Fosse Way: Narborough to Syston 28/03/22

13.7 miles, via Enderby, Fosse Park, Braunstone Town, Rowley Fields, 

 West End / Westcotes, West Bridge, Roman & Medieval Leicester, 

  The Golden Mile / Belgrave, Rushey Mead, & Thurmaston.

Pandemic conditions (as well as necessary housework and heatwave) means that it's been a while since we last dropped feet in Leicestershire, so while we are Down Country for a week, to attend a memorial service for a family friend and to aid Mum with some garden tasks and junk clearance, it's definitely time to get back in the Old Country saddle, and revive some plans that I've had on my slate since September 2019, to expand on the county experience that had been built via the courses of the Leicestershire Round and the Long Walk to Leicester, if we can recall that far. The scheme is to trace all the major roads to the minor towns around the county, and we'll be starting with those of Roman vintage, with the Fosse Way as our first, tracing its portion across the city from southwest to northeast, and not its full lengths to Exeter or Lincoln, and we'll not be needing to abuse Parental Taxi privileges to get the start line, as we can bus and train our way out, not starting too late as we're walking the first available day after the shift into British Summer Time, so it's not even a late start as we alight at Narborough station at 10.30am, under the bright sunshine that's lingered on for more than ten days now. This is easily the best vintage village station in the county, with all of its elements still in place and to be regarded before we press up Station Road to the main street by the Narborough Arms, to immediately get us onto our trajectory at the Coventry - Leicester Road corner, not on the actual Fosse but on the old A46, which has migrated away from the city through the 1970s to 1990s, taking the route northeasterly as it takes us past All Saints church and through a Leicestershire village landscape that I haven't seen up close in so long, as we're drawn out beyond St Pius X RC church and the end of the B4114 bypass road, where we pass under the M1. The city appears to lie beyond, but we're still in the county as we enter another suburban enclave, which is probably counted as part of nearby Enderby, just off to the west beyond the motorway, with the width of the road indicating it past significance as it pulls us up to the B582 Blaby - Enderby Road island by the Miller & Carter steakhouse, with St John's road taking us onwards, past the last fields to be seen on this side of the city, as well as Palmers Garden centre, the Park and Ride facility and the HQ of Leicestershire constabulary, ahead of us approaching the A653 Soar Valley Way, the outer Ring Road.

Pontefract to Leeds 19/03/22

15.3 miles, via Lady Balk, New Town, Toll Hill, Red Hill, Castleford, Whitwood Mere, 

 Methley Bridge, Windmill Moor, Methley Junction, Methley, Wood Row, Methley Park, 

  Oulton, John O' Gaunts, Haigh Common, Stourton, Thwaite Gate, Hunslet, 

   Pottery Field, Camp Field, South Bank, and Monk Bridge. 

As we meet the last weekend of the Early Season of 2022, and the last official weekend of Winter, it actually looks like we can start dressing for Spring, as the inconsistent weather, tinged by chills that were sometimes offset by sunshine, looks like it’s gone for a while, to be replaced by clear skies that look quite incongruous against the bare trees and barren fields, a lot like what we saw a decade ago, and thus the thick jacket goes away until October and the peaked hat comes out again, as our opening quest to the Five Towns need to be concluded by returning ourselves to the Big City. The campaign will begin Pontefract at 9.30am, and from Monkhill station this time as it’s never featured as a start point before, possibly one of the saddest town stations anywhere, but well-placed for a view to the remnants of the castle and the colliery from its footbridge (but no sight at all of the Ferrybridge power station cooling towers as they were demolished a mere five days after I passed them by last weekend!), from where we’ll descend to Monkhill Road, where we can take a path north, under the eastern station throat and away, taking us through the town’s northern suburban bands of Lady Balk and New Town, now desirable as they are longer overshadowed by the coal mining industry, though the remaining spoil heap of Prince of Wales colliery still looms above their eastern edges. The downhill press takes us under the M62, and into the green space that still keeps Pontefract and Castleford separate, with no cooling towers to see on the eastern horizon, and Xscape off to the west as Spittal Harwick Lane leads us sharply up into greater Castleford, with suburbia soon crowding the road as we come up Toll Hill, where we tangle with the B6136 Holywell Lane, and meet the junction by the former tavern where we split off, tracing the edge of the Fryston and Airedale estates as Redhill lane keeps us on our northwesterly trajectory. We're on Castleford’s highest hill up here, working our way past the recreation ground and the Redhill Sports & Social Club before taking the turn that leads us past the underground reservoirs, and the water tower and microwave masts that render this hillside distinct from far afield, and once up, its soon down again, steeply through a rock-cut channel on secluded section of road that the modern world discourages use of before we come out by Queen’s Park, and follow Ferrybridge Road downhill through the town’s Edwardian townhouse district, down to the Castleford Academy campus and the town’s civic centre. 

