Bronte Way #3: Wycoller to Gawthorpe Hall 27/05/21

15.8 miles, via Turnhole Clough, Saucer Hill Clough, Boulsworth Dyke, Will Moor, 

 Thursden Wood, Thursden Brook, Park Wood, Pike Lowe, Holden Clough, 

  Swinden Reservoirs, Lee Green Reservoir, Swinden Water, Houghton Hagg Wood, 

   Brun Valley Country Park, Bank Hall  Park, Leeds & Liverpool Canal (Burnley), 

    Reedley, New in Pendle bridge, Spurn Clough, Moor Isles Clough, Pendle Hall bridge, 

     Ightenhill, Habergham, and Pit Plantation. 

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#3 at Wycoller Country Park

Two rest days are taken from the trail in the midweek period of 2021's Spring Jollies at Home, to allow time for other activities like shopping, spring cleaning and generally getting our house in order before The Way is rejoined at its most awkward extremity, but not putting Mum too far out of the way on another day out for her while performing Parental Taxi duties, dropping us off at 9.50am under much brighter conditions than we saw three days back above Wycoller's valley, at the country Park's Haworth Road car park, where we can both regard The Atom in a much more positive light than we did on Monday, as sunshine really elevates the views from the Panopticon. Looking forward to a whole day of walking into the previously unknown in Lancashire, our first in a long while, The Way needs to be returned to by the descending path down to the hamlet, giving us restored views over Pendle Hill and its borough downstream as we return to Wycoller Hall's ruins where we can poke around the remains of this late 16th century hall, dismantled in the early 19th century, meaning we have the same sort of edifice to regard as Charlotte Bronte supposedly did, as we wander among its rooms and around to the aisled barn, and that's going to be about it for the Bronte connections as The Way seems to have fallen like the Hadrian's Wall Path, having crammed most of its points of interest into its middle portion. We'll need to trip around the hamlet before we go, tracing the track to its northwestern end by Lowlands Farm, and the pricey new cottages that have been added in here, then coming back up the main street, crossing over the beck as we go and quietly marveling at how expensive and Cotswolds-ish it all feels, ahead of us meeting the Packhorse and Clapper bridges again and heading on upstream along the metaled path on the southern bank, through some willow tunnels and across a small wetland reserve as the settlement falls away behind us. 

Bronte Way #2: Thornton to Wycoller 24/05/21

16 miles, via Thornton Cemetery, Well Heads, Denholme Clough, Black Edge, Thornton Moor, 

 Stony Hill Clough, Leeming Reservoir, Back Leeming, Oxenhope (Lower Town), 

  Old Oxenhope hall, Haworth, Penistone Hill, The Slack, Bronte Bridge, The Height, 

   Buckley Green, Ponden Reservoir & Hall,  Whitestone Clough, Silver Hill Bank, Jarnel,

    Watersheddles Reservoir, Cross Bent, Smithy Clough, and The Atom.

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#2 at Bronte House, Thornton.

For leg #2 of this trip across a Chunk of West Yorkshire's literary history, I've got my Parental Taxi in attendance, so there's no need to make the frustratingly long bus ride via Bradford Interchange to get out to Thornton, as Mum can drive me out here, getting in behind the rush hour traffic, and not putting her out of her way at all as she can continue on to visit friends of hers in Skipton without having to put much more than a dozen miles on the round trip from Morley along the way of acting as my shuttle, like she would normally have done if we were having normal Spring Jollies. So alight on Thornton Road at 9.45am, and scurry back up Ball Street to mick up the trail once again at the Bronte House, where Rev. Bronte recalled as having spent the happiest years of his life (mainly because all the members of his family were alive whilst residing there), before we set off with the trail up Market Street, taking in more of this pleasingly rural vintage village, as we roll up to the Black Horse inn on the West Lane corner and rise up to meet the suburban spread of the village above, taking us past the Thornton Mill redevelopment and up to the chapel and Sunday school on the James Street Corner. Cross here and rise to the path on Reservoir View, the last terrace in the village at this altitude, and enter the equestrian fields and meadow beyond, perched up the valley side above the tapering west end of the village, affording come fine views up and down the valley, as well as to Thornton viaduct as it descibes it less than straightforwards passage up from the south, before we enter Thornton cemetery and trace its wide promenade path across its width, between the raked terraces of graves up and down the hillside. A rough track and field path guide us on, from Bottom of the Row farm, and up to Close Head farm, as we look down to the passge of Well Heads tunnel, its portal hidden in the wooded pit below, and still no closer to being revived than int was in 2013, and we'll start on that year's route again as we rise up to Well Heads hamlet, with its stone terraces stretching down from the White Horse inn, atop the rather blasted feeling ridge that rises between Thornton's valley and the next one over to the north.

Bronte Way #1: Birstall to Thornton 22/05/21

15.8 miles, via Nova, Oakwell Hall, Gomersal, Little Gomersal, Rawfolds, Hightown, 

 Upper House, Sepulchre Hill, Hartshead, Willow Valley Golf Course, Ox Pit, Birkhouse, 

  Bailiff Bridge, Norwood Green, North Wood, Shelf Hall, Coal Pits Hill, Low House, 

   Clayton Heights, Sheep Hill, Clayton, Fall Bottom, and Thornton Hall.

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#1 at Oakwell Hall.

Even with the ever changing landscape of this ongoing Covid pandemic, having Spring Jollies away from home in 2021 never quite seemed like a plausible idea, even from the perspective of several months back, but having a break of some kind, attached to long- distance and cross-country trail, accessible from Morley seemed like it would work, allowing us to start out from home and allow My Mum an extended break away from Leicester, while usefully utilizing her as my Parental Taxi service as we made our Trans-Pennine traversal, along the path of the Bronte Way. It's a trail we've had on our radar for a while, along with the route guide on my shelf, but didn't seek to approach as its early going traces a few too many previously seen trails, which is no longer an issue after the last year of regularly retracing steps both locally and further afield, and the fact that the back half isn't really remote enough to warrant a holiday away, but sits at a desperately awkward collection of locations if it were to be traced wholly under my own steam, and issue which our keen planning has already overcome. The name also links it to the lives of the Bronte Sisters, and the wider family, to hopefully illustrate that there was more to their short lives as novelists and writers at the parsonage at Haworth than might be otherwise known, a history which I knew little of until picking up another book, with walks, that placed their personal histories all over the North Country, though I'm not going to start with their actual literature, as that's really not my bag (aside from knowing that Heathcliff and Mr Rochester are garbage fictional heroes, essentially, and that the eminently ridiculous Kate Bush song 'Wuthering Heights' has virtually replaced the original novel in my mental landscape). Enough of my ignorance though, as that's never a good light to stand beneath, there's walking to be done...