Halifax to Bradford 23/10/21

14 miles, via Woolshops, Cross Field, Bull Green, Peoples Park, Gibraltar, Spring Hall, 

 Pellon, Brackenbed, Wheatley, Jumples Crag, Illingworth, Illingworth Moor, Bradshaw, 

  Raggalds, West Scholes, Yews Green, Fall Bottom, Clayton (Town End), Deep Lane, 

   Scholemoor, Lidgett Green, Bradford University campus, & Shearbridge.

Having finally done with trips out of the Calder valley last week, the late season centre of gravity seems to have shifted back towards Halifax, just like it did last year, as if it holds an appeal for this point in the annual cycle, and it's also time to approach some mileage that we missed out on a few weeks back and to get onto the untraced trajectory in the county that had meant to be on the slate for the end of 2020, while getting to it finally provides a ride from Bradford on the Grand Central train to London King's Cross too, ticking the Class 180s off the list of unridden traction on West Yorkshire services. We alight in Halifax at 9am, just as the morning sun is rising above the hills to the east, and even though our destination is off to the north-east, our early going will be wholly westwards once we're away from the station and Square Road, picking a route that takes us up the steps that leads to the carpark and main street of the Woolshops centre, then up the old commercial street of the same name to make another encounter with the Duke of Wellington Regiment's memorial, before crossing Market Street to get some wholly variable town centre flavours from our passages up Russell Street and Cheapside. We pass through the banking district again, and taje George Street up to the crossing of the A629 Cow Green, before we join Bull Green taking us out of the town centre and in the direction of the Calderdale roads before we shift onto the rising urban slab by Hopwood Hall, and get a real variation of the urban qualities as we pass under the A58 Burdock Way with Hopwood Lane, passing through the terraces around Royds Mill ahead of the greenery taking over around Peoples Park, the old municipal library and museum and the Crossley Almshouses. Old Halifax sure is a land of contrasts, and unrelenting hills too as we press on west, with the quality of the bands of 19th century development almost seeming to have been plotted randomly, as we pass on over Queen's Road and come up behind the plot of St Paul's station once again, noting its distance from the town but it convenience for the biscuit factories that still operate on both sides of the road, an enduring feature of industry in the landscape of Gibraltar, on these slopes above the Hebble valley, where the King Cross Social Club's sports field needs extensive retaining walls on two sides to keep it level.

Woolshops, Halifax.

The Crossley Almshouses, Hopwood Lane.

The United Biscuits factory, Hopwood Lane.

A northwards turn can be taken beyond, to finally project us towards the path towards Bradford, having checked another of Halifax's latitudinal roads off the list as we join Gibraltar Road, taking us past St Hilda's church and directing us through the very limit of the Victorian - Edwardian town to meet Gibbet Street by the former Halifax Barracks and the contemporary Halifax Academy, where we join Spring Hall Lane and are taken down behind the Thrum Hall ASDA store, and the corner of Victoria reservoir, the uncovered cistern that still feeds the town with drinking water. Downhill we drift, past Pellon's Baptist chapel and Sunday school, before we land on the hard to cross Pellon New Road, and as we meet Pellon Lane beyond, we need to allow ourselves a brief detour, down behind the Field Side terrace on the steep path into the upper Hebble valley, to pass under the High Level line to see if the footpath bridge and retaining walls really do tower as much as they appear to from above, which I can confirm is the case, even though photographs do not do the engineering the slightest justice as they loom large and massive. We return to the pavements to join Brackenbed Lane as it makes its own passage under the railway via a massive bridge, and down the valley side steeply through the wooded bank and kinking downhill as it appears to pass out of the town completely before we meet the urban enclave of Brackenbed, below Whin Hill wood and getting rapidly suburbanised around its old cottages as the road dives down to the floor of the valley, to cross over Hebble Brook and junction with Long Lane, below the hillside to the north, on which the mid-20th explosion of Wheatley's suburbia took place. As we know from last week, as descent into the upper Hebble valley needs to be followed by an ascent out of it, and that's where we'll be at as Long Lane is joined again, revisited after 8 years away as we rise above the former site of Hebble Mills, now suburban close-d but with its mill houses remaining, and on up the sharpening climb to get the upstream view, where Wheatley Viaduct ought to loom large but seems to get more obscured by trees with every passing year, and you'd think a view like this from around the top of Boy Lane would be desirable but some residents have been planting ornamental conifers that could partially obscure it forever.

