meet the junction by the lodge house of Upper Shibden Hall, with its high view over Shibden Dale, and us passing into Bradford district as we meet the hamlet of Catherine Slack, located in the shelter of the rising hillside of Windy Bank. So that re-orientates our views to the east for a while, as we pass the clutch of old terraces on the cresting road, before we come down again, still a ways ahead of the watershed ridge with Queensbury rising boldly on our horizon as we come down to meet its southwestern corner at Shibden Head and Ambler Thorn, getting our last view to the oncoming weather from the west, blasting over Cold Edge before we rise with the lane again, passing over another trail route  before we head into this town of low, dark terraces and general gloom, not at all enhanced aesthetically by the rain that continues to fall.

Booth Town Mills, Boothtown.

Halifax from the Queensbury Road.

Catherine Slack.

Ambler Thorn.

It is a new bit of landscape to take in though as we come around to Ford Hill, where the road kinks sharply to make its way around one of the uppermost fingers of Shibden Dale as it dramatically falls away to the south, and then we're deep into Queensbury's urban vintage along West End as we come in past the former Wesleyan chapel, St Theresa's RC church and the Cof E school, to meet Holy Trinity Parish church, and that tangles us up with a whole bunch of prior trails over this hilltop, and the obvious route from here would be to plough straight down the other side, sticking to the A647 as it heads for Great Horton. We're not here to mix it up with old paths though, and will instead take a turn past the War memorial and the Co-op store to leave High Street and head down Chapel Street, taking us over the Aire -Calder watershed somewhere ahead of the Baptist chapel and the George III inn on the side of the A644, where Albert Road is crossed over to join Thornton Road as it slips downhill, through the narrow strip of suburbia that clings to the hillside before we start to steeply descend into the valleys of the Thornton - Clayton becks, with the countryside arriving around us as the view across to Thornton and a damp Airedale horizon emerge ahead of us. We'll do a bit of route revision on the fly down here, choosing to not go via the roads to West Scholes, like we did last week and instead join the farm track of Bridle Stile Lane at Lane End farm, which takes us sharply downhill past the Low Fold and Lanes farms, in close proximity to the north portal of Queensbury tunnel, which cannot be discerned in the landscape as we head down, before we meet what might be our last proper passage of off-roading as the lane greens over on its way down to a stream crossing, getting slick and stony on its path, though thankfully being free of vegetation thanks to some recent cutting back. This leads us onto Brow Lane by the Hollingwell Hill terrace, where we can slide down hill to pass below the top end of the Queensbury station triangle, passing under the towering bridge at its north end junction, where we'll not make a detour to have another revisit on the cycle way, instead admiring the architecture of this one structure, as well as spying the remains of the Clayton Fire Clay works at Hole Bottom, and spying the eponymous Brook as it burbles away beneath the lane, below the site of the missing viaduct on the north side of the old station site.

West End, Queensbury.

The Chapel Street Green, and the George III inn, Queensbury.

 Bridal Stile Lane, and Lanes farms.

The Brow Lane bridge, Hole Bottom.

Having bottomed out at Hole Bottom, we have to head uphill again to get to Clayton village, pressing up the steep and slippery passage of Brow Lane as it leads up to Fox Brow and Fall Top farms, giving us a much better perspective on the Queensbury Triangle than we got from the other side, as well as showing up the mostly concealed west portal of Clayton Tunnel, and on reaching the level road past Rock View and Ferncliffe houses, a look back reveals the cloud actually breaking up over Queensbury to the southwest, and the dampness feels like its immediately quitting the air as we head into greater Bradford. Another familiar corner arrives and passes as we arrive at Bailey Stile on the junction of The Avenue and Clayton Lane, joining the latter as it starts its long and historically flavoured run through the oldest parts of Clayton village, passing Upper Syke house and the clutches of terraces on the hilltop before starting downhill, passing between the Methodist Chapel, the Fleece Inn and the old village school before we come down to Victoria Park and the Royal Hotel, where we finally get some sunshine bursting through to give us some autumnal colour, visually warming this still chilly day. We'll allow ourselves a brief detour here, to visit the parish church of St John, which we'll take the opportunity to see up close as we're not planning on being out this way again for a while, and a tour around that churchyard can be followed by continuing the descent down Clayton Lane, between two more old schools, to meet Town End, to tangle with an early season route and last week's path as we slip down between the Albion and Black Bull inns to join Bradford Road, which advertises it altitude over the valley of Clayton Beck as the Deep lane route passes away beyond the terraces. Heading to towards the city along the mainest available road does offer the interest of spotting the old rural terraces in among the spread of suburbia and council estates to the east of Clayton Village, like those at Pinnacle and Breaks, as well as having the sunshine blasting in from over Clayton Heights to the south of us, as we come down past the old Lidget farmsteads, lost in the urban mix, and around to the corner where the old railway line can be spotted where it once passed over Pasture Lane, ahead of meeting the wholly new shopping development at Paradise Green, on the formerly brownfield and post-industrial site where we went bridge spotting in 2017.

