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.  

The Lord Gascoigne and The Miners Arms, Aberford Road, Garforth.

Lidgett Lane, Garforth.

The A63 passes over the Linesway.

Leeds Road enters Kippax, vis Kippax Hollings.

The fall and rise of the B6137 towards Kippax proper.

Kippax, or Chipesch, Motte.

All paths through the village seem to converge up here, and our southeasterly path retraces steps along High Street, between the terraces that cram close to the roadside, passing the Old Tree and Commercial inns, with the village Co-op between them before we pass beyond the centre by the memorial to the Chippy at Mount Pleasant, and soon out of the village completely by the War memorial and the Kippax Welfare playing fields, and sticking to the side of the B6137 as it leads us on past Kippax Mill farm, with its windmill tower prominent and on to its conclusion at the A656 crossing. Across the Ridge Road, Back Newton Lane leads us into a barely seen corner of the county, among rolling fields and lofty coppices, ahead of us taking a turn down Ledston Mill Lane, taking us downhill and maintaining our general trajectory as we come down towards Elm House farm and below the walled gardens of Ledston Hall, which remains just beyond decent view from the nearest road, before we enter Ledston village, still as stony and aesthetically pleasing as it ever were, crowded around the White Horse inn, with the Hall looming larger over it as your path leads you further away to the south. Fields are reentered to the south, with waterlogging still apparent at a remove form the rivers to the south, filling the fields above the Newton Lane ponds, and around Lin Dike, which we traverse around and find protected by crash barriers to prevent motorists drifting into it, before we come down to Newton Lane itself and find our path east inundated by floodwater, too deep to be waded through to approach Ledston Ings via Arrow Lane, and thus have to redirect ourselves, not getting in Castleford’s viaduct and canal cut this time, as we pace our way back towards the A656, on a briefly northeastern trajectory. 

Kippax High Street.

Kippax Mill Farm.

Ledston Mill Lane, heading south.

Ledston Hall looms above Ledston village.

The pond above Newton Lane, 

Newton Lane has flooded, a common theme for early 2022.

Hello again to Allerton Bywater then, as we come down the Barnsdale Road to pass over the old railway bridge over the barely enduring site of Ledstone station, before rejoining the path from only last weekend as the A656 tracks us over the fields of Allerton Ings again, taking care to note the amount of straw that has been deposited by previous floods, in addition to the dropping levels since we were last here, before we come up to the passage over the Aire & Calder’s cut and resuming our intended path as we enter the Lock Lane gardens, where elevenses are taken. Past the William Street Social Club, we take the pavement that leads us through the terraced enclave to the north of the river, before passing over the large Aire via the curving footbridge above the weir, which the water charges over forcefully and noisily, while still not having managed to shift the barge that’s been sunk there for 45 years, and thence it’s on around Castleford town centre, via Savile Road, noting that Queen’s Mill has found a reuse, while the riverside pubs haven’t, before we turn on to Church Street, past All Saints Parish Church, the ornately tiled pub and former cinema. Passing west of the main shopping centre, Albion Street takes us past the Bus station, massively upgraded from the 2014 vintage one, with our route out of town taking us on up past Morrisons and B&M, as well as the Burberry factory before we pass over the railway by the still derelict signal box and the Commercial Hotel, rising with High Street to the corner of Hightown, just down from the other All Saint church where our route to the finish line is met already, joining the B6421 Aketon Road as its long terraced front leads us south, past the offices of Northern Powergrid and the old leisure centre, with the town’s Covid testing facility squatting in its yard still. 

The A656 rises over the former Ledstone station.

Another unscheduled look at Allerton Ings.

Castleford footbridge and weir, on the Aire.

All Saints, Castleford, and the Dance School.

The Burberry factory, Albion Street, Castleford.

The haphazard terraces of Aketon Road, Hightown.

Under the old railway bridge, carrying the C&W greenway overhead, we come out across the A639 Leeds Road by the former King William IV inn, and graze the edge of Cutsyke as we continue a course south, past its Sports & Social club and around the edge of its council estate, and on among the suburbia that has recently grown on Ackton Pasture, with the skies growing increasingly ominous as we tangle with the A6539, which has arrived in the landscape since my vintage E289 was printed, which passes under the M62 with us before we resume our clear path, uphill again. Beyond Low farm, there’s a rise to a high field plateau of sorts, only 60m up, but elevated enough to give a view west to the divisions of the Aire, Calder and Colne valleys as they progress over West Yorkshire, with their watersheds rising between them, a fun view to snare from so far downstream before we return into the urban environment as we enter North Featherstone,  where we pass the cemetery, St Wilfrid’s RC school and the Bradley Arms, before we pass down Willow Road, among the suburbia and terraces down to Featherstone Hall on the  B6134 corner. Some greenery endures above Featherstone Green, with almost all of it forming the reclaimed sites of the Feathersone and Ackton Main collieries, and it looks like its miners’ terraces all the way down as we enter the town below, stretched out to the north in a way that makes it look bigger than it is, but making the least of the Five Towns considerable nonetheless, even of our choice of route keeps us above the main bulk of it, with Green Lane taking us past the town’s WMC and the Featherstone Hotel, before finding the considerably scaled War Memorial Gardens on Station Lane, ahead of our finish line at the station itself, where we land at 1.35pm. 

The former King William IV tavern, Cutsyke.

Tangling with the A6539 and the M62, Ackton Pasture.

The view towards Leeds and the Aire watershed, from Cutsyke Road.

The Church Lane corner, North Featherstone.

Featherstone Lane, Featherstone.

Featherstone WMC, Green Lane, Featherstone.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5357 miles
2022 Total: 73.3 miles
Up Country Total: 4895 miles
Solo Total: 5026.4 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 3951.8 miles

Next Up: Four of the Five Towns down, One to Go!