Victoria Reservoir, Spring Hall Lane.

The Field Side footpath bridge and walls.

Brackenbed Road bridge.

Brackenbed, in the Hebble valley.

Whetley Viaduct in the Hebble valley.

The rise to Crag Lane, gets us on a new trajectory, briefly as we meet the suburban ribbon that clings onto the edge of Page Hill, where we were only 7 days ago, and the path up to the Flying Pig inn hasn't changed much in the interim, and the lane beyond, hanging on the west side of the Hebble Valley could feel like another semi-rural lane of it wasn't for the fact that the Mixenden estate, and its quartet of tower blocks sit off this lane to the northwest, clearly visible past the Walt Royd farm and Rake Bank terrace, seemingly abandoned by the rest of the town, out of sight and out of mind, if you will. We'll come right up close to the tower blocks, as we pass above and through the suburban enclave at Dodge Holme, and get forced off the roadside to take a wooded path below the rural hamlet of Jumples Crag, passing a landscape of lost building associated to the old Jumples Mill site before we pass out of the valley, with Straight Lane taking a rather curved passage uphill, through the crag line on the valley side and giving us an upstream look towards Cold Edge and Ovenden Moor before we meet the top edge of the middle of Halifax's urban spread. We're in Illingwirth again as Raw Lane takes us past the old Sunday school and the apparently former St Mary's church, meeting the side of the A629 again as it takes us up Wrigley Hill again, and through the fragments of the rural settlement that once sat at the gateway to Halifax's uppermost suburban block, which we'll keep to the south side of initially, as Whitehill Road hangs us on the eastern side of the Holmfield valley, looking over the hills to its east and downstream across the fields of Threap Croft farm, where some real maximization of the views from the housing has taken place across the years. Moor Bottom Road will project us northeast across the Illingworth Moor estate initially, presenting a rural terrace along its first stretch, showing that most of the major roads abound predate the suburban arrivals of the late 20th century, and then School Lane tracks us north, away for the North Halifax Grammar school that its name also predates, and even among the suburban housing of various qualities you can find the remnants of old rural communities, like the Popples farm and almshouse, almost sarcastically located across the way from the Cost Cutter store, before we meet the real edge of town at Riley Lane.

Mixenden estate, in the Hebble valley.

Jumples Crag hamlet.

Wridley Hill, Illingworth.

School Lane, Illingworth Moor.

This is our urban circuit route from last year, which will be briefly scratched until we move away with the road towards Bradshaw village, to redo our path from three weeks ago when our path through the outermost reaches of greater Halifax was ruined by rain, and it's not too far to go, below the looming presence of Soil Hill and above the fall of the Holmfield valley, before we meet the vicarage and the parish church of St John, enclosed between the merging roads, where we'll detour into the churchyard to use bench privileges for an early lunch break. I'll take care to note the 'I Will Lift My Eyes to The Hills' inscription among the graves before we head out onto the top of Pavement Lane by the church hall to re-pace that path up through Bradshaw, which isn't looking a whole lot brighter than it did at the start of the month, but we are being spared the unrelenting downpour as we again make out way past the War memorial and the Horton Place terrace, and follow Bradshaw Lane as it leads past the village primary school and up to the Golden Fleece inn, which looks like its had its end wall painted by the same artist who did an illustration on The Guide Inn, near Cullingworth. I have to admit that the suburban appeal of this location is still slightly perplexing to me, despite its relative proximity to Halifax and Bradford, as for all the picturesque qualities of the cottages ribboned up the hillside among the farmsteads, we know that this can be a pretty blasted location when the weather comes on from the west, and that feels like a concern as we press on, noting the Bradshaw inn along the way, and noting the 18th century vintage inscription on the Providence terrace, opposite the rugged hillside edge atop which Queensbury stands. Past the top of the village, just as much interest can be gained from looking back over greater Halifax down the Holmfield valley, illustrating just how much altitude we've gained as we rise away from the Calder catchment and uphill towards the Aire valley's watershed, passing among the field containing walls around Bonnet hall farm and entering Bradford district as we meet the White Castle brewery conversion, the last notable feature on Green Lane before we push up onto the ridge, between Soil Hill and Mountain, landing by the Queen's Head at Raggalds again, among the lanes converging at the side of the Brighouse and Denholme Road.

