Ossett to Streethouse 16/04/22

13 miles, via South Ossett, Horbury, Horbury Junction, Lupset Hall Park, Thornes, 

 Wakefield (Kirkgate), Primrose Hill, East Moor, Southern Washlands, Blue Bridge,

  Ashfields, Half Moon Pond, Kirkthorpe, Plump Hill, Warmfield Common, 

   Butcher's Gap Lane, Mill Hill, and Snydale Cemetery. 

After a single night's rest, we're good to go again as Easter Saturday morning rolls around, though the weather isn't looking as propitious as it did yesterday, with early morning mist hanging heavy as we head out, having had to take planning slide rule to project this expedition as a train being absent thanks to the ongoing TPE-RMT beef and strike means that I’m presented with a window that’s either too short or too long if I use Northern’s services via Dewsbury, and that’s why we are today busing it via Wakefield to get to our start line in Ossett. Alight at 9.30am, to the west of the city this time as we aim eastwards, departing the bus station and finding a way down behind Ossett Town Hall and through the vacant market place, before we project ourselves away, down Station Road, passing the old town library and striking out as we are lead over the old station site, and on tracking southeasterly as we pass the Southdale playing fields and land in South Ossett without having ever noticed the join, landing among its statement terraces and getting no sight at all of its parish church as we come down over Manor Road. A field gap does lie beyond, as the road shifts its way around Sowood Farm and Rock House, giving us a mist shrouded look into the space to north of Horbury before we come around into the town itself, passing the Old Halfway House and the Victoria inns as the morning haze starts to rapidly burn off, and once we’re past the old Co-op store it looks like the sunshine will bathe the day against expectations, resuming the warm spell for the long weekend as we come down past the Memorial gardens, the old Town Hall and the public library. Beyond the derelict chapel and Sunday school, we meet the end of High Street, and check the Sowood – Westfield Roads off the untraced by any other route list, to find that it’s as pleasing a stretch as it ever was, offering vintage frontages and views up to St Peter & St Leonard’s church as we pass by again, and still prospering along our fourth(!) traversal before we shift down Cluntergate, with its awesome name and trio of drinking establishments that keep us company as we drop down to the A642 bypass road, which is crossed before Daw Lane and Green Lane can lead us into the residential band around St Mary's church.

Station Road, Ossett.

Sowood Road, South Ossett.

The green space between Ossett and Horbury.

The former Town Hall, and Public Library, Horbury.

Cluntergate, Horbury.

Green Lane, Horbury.

The lane becomes a cycleway beyond the factory at its end, one of the many that traverse this district, shadowing the railway line from Mirfield as it runs up towards Horbury Junction, passing the open fields and the fishing lake before the enduring signalbox is acknowledged and the graffiti underpass beneath the M1 is passed through, taking us onto the lower reaches of Lupset Hall park, of which there’s a lot, containing the City of Wakefield golf course with plenty of space to spare, where dogs are walked and cyclists exercised, while the hall itself does its best to hide from view. A good spot to stop for early watering and to get sight along the railway in the hope of a Drax-bound bin-liner passing by, before the suburban reach of Thornes arrives and we are finally drawn into urban Wakefield, with Thornes Moor Road taking us between housing and industry on our way up to the side of Thornes Road, taking us past Thornes Park and its mostly concealed ancient motte, before we cross the A636 Denby Dale Road, beneath its mammoth pair of railway bridges on  the Kirkgate bound lines, to seek a path among the terraces and apartments on Major Street and Field Lane. Thornes Lane is joined, taking us towards the riverside as it enters the largely industrial district that surrounds Wakefield Viaduct, giving us possibly the best viewing angles along its considerable length above the city into Westgate station, before we come in at the side of the Calder, just upstream of the Hepworth Gallery and its footbridge, as well as the weir and the oft-used crossings, which we’ll turn away from to join Ings Road as it and its eponymous beck pass under the lines into Kirkgate station on non-matching bridges, before we shift around and land on the A61 at the bottom end of Kirkgate itself for the fourth(!) time this year. 

Ben Lea Fishing lake, Horbury Junction.

Lupset Hall Park.

Thornes Moor Road, Thornes.

Denby Dale Road bridge, Thornes.

Wakefield Viaduct, Thornes Lane.

Ings Road, and Beck, Bridge, Wakefield.

Cross by the West Yorkshire history centre and join Brunswick Street as it rises northeasterly, up through the terraces and later residences of Primrose Hill, before passing the fire brigade and ambulance station on the rise up to Park Lodge Lane, the only old road in this quarter as it maintains its path across the East Moor council estate, providing a nicely green and blossoming path among the semis as they litter the hillside, and up to the King George’s fields at the top, where the estate has set itself out for a bit of an Easter fiesta at the local Rugby club, already perched high above the towers of the city. Having risen, it’s downhill again, through the diminishing estate and past Barden Park and soon into the hinterland ahead of Neil Fox Way, where the City Fields development has not yet reached, noting the half winding wheel that ought to have memorialised the nearby Park Hill colliery, before we pass over the A6194 eastern relief road and follow the track as it leads into the Southern Washlands nature reserve, over the 'new' Stanley Ferry cut of the Aire & Calder Navigation, via the Wellbeck Lane bridge (which used to carry a colliery railway), keeping off the old track beyond as it’s something of a quagmire. There are hard paths to follow in this council maintained green space, one of four between the city and the landfill site, and it’s decently popular too, which we find as our path starts to take a wandery turn, having maintained a steady northeasterly course since Horbury, with the sound of the river guiding us as we are brought south to see the Kirkthorpe weir and hydro plant, observable from a pair of viewing platforms where a lunch break is taken, before we come around eastwards, below the flooded pit that’s now the lake of the Eastmoor angling club, both scenic locales that warranted the detour. 