The Queensbury Triangle from Brow Lane.

Clayton Lane, Clayton.

St John the Baptist, Clayton Parish Church.

Pinnacle terrace, Bradford Road.

Past that terraced corner we need to take care to aim ourselves away from Spencer Lane, keeping on track with Clayton Road below the long run of terraces on the edge of the Scholemoor estate, ahead of us running in to Lidget Green, passing St Wilfred's church and its former Sunday school, before we come up to the Beckside Road crossing, which allows us a close look at the gable end-sized ghost sign on the end of the terrace, and then pass between the Oddfellows and Second West inns and thence over last weekend's route as we make directly for the city this time. Note another urban farm, now a wholesale supermarket at the side of Legrams Lane, as we head in along the parade of valley facing terraces, looking across to the quarter of Bradford that we won't be seeing up close this year, before we pas the Ukrainian Community centre, of all things, and come up to the Ring Road, where the spired Baptist chapel stands proud on the corner of the Horton Grange Road, and the last of the rural outliers can be spied before we run further into the city, passing yet another Victorian era school and a later mill complex ahead of us passing over the GNR City Goods branch again. A bridge parapet and the infilled cutting remain to the south of the lane, across the way from the Mumtaz factory, and heading further in we meet the vast and looming Legrams Mills, reinvented as a modern commercial space and actually providing quite a contrast to so much else that can be seen as we transition onto Listerhills Road, where few of the terraces of the urban district of Lister Hills remain, mostly crammed in between light industrial units and retail outlets, ahead of the final drop down of the lane, into a landscape of former mills that are in need of revival, and vacant post-industrial lots. The city centre actually lies uphill from here, beyond the B6145 Thornton Road, and some of the mills on this side of the city, flanking Grattan Road, have had the urban living treatment dealt their way, and across Sunbridge Road, it's interesting to find a terraced and urban enclave that has endured so close to the city, in the shadow of that oddly windowless structure on the corner of New John Street and Westgate, where we can finally start to tangle up with the Saturday shoppers, on one of the main commercial drags in Bradford, where our ongoing route isn't as obvious as it should be.

The Ghost-Signed Gable, Lidget Green.

The former Baptist chapel, Horton Grange Road.

Legrams Mill, Legrams Lane.

The city rises beyond Thornton Road.

It feels slightly ridiculous to be having to refer to my map this late in the day, but the turn onto Godwin Street is further along than expected, taking us behind the Kirkgate Shopping Centre, the last of the remaining Brutalist architectural atrocities that the 1960s urban developers dropped onto the city, standing in contrast to the arcades to be found to the north of it, and to the vistas that open up along the passage of Duke Street beyond, advertising a former warehouse district from the heyday of the city's woollen industry, ahead of us meeting Cheapside and the theoretical destination of today's trip. We meet the upper entrance to Forster Square station and take the long flight of stairs down to platform level, with the intent os concluding here, but it seems that there are no Leeds-bound trains running today, which means a revision of plans has to be made, but not until we've observed a railtour terminate here, with a pair of Class 47s and an authentically filthy rake of Mark 1 coaches having arrived after travelling down from central Scotland via the Settle & Carlisle line, giving a rare opportunity to see a proper train at this terminus, when it's usually wall to wall EMUs. We'll have to make for interchange to conclude the day then, taking a route out which allows us to get a look at the remanants of the old station, demolished and replaced in the 1990s, before we pass out to Lower Kirkgate to get shots of the Midland Hotel in the low afternoon sun, and then pass down Market Street to spy the Wool Exchange, possibly my favourite Victorian building in the city, before passing around the side of the Broadway Centre, replacing the worst of the 60s urbanism in the city before crossing Hall Ings and approaching the apron of the former Exchange station. We've seem this many times before but we've never approached the platform level, accessed from Vicar Lane and behind the Crown Court complex, before, but the sunshine spoils the view across the car park to the old station throat beneath Bridge Street, putting all the vintage features into deep shadow, and thus interest is directed at the Great Victoria hotel again, the largest and best remnant of the L&YR - GNR site, before we rock up to finish at Interchange on the nose of 1.45pm, having not stpopped on the entire trip and, and feeling like I'm ready for a treat of F'n'C for late lunch once we're back in Morley

The Kirkgate Centre, Godwin Street, Bradford.