Woodlesford to Knottingley 12/03/22

14.5 miles, via Fleet Mill, Lemonroyd Bridge, RSPB St Aidan's, Shan House Bridge, 

 Methley Cut, Caroline Bridge, Lowther Colliery, Wood End, The Linesway, Allerton Bywater,

  Newton Ings, Newton, Fairburn Ings, Fairburn, Brotherton, Byram, and Ferrybridge. 

My New Lumix is Ready to Go, &
Old Lumix becomes a Paperweight!

After the expiry of my old Panasonic Lumix, and the temporary revival of my old Fuji Finepix, we are compelled to introduce my third camera of my walking career, another DMC-TZ70 which I managed to acquire at very short notice via John Lewis's, at a pretty modest price seeing that its model has been superseded a couple of times since I got my original one, while I'm not looking to upgrade as that would be an unnecessarily expensive and complicated business when I need my tool to be as ready to go as I am, and thus the black model replaces the silver one, restoring to my arsenal all the familiar benefits and drawbacks that I've grown accustomed to over the last four years, with the important reminder to try to keep it dry whenever possible. Thus armed we set out again, questing for the remotest of the Five Towns, travelling to Woodlesford to find it further away in time than it is in distance at the southeast corner of greater Leeds, alighting at 10am, and aiming a path down the course of the lower Aire valley, joining the pavement of the A642 and following it down to the canal were we join the path alongside the wide channel of the Aire & Calder Navigation, and follow its long length down to Fleet Bridge wharf, where the oil depot is gradually getting demolished and rise to the embankment of the river Aire, which we'll be tracing along the length of the section that we re-chanelled after the catastrophic flooding of 1988. All the river below the former opencast pit of RSPB St Aidan's is wholly man made, to be crossed above the weir at Lemonroyd Bridge, and leading us directly into the bird sanctuary, where the originally planned path has to be traced to its west, just to check that the path through the northwest lakes is indeed still flooded, with the floodwater still not going away after a month, before we resume our eastern track, taking us past a reedy lagoon, formed by the old river course, and the old Lemonroyd Lock chamber, and the old canal channel beyond, isolated by the passages of both having been completely re-dug, a short distance to the south.

Garforth to Featherstone 05/03/22

11.3 miles, via Lidgett, Kippax Lane End, Kippax Hollins, Kippax, Mount Pleasant, 

 Kippax Mill, Ledston, (Ledston Ings, Castleford Cut), Allerton Bywater, Allerton Ings,      Castleford, Hightown, Cutsyke, Ackton Pasture, North Featherstone, and Featherstone Green.

As our second decade of walking commences, we have a bit of a retro feel to things as my Fuji Finepix camera comes out of its four years of retirement to be my companion once more, amazingly still operational after so long in my drawer, though it did need new AA battery cells for it, having disposed of most of its original rechargeables as dead beyond use an age ago, so don’t be wholly surprised if this trip ends up looking more one from the 2012-17 window, with images presented in a slightly narrower visual yield and with overly emphatic contrast balance. We’re still in search of the Five Towns, as we alight at Garforth at 9.30am, on a bright yet blusterous day, rising to the side of Aberford Road, to follow the side of the A642 past the club, pubs and RC church to set our route southbound with the main shopping drag of the town, pacing the length of Main Street and keeping on past the library with the B6137 Lidgett Lane as it passes through the suburban sprawl beyond, with the police station and Garforth Academy among it, also noting the miners memorial outside it before we come down to Selby Road. Land by the toll house and try to vary up the choices of pavement as we track the A63 westwards, already at the urban limit of the town as we come around over the Linesway and up to Kippax Lane End, where we can finally start making tracks on a new footway as the B6137 strikes off south, with Leeds Road heading uphill and into the fields of Kippax Hollings which briefly offers us a horizon to the southwest before we are drawn into Kippax itself, stretching out along the road to the northwest but still keeping itself distinctive from Garforth, to the north. Suburban is the feel for the entire lane as it starts its long drop down towards its passage over Hollins Beck, passing the Sainsbury’s Local and the Moorgate inn, while proffering a view of the hilltop with the parish church atop it, which well have to rise towards through an older landscape, with terraces crowding the steepening roadside to give our thighs a burn as we head up, to meet the remains of Chipesch motte in the shadow of St Mary’s church, with the main street lying beyond the Library and the White Swan inn.  