Brunswick Street, Primrose Hill.

King George's Fields, East Moor.

Park Lodge Road, East Moor.

The New Cut, Aire & Calder Navigation.

Kirkthorpe Weir and Hydro, on the Calder.

Eastmoor Angling Lake, Southern Washlands.

Land back at the canal side the Broad Reach bridge and flood lock, and pass over the Calder via Blue bridge, and tangle with the Trans Pennine Trail link as it leads us off, under the railway east of Kirkgate, and around the Ashfields, the former loop of the river that was once a settling bed for Wakefield power station and now a nature reserve, keeping eastwards as we pass above the Half Moon Pond, another ox-bow on the Calder, famously created with the construction of the railway as the river was diverted to prevent an excess of crossings, and a birding lake these days, observed from the high bridleway. The path leads us over to Kirkthorpe again, where we will this time rise with Half Moon Lane and pace a way around the yard of the parish church of St Peter the Apostle before return to the road, following Kirkthorpe Lane as it rises away from the river, up to the estate village settlement that grew quite extensively here in the mid 20th century, for rural workers when such a thing still existed, located ahead of the bridge over the old North Midland line, which still forms a lagoon on the old trackbed, despite infilling going on to the north. There’s a rise to come, proving that there are proper hills in this district, giving us sight of Trinity Church Ossett for the first time today (having not seen it while up close) as well as good view over the merging Aire and Calder valleys as we come up to the village of Warmfield, which we don’t actually meet properly as Croft Head Lane sneaks us over Plump Hill ahead of it, while also giving us such a landscape shift to the south as we crest over that it gives us the realization that we’ve come over the Calder – Went watershed and thus spent a good part of our walk of two weeks ago, in a completely different river catchment without even acknowledging it. 

Blue Bridge on the Calder.

Ashfields nature reserve.

Half Moon Pond.

St Peter the Apostle, Kirkthorpe.

20th century Kirkthorpe.

The sudden ascent of Warmfield Road.

Transitioning into the Went Valley across Plump Hill.

Arrive by the A655, just west of Warmfield Common, which looks to be littered with gorse bushes, hay bales and the remains of bellpits in equal quantity, giving a reminder that the suburban ribbon in the countryside along Elsicker Lane used to have a much more industrial aspect, looking towards the colliery and terraces at New Sharlston, which we’ll regard as the bridleway beyond shadows the road as it forms the Normanton Bypass, as we’re projected uphill again, giving us sight of the Obelisk Lodge at the Nostell Priory estate off to the south, as we inadvertently find ourselves on the Calder-Went ridge. Pressing east and away from the A655 we find ourselves looking over Normanton as the path switches sides, putting a much more familiar aspect over the lower Calder and Aire onto the northern horizon, before woodlands are passed through and a new aspect open out to the east, putting Park Hill in Pontefract directly ahead before we come down to cross Mill Lane, directly north of our destination, though we continue onto the field path beyond , pacing alongside the hawthorn hedge, and wondering just how the Snydale colliery branches got so thoroughly erased from this rural landscape. These green fields are full of illusions as our southbound turn leads across a rise that is wholly unnatural, having reclaimed its rural feel after mine workings came and went during the past century, giving us our last look as far as the Aire-Warfe watershed before we come down to the track by Snydale Cemetery, which honestly feels a little underpopulated, before we pass over the railway via the foot crossing and are led down onto Whinney Lane, fulfilling our determination to arrive from the east in Streethouse, a mining village that is only remarkable to me for its railway station, where we land at 2.45pm. 

Warmfield Common.

Nostell Priory Estate, spied across the Went Valley.

The northern horizon, from the Calder-Went ridge.

Field walking towards Featherstone and Pontefract.

Cresting the false hill, above Streethouse.

Whinney Lane, Streethouse.

Hilariously, this is another station with hourly services in both directions that arrive at exactly the same time (both Leeds bound via the short and very long ways round), rendering it even more isolated than its pervasive quietness, just away from the main A645 road, would do otherwise, and I’ll postscript some more to observe that I’m really glad that I did a proper distance–duration analysis on this trip, as I really needed the extra 35 minutes that I'd factored in for myself to get this completed, as there is no way on this green Earth that my tired legs could have securely gotten those 13 miles down in 4 hours 50 minutes.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5435.7 miles
2022 Total: 152 miles
Up Country Total: 4960 miles
Solo Total: 5105.1 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 4030.5 miles

Next Up: Having started from Wakefield's south and west, we travel from its north.