Proper Train Action, at Forster Square Station.

The Wool Exchange, Market Street, Bradford.

The Great Victoria Hotel, Bradford Exchange.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5260.9 miles
2021 Total: 518.8 miles
Up Country Total: 4797.9 miles
Solo Total: 4929.3 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3858.7 miles

Next Up: Still not done with the Northeasterly Trajectory out of Halifax, it seems!

~~~

Pandemic Thoughts: October 2021

For a short while it really felt like we might not have much to report coming through October, and the news might have been mostly built around reporting having My Sister and her family coming over on a flying visit at the start of the month, and the five of us heading into Leeds for a lunch at Trinity Kitchen and a shuffle around the shops, in an atmosphere that didn't feel all that hectic, making mask wearing feel a little unnecessary for the first time, and being able to chill with a brew in one of the many snazzy cafes which have recently sprung up on Kirkgate. Alternatively we might have talked about HM Government effectively trashing the foreign travel restriction list, as if nowhere seems to be regarded as having a serious enough infection rate to warrant curbs of any kind anymore (despite the low vaccination rates in far too many countries across the developing world), or how the media seems to have settled its focus squarely onto the cost of living crisis, while collectively wringing their hands about the HGV driver shortage (which will be apparently solved by re-importing 10,000 workers from the EU), the gas price hike which will aggressively effect domestic bills in the winter, or the risk to food availability for Christmas, and not really having anything usefully substantive to say about any of them. Of course, the news cycle does warm up when a House of Commons joint committee publishes its report on the initial response to the Covid crisis in those almost forgotten days of 2020, which lambasts the Government for their tardy response to the need to impose a lockdown in March, their haste to lift said lockdown in May, as well as the failures with regards patient safety in care homes and the multitudinous failings in the NHS supply chain, which caused thousands to suffer and die unnecessarily, summarising it all as the worst failure Public Health management of the Modern Era. Naturally, HM Government are having none of it, and proclaim that the vaccine rollout has been a success, conveniently ignoring all of what went before as if they'd hoped everyone had forgotten, and pretending that doing something right after getting so much wrong, somehow balances everything out, which isn't how mitigation, or karmic realignment, actually works in the real world.

Mid month, we also hear news of the infection rate accelerating again, surging up to around 45,000 cases per day, and while the Health Secretary does openly speculate on the need to impose their Plan B of putting back mask mandates and some social restrictions, there seems to be no haste to do so in England, while Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland's devolved governments all choose to progress with counter measures, as it those who would govern us are still keen to see how bad the situation can get before they finally take action. Judging by the budget statement, which feels like it might have been the sixth one made since the start of the Pandemic, it looks like they're looking towards 'building a brighter future', promising money for long-term capital schemes while paying little attention to the immediate needs of those harshly affected by rising costs and reduced income, and saying little about how they're planning on clearing the NHS's backlog of almost 6 million elective procedures that have been delayed due to the Pandemic's effect on the hospital system. Otherwise, we'll just have to look closer to home for sensible actions, reporting that My Nieces did indeed go to get themselves vaccinated, as they're both smart enough to fall for the all-too-common cynicism that seems to afflict too many young folks, while I'm still waiting on news about my eligibility for a booster, which appears to be available to all NHS workers regardless of age and status, and it looks like I'll have to be arranging that off my own back, as it doesn't appear that an invitation is going to come my way. At the very least, getting a Flu jab didn't cause any problems, in spite of the Trust deciding to not organise drop in sessions as per it's usual model and preferring to get individual departments to arrange a nurse to attend, we in the MRL got notified that a session had been arranged in the Occupational Therapy department next door, and thus almost half of our SJs staff crashed it to get their dose administered, ahead of many of the staff that it had been arranged for, not the politest moment of our year, but certainly a task usefully checked off the list to give us one less thing to worry about.