Morley to Castleford 03/03/22

13.5 miles, via City, Low Town End, Tingley Common, Upper Green, Westerton, 

 Ardsley Common, Thorpe on the Hill, Lofthouse, Ouzelwell Green, Royds Green Lower,

  Newmarket Colliery, Methley Lanes, Scholey Hill, Watergate, Pinder Green, 

   Methley Junction, Castleford & Wakefield Greenway, Hightown, and Half Acres. 

When I booked my remaining days of annual leave from my allocation, dropping them between my regular early February and late March weeks to form a couple of long weekends, I hadn't realized that I'd given myself the opportunity to celebrate my 10 years walking anniversary on the day of 3rd March, a whole decade on from first finding my feet with FOSCL in the Yorkshire Dales, though the momentousness of the occasion won't be marked by anything too dynamic, as we are still in our early season phase, aiming at the Five Towns and starting from home after working a two day week. We'll start from Morley station at 9.40am, the same time as we set out from Gargrave in 2012, opening my second decade of trekking by striking south, up the steps flight and into the landscape of terraces that we've seen so much of in the last few years that there's little hereabouts that hasn't been paced at least once, though the path from Peel Street to Wide Lane along South Parade and down the steep steps certainly isn't one we've traced in the last nine years of local wandering, unlike all of those which lie beyond. The dirt path leads us across Magpie Lane and to the fields where Morley AFC play, with Glen Road taking us hphill through the estate to meet the old Morley Top line and the knot of enduring mills beyond on Topcliffe Lane, where we'll cross the A650 to add a bit of eccentricity to our choice of route as it leads us down the ginnel to the A6029 Rein Road, taking us through the suburbia of Tingley Common and over the M62 and past Woodkirk Academy, heading down to the Dewsbury Road passage, and noting that the difficulty for the day will probably come from my camera, which is getting less and less willing to play nice. Over the A653, we pass into the conglomeration of settlements which seems to encompass all of Tingley, Ardsley and all points in between, rising uphill with Syke Lane to Upper Green where we take a sharp left to get on course to the east, taking our side of Westerton Road as it passes through the heart of it, taking up past the Tingley Methodist chapel, Westerton Primary Academy and the British Oak inn, getting more delays as my Lumix struggles to operate, with the motor struggling to operate its lens, which has to be pulled into focus manually.

Allerton Bywater to Pontefract 27/02/22

 5.6 miles, via Allerton Ings, Castleford (Bridge), Glass Houghton, Pontefract Park, 

  and Tanshelf station. 

When you nab yourself a long weekend, your mind immediately thinks that your day off work has to be the one to use for any outdoor exploits, but when the situation presents a Monday that looks like hot garbage, it makes much more sense to move this to the Sunday, especially when there's only a relatively brief catch-up to be had and the weather is looking massively superior, and although the transport options are much more limited, it's going to be a 90 minute trip to the starting line regardless of the day, via the TPE to Leeds and the long ramble of the #168 bus. We thus alight at the Blands Avenue bus stop at 11.50am, at the end of the Wood End estate and across from the riverside ponds so that we might replicate the walk along Leeds Road through Allerton Bywater, past the primary school, the terraced triangle and the parish church of St Mary the Less, this time under a wash of bright sunshine, before Station Road leads us past the colliery memorial, unseen last time, and on past the splurge of suburbia on the brownfields to the north and on past the Railway Terraces and Letchmire Pasturees to the A656. We strike south here, with the Roman Road taking us across the apron of level fields that form Allerton Ings, with dampness still apparent all around, in the marshlands and arable fields, with the former gravel pits and workings to the east having filled with the floodwaters of the preceding weeks, ahead of the road kink that takes us over the Aire & Calder Navigation's Castleford Cut, past the enclave of terraces and industry on Lock Lane and over the mighty Aire, flowing with the force of two rivers as it heads eastwards beneath Castleford Bridge. Avoiding the town centre to the west, we'll continue south with Bridge Street as it leads us under the wide railway bridge and sticking with the A656 Pontefract Road as it rises up past St Joseph's RC church and school, past the ends of the mining vintage terraces that array to the south of the town and uphill beyond the The Magnet inn, between the playing fields of Castleford Academy and the urban wild park around Smawthorne Marsh as we crest our way over the ridge that the town has grown over during the last century, well away from the flooding risks posed by the river to the north.