St John's church, Bradshaw.

The Golden Fleece inn, and Soil Hill, Bradshaw.

The Providence terraces, Bradshaw.

The White Castle brewery, Green Lane.

From the side of the A644 we have a sense of what's to come this time around as we join in among the branches of the river Aire, thanks to the lack of cloud hanging low over the landscape, while getting back onto the trail we had intended to be on when we had to bail out three weekends back, and now we can descend in the dryness, past the Queensbury Celtics FC pitch and down Pit Lane and Low Lane, with Thornton sitting across the valley, Bradford spreading to the east, with an Airedale horizon beyond both, with the terraces of Mountain rising on the hillside above. Care has to be taken as the lane starts to kink downhill through the fields down towards Lane Side, where pavements endure to remove some of the risk, while incidentally taking us off the OL21 map plate for the last time this year (and not before time as it had barely survived the dousing taken at the start of the month) and we'll be tracing a path across E288 for the remainder of the year, as we encounter the hamlet of West Scholes, already some way down the hill from Queensbury, in the shelter of its hilltop, looking a bit executive made-over around the Junction Inn. Pavement free walking is the order beyond, down the narrow and occasionally tree-lined path of Cockin Lane down to the hamlet-let of Yews Green, while concluding that we are too far out to properly scope out the location of the Queensbury triangle in the landscape to the east, before we push away from it markedly as the lane shift us northeasterly again, giving us a sight line across to the Aire-Wharfe gap on the horizon, with the Norwood Edge mast rising above it, before we finally meet the old railway line, with the Great Northern Trail cycleway passing across the lane, further down the hill than expected. Distances seem to have lost any sense of meaning in this part of the world, and we can feel like it's a long way downhill towards the valley floor, with not much featuring at the roadside between Mavis House and Cresswell House farms, with most of our attention being drawn across to Thornton, and the prominence of St James's church across the way, and our walking year starts to take on a bit of a recursive feeling as we find ourselves landing in the early season landscape once again, not seen up close since June.

The Brighouse & Denholme Road on the Calder & Aire Ridge.

The terraces of Mountain, from Low Lane.

The Junction Inn, West Scholes.

The Great Northern Trail, crossing Cockin Lane.

Carr House farm, and Thornton.

As this descent bottoms out we can spy the sightline to Thornton Viaduct and get a reveal of the impressive mounds formed by the hillsides on which Clayton sits, and a footway is gained as we pull away from Fall Bottom and getting up close to Thornton and its beck, as Low Lane starts to drag us back uphill, tangling with the Bronte Way path at Hole Bottom beck and then rising to pass the apparent farm complex that actually used to be the site of Clayton gasworks, beyond which we rise through this green finger of land penetrating the eastern side of greater Bradford. Thornton sits on the horizon behind us as we look over to the school complex and equestrian fields at Leaventhorpe as we head inexorably back uphill, with Bradford starting to spread out on the horizon ahead, before we take the sudden corner turn up towards Clayton Village, entering it at Town End, where we'd passed out of it on our previous visit, passing in among the cottages and farmsteads at its easternmost extremity before coming up to the traffic island by the Black Bull inn and the B&M store, where we could easily plot a route to the end of the day along Bradford Road. There's a more interesting path to take though from here, and that has us shifting onto Deep Lane, an ancient track that returns us to the fields, which might be Bradford's sole remaining green lane, unclaimed by the spread of the city, thanks to the steepness of the valley side that it crosses, giving us a peaceful and leafy idyll to walk on into the city, only used by local dog walkers and apparently rendered properly accessible again recently, thanks to work being done to solve some drainage issues, and it's also proposed to be part of the plans for developing a cycle network in the area too. So this might be a late opportunity to enjoy it with grass and dirt underfoot, before a decent surface is applied to it in the future, losing the feeling of having a slightly secret path to tread as it squeezes itself in between stone wall, under gnarly trees and through so much acquired undergrowth, ahead of arriving above an abandoned quarry site with the path feeling almost perched above the deep bowl to the south side, not protected by any fences and looking ideal for the location and development of an urban bike park, if anyone was feeling so moved.

The Thornton - Clayton valley, from Low Lane.

Clayton Town End.

Deep Lane, Bradford's forgotten country road.

Deep Lane by the quarry.

