Morley to Woodlesford 07/05/23

9 miles, via Daisy Hill, Broad Oaks, White Rose, Beeston Park Side, Brown Hill, 

 Middleton Circus, Sharp Lane Plantation, New Forest Plantation, Robin Hood, 

  Haighside Wood, Rothwell Haigh, and John O'Gaunts.

The long Coronation bonus bank holiday weekend is a most welcome arrival, not that I'm at all engaged with the on-going shenanigans for KC3, aside from the Musicks, but more so that it gives me an extra day to rest up and get busy housework-wise, before we get back to the business of walking on Sunday, having had three whole weeks off the trail since last my last venture, and it's just as well that my scheming for the next phase of season 12 is to feature walking from home on previously unseen trajectories, as we've got two whole weekends of engineering possessions on the Leeds - Huddersfield line, which means there's no quick way to get out of (or back to) Morley, even if I wanted one. So we start from Morley station in a familiar fashion, departing at 10.15am and rising with the path above the cliff above the carpark to observe how the platforms have been built up on the new station site and to see that the support columns for the new footbridge have been installed, sure to arrive during the line closure in June, I'd figure, while there's more aggregate being delivered by rail which does get you wondering where it's all going, and this all needs to be observed from the green space on Seven Hills Way too, just to get the reverse angles from the rock cliff above the new station. We get going properly by rising up to Daisy Hill and setting off to the northwest, to find that a new rough track has been gouged out beside the path from the A643 down to Gasworks Crossing, though its not apparent of this is for railway work or future suburban development reaching down from Laneside, but the feeling is we'll have to enjoy the fields of Broad Oaks while they still endure, heading up through the farm to observe the growth at White Rose station on the other side of the hill, where the lift shaft tower on the south side has started to be assembled, to be seen from the footbridge path as a Kestrel buzzes the local wildlife.

New Developments at Morley Station, looking Leeds-ward.

New Developments at Morley Station, looking Huddersfield-bound.

A new track crudely gouged into Daisy Hill from Churwell.

New Developments at White Rose station.

Across the railway and onto the Woodland Walk around the White Rose Centre, we can finally get on our way towards the south-east of Leeds, dropping down by the side of Elliot Hudson college and the office park to the traffic island on Ring Road Beeston, where we cross at the clip and rise with the link road up below the mainline to Wakefield and up that portion of the Ring Road that skirts Beeston Parkside which we've never walked before, as we rise up to Dewsbury Road by the former St David's church and the Tommy Wass crossroads, where we turn sharply onto the Middleton Ring Road, over the lost GNR Hunslet Goods Line and up the long slope on Brown Hill. It's a southbound path we've traced before, but not from Morley, and it looks like the South Leeds Golf Course has gone fallow during the intervening six years, and despite knowing the scale of this hill, it always surprise me that there's such a long drag up its face, gouged deepish into the bedrock, and a remarkably good view to the west and northwest as we crest upon it, by the Bodmins and the Urban Bike Park, ahead of the sweep around to the east, taking us around past the Middleton water tower and the still surprisingly suburban landscape that lies ahead of the 1930 council estate that so dominates the hilltop. Roll around to Middleton Circus, or what's left of it, with its tavern replaced by an Aldi, and pass by the semi-circle of stores to find our next odd route choice among the many that I've already blazed on this estate, taking the Park Avenue and Mount to meet the south-easterly reach of Thorpe Road as it sets off with purpose, only to find that significant chunks of what was uniformly planned out 80+ years ago has been replaced much later on, with the road itself petering out entirely beyond the Elements Primary School at the end of the original land acquisition, with an old footpath directing us across Throstle Road and Terrace into the landscape of estate-adjacent suburbia that only grew here since the turn of the 21st century.

Elliot Hudson college, White Rose Office Park.

Ring Road, Beeston Park Side.

Ring Road Middleton, Brown Hill.

The Middleton Water Tower.

Thorpe Road, progressing with a 1930s sort of purpose.

The old path between the estate and suburban vintage Middletons.

