Holme Valley Circular #2 - Holme to Berry Brow 26/08/19

8.7 miles, via Digley & Bilberry reservoirs, Austonley, Hogley, Brook Wood & Black Sike, 

 Upperthong, Wickens Dike, Netherthong, Deanhouse, Honley, Lower Thirstin, Magdale, 

  Mag Wood, and Armitage Bridge.

Long Distance Trail
means Selfies!
#2 at Holme.

Back to the trail on Bank Holiday Monday morning, and there's absolutely no way to get back out to Holme for a start that could be considered early, as thanks to Sunday bus timetables and the most awkward of travel connections, it's going to be a two hour trip out by train and bus (the uphill ride on the #314 taking as long as the downhill trip did, incidentally) and we can't get going until we've alighted at 10.20am, with the wall of heat hitting you hard, and making you grateful that this isn't going to be anything like a long day on the return leg. It's not often that a day's walk starts with the feeling of peak temperature in the air already, but that's where we are as we set off away from Holme's idyll at the habitable limit of the upper Holme Valley, heading up Meal Hill Road but choosing to not duplicate more footfalls on the Kirklees Way route and instead stick to the lane as it passes out of the village past the school which still endures with possibly the tiniest catchment area, and out into the moorland fields beyond Meal Hill farm, where we crest around the hillside with a fine view downstream. We'll split off Issues Lane, and its alternate route onto Black Hill and instead carry on down Further End Lane, where no right of way endures since the creation of Digley reservoir severed it and the Lumbank farms passed out of the landscape, but I'll strike a blow for reviving old paths as it heads towards the water's perimeter path, with the track petering out as we meet Intake Gutter and strike across the rough path to meet the Kirklees Way path again, which steeply descends as it enters the wood at the reservoir's heel, well illustrating the challenge that comes with any circumnavigation of an artificial lake. Bottom out at the dam of the much older Bilberry reservoir, where the colours of the cloughs beyond are much brighter than when seen in 2014, splitting from the rising route of the Kirklees way path again as we continue onto the north shore of Digley Reservoir, which still show traces of the landscape that it consumed during its construction in the 1950s, as we are mostly kept away from the shore behind the welcome shade of trees before coming round to the remnants of Gilbriding Lane, which gets increasingly overgrown as we rise among the quarries that it once served to the lofty vantage point above the reservoir and its dam.

Holme Valley Circular #1 - Berry Brow to Holme 24/08/19

16 miles, via Cold Hill, Castle Hill, Molly Carr Wood, Royd House Wood, Farnley Tyas, 

 Farnley Moor, Height Green, Thurstonland, Haw Cliff, Fulstone, Gate Foot, Hirst Brow, 

  High Brow, Jackson Bridge, Hepworth, Boshaw Whams reservoir, Snittle Road, Bare Bones, 

   Hades plantation, Copthurst moor, Dobb Dike clough, Crow Hill, Riding Wood reservoir, 

    Yateholme reservoir, Holme Woods, and Gill Hey.

Long Distance Trail means Selfies!
#1 at Berry Brow.

It seems that my cursing of this Summer's weather has brought us an exceptionally warm August Bank Holiday weekend, and I'm not going to complain when I've got 24+ miles of walking on the Holme Valley Circular to come, but it's a frustrating contrast to the conditions that I got this time last year when any sunshine on the peaks of Upper Wharfedale would have been appreciated, but we'll take it when it's here even if an early start will need to be in order as the outbound leg of this trip has shown up to be a much longer route than I had anticipated. It seems that the Holme Valley circular is the forgotten route of Kirklees district as no route guide is in print and there's not a single sign or waymarker for it anywhere on the ground, with only the OS map showing up its route on the OL288 plate, and that will have to be our sole navigator as we ride out to Berry Brow station, on the edge of greater Huddersfield and amazingly still not the last station to be visited on the Penistone line, where we alight at 8.20am, surely ahead of all but the most dedicated dog walkers of the borough. So away into the morning haze, and on down Birch Road past the school at this smart outer perimeter of town, with out first destination of the day silhouetted by the low sun, as our trail takes us over Bridge Street and then up Lady House Lane, with its stepped terraces and improbably located suburban outliers along its steep uphill drag, where we soon split off for a field walk, through the damp long grass. We are getting fine views westwards, though, across the wooded cleft of the upper Holme Valley towards Meltham Moor to the fringes of the Colne Valley to the north, and they are views that expand impressively as we gain altitude, up the side of Cold Hill, though the path route is vague as we scratch our way up to the track at the top, which takes us through the cluster of farmsteads at its crest, with a direct line ahead towards Castle Hill. A rougher track ascends us up to Ashes Lane, where small farmsteads cling to the high ridge edge which we have to look down from, towards the spread of Huddersfield below which feels a lot less alien than it did five years back, but still not quite familiar enough, which positively basks in the morning sunshine nonetheless, as does the view to the southwest and the upper Holme Valley, where so many miles will be put down further into this trip.