I'd had the intent to follow an apparent path beyond the quarry that went around the western side of Scholemoor cemetery when I originally plotted this route, but on the ground, it's a lot harder to locate than on a satellite map, and thus we stay with the lane, which remains wild and interesting as it drops off the hillside, but we'll bail from it before it finds its way to Thornton Old Road as we need to make for the city, hitting a right of way across the last fields in this quarter, notional equestrian enclosures ahead of the estate developed north of the cemetery. We find ourselves by Middle Brook on a very wild path before we pass by Sam's Mill and join its driveway as we are inevitably lead into Bradford proper, landing on Cemetery Road and immediately needing to force a course correction as we are way to far north for our destination, and thus all that descending into the valley has to be undone as we rise back up the valley to the south alongside the main road, passing the ASDA superstore and rising up to the level of Scholemoor cemetery, still sitting at what was the limit of the Victorian city as we meet the terraces of Lidgett Green. Our arrival is marked by getting noisily serenaded by a tree full of sparrows, and we also note the end of the route that I'd hoped to trace as we pass the end of the wonderfully named Necropolis Road, before we rise up to meet the Clayton Road, which we shall again eschew as an option by crossing over and staying among the terraces as Beckside Road carries on, directing us towards Great Horton before we take a turn onto Spencer Road, the apparently forgotten main road into the city which we traced when seeking the Queensbury lines in 2017, which has been sealed off between the Khidmat Centres and Horton Grange Primary school. It still leads foot traffic down to the A6177 ring road, and the road dog-legs weirdly as we cross Horton Grange Road and join Woodhead Road to lead us onward, getting the feeling that we are close to the city centre now that we are inside the 10 mile circuit we previously made around it, but it again turns out to further than anticipated, as the aromas of early dinner prep start to fill the air among the terraces, and an open space advertises the presence of the GNR's City Road goods branch, a properly forgotten line to the depot that was notably nowhere near their passenger terminus at Exchange station.

Field walking into Bradford.

Scholemoor Cemetery, Cemetery Road..

Beckside Road and the way to Great Horton.

The GNR City Road Goods branch, Woodhead Road

The industrial band we pass through seems to be largely wholesale good for the local community specialist stores, and the mix of roadworks and deliveries happening simultaneously has caused a special kind of traffic chaos to develop ahead of our passage across Shearbridge Road, where we meet Longside Lane and find it to also be closed to general traffic as it leads into the University of Bradford's campus, where I have been only once in all my days upcountry, to visit UBU, which is immediately recognized as the venue where we saw Cypress Hill perform in 1994. Otherwise it's all been completely rebuilt over the last quarter century, even since checking the path on Google Maps to identify the dynamic turn onto the former Richmond Road, where The Green student flats complex has been erected very recently, below the climb up between the Norcroft and Richmond buildings on one side and the Horton Building on the other, all looking rather quiet despite the new term having started(?), before we cross over the Great Horton Road and walk down Claremount, where we can fail to spot the Frederick Delius Geburtshaus, despite having been here to deliberately find it before. We can enjoy a brief dalliance with this landscape of Victorian villas and townhouses, which mostly don't enjoy the profile that they had a century plus ago as we make our way across Morley Street and along Sawrey Place, to meet Little Horton Road and Ann Place ahead of the 20th century arriving in a prominent way as the trio of Radwell Drive tower blocks land ahead of Manchester Road, forcing us down to the side of A647 Senior Way as it kinda forms the inner city loop road (which is apparently an absolute nightmare to negotiate according to all the non-locals who've ever used it). It's a familiar enough corner for us over the last few years through, and once over the A641 we can observe that the Jacob's Well Covid testing and vaccination site is still doing its business, ahead of us making our move off Croft Street and Nelson Street to find the short way into the Bradford Interchange complex, approaching the bus station from behind the Santander HQ rather than going around by City Hall, and providing us with a reminder that this was all the L&YR Bridge Street Goods station complex back in the day, as our trip wraps ahead of 2.30pm, with 500 miles in 2021 having been clocked along the way, marking a target notably not achieved in our first pandemic year.

UBU.

The Richmond Building, University of Bradford.

19th and 20th century residential Bradford from Sawrey Place.

The Bradford Interchange bus station.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5250.2 miles

2021 Total: 508.1 miles
Up Country Total: 4787.2 miles
Solo Total: 4918.6 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3848 miles

Next Up: Proving Halifax and Bradford are actually a lot closer together than this.