Across Towcester Avenue lies this estate's hidden green space, the new Forest Planation, with woodland and wetland clustered around the eastwards fall of Throstle Carr beck providing a useful lung among all this suburbanism and a perambulation spot too, which has also arrested the southbound spread of the city, while beyond Sharp Lane we can start a tack towards our destination as we enter the Sharp Lane Plantation, more woodland at the eastern edge of greater Miggy, which conceals the playing fields where the local Sunday League are setting up, and provides paths under the canopy that are far muddier than they need to be, proving all that recent rain has been absorbed into the ground. This leads us to the lost lane taht once joined the pre-urban farmsteads of this hillside, where we drop under the M1 just below where Junction 43 with the M621 forms, emerging on the eastern side to find ourselves in the countryside, pressing on through the level fields on the bridleway that leads over to the Middleton Avenue terrace and the fields of Robon Hood AFC, with the tarmacked Middleton Lane leading us out onto the portion of the A61 between Leeds and Wakefield that we've never walked, where a northbound trot leads us to the nest footpath, into the fields south of Rothwell where the Beeston Pit line of the E&WYUR colliery network was once sought. Tracking north-easterly, we re-join the path we made in the distant days of 2015 to take us along the field boundaries south of the old Workhouse site that leads over the fall of Haigh Beck and into the woodlands and nature reserve of Haighside Wood, providing a pleasing green space on what is wholly the reclaimed site of Low Shops Pit, where we might pause to water and bask under the increasingly warm sunshine, and also get buzzed by a Buzzard for good measure before we press on into Rothwell Haigh, up the suburban spread along Low Shop Lane and out to the passage over Wood Lane. 

New Forest Planation.

Sharp Lane plantation and playing fields.

The path to Middleton Avenue terrace and Robin Hood AFC.

The unseen portion of the local A61.

Haighside Wood.

Not every local Raptor you see is a Red Kite, this is definitely a Buzzard.

Here we join the diagonal path of Mill Pit Lane that almost completely bounds the spread of suburban greater Rothwell, leading beyond the terraced ends and the outlying closes to provide a view beyond the local back gardens and estate streets that reaches across the fields to an evolving view across the city of Leeds from the southeast, already observed as a good one last year but providing so much more variety as we look back, until the fall of the track gets it obscured by the increasing tall rapeseed plants and local trees, as we drop down beyond the equestrian enclosed of the enduring Rose cottage farm to meet the A639 Leeds Road dual carriageway. Cross over, among the traffic that's really tilting along here and resume the path on the far side, observing last season's view before we look north across Temple Newsam Park and progress on, over the E&WYUR mainline to Stourton remnants and Bullough Lane to enter the John O'Gaunt's estate, where the path route follows Temple Avenue among the council house and roadworks, and alertness is needed to find Pickpocket Lane as it splits off the top of Third Avenue, taking us south of the extensive Rothwell Colliery site which is now a prominent false hill and country park in this landscape, where we've tramped before in our walking past, and old footfalls will be traced as we make our way over to Woodlesford. Land on Holmsley Lane among the suburbs and follow it as it becomes Church Street, taking us past the Green, the old Vicarage and the Parish Hall, and thence downhill past the shopping parade, the Primary School and the Methodist chapel before turning to Station Lane beyond the Two Pointer inn and the former All Saints church, and note that the Jolly Giraffes nursery wasn't previously a tavern before we join the footway down to Woodlesford station, tying this remote coroner of greater Leeds to my local tier, concluding the trip at 1.50pm, and not before time as I'm really feeling the heat after so much chilliness over the last few months.

The City of Leeds from Mill Pit Lane.

Mill Pit lane behind Rothwell Haigh.

Temple Avenue, John O'Gaunts

Rothwell Colliery Country Park.

The Green, Woodlesford.

The former All Saints church, Woodlesford.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5976.8 miles

2023 Total: 54.6 miles

Up Country Total: 5,496.1 miles

Solo Total: 5634.2 miles

5,000 in my 40s Total: 4566.6 miles

Destinations Moved into Tier 1: Woodlesford

Trails moved from Tier 3 to Tier 2: 2

Next Up: From Home to the local Old Country, and beyond!