The first pair of weekends in August are lost to poor weather, not catastrophically wet but fundamentally uninspiring when energy levels are low, having endured two busy weeks at work in the LGI, launching a new collection routine after finally closing down our mostly empty library in the Clarendon Wing and concentrating service into a single office, which would have proved hard work for me come the weekends regardless of our current conditions, which has me feeling that the 2020-esque second half of the season which we might have hoped for is most likely going to be replaced by a 2021 styled Summer of disappointment and junked plans. Honestly, though, the inertia de to reduced stamina is more troubling to this August than the weather has been so far, as both weekends promoted activity that I could have engaged in, but didn't, with engineering possessions on the railway prompting the belief that the new footbridge spans at White Rose station were finally due to be installed, and the BBC Proms bringing a concert, albeit one of chamber music, to Dewsbury Town Hall, about as ever as we'll get to home, but the lack of trains to use on a Sunday, coupled to the busing shenanigans that would have been otherwise necessary to get there, meant that it might as well have been on the Moon for how accessible it would have been for me. So August is well on its way, and almost on its way out once we can get to our first trip of the month, pulling up the shortest available on on the slate to get busy with the other season specific trend for 2023, as Shuffling the Tiers has also revealed a whole bunch of Tier 2 destinations, now abandoned far from its outer perimeter and now looking lost among the extensive reaches of the trails of Tier 1, where to my tidy mind feels they ought to be, and that's why we will be 'Gathering The Orphans' in Season 12 as well, and we've got three of them to aim for today, scattered across North Kirklees, and in the Spen Valley.
Sunday, 20 August 2023
Morley to Oakenshaw 19/08/23
Sunday, 25 June 2023
Morley to Deighton 24/06/23
This past week certainly has been a busy one, with no trains to ride on my working days due to the engineering possession, and all my comings and goings to three hospital sites across the cities having to be on a variety of buses, with the potentially unlimited strike by Firstbus drivers only lasting two days in amongst to keep things manageable, which allowed me plenty of oppotrubites to stroll locally after work to see exaxtly what was going on at Morley station, and at the ongoing development at White Rose, tales which will probably ned to be recounted at another time as all that chatter could easliy derail the account of wandering for this weekend otherwise. We're hardly feeling full of beans as Summer arrives, rising late and strolling to our start line rather casually, turning our back on the developments at the station before we start out at 9.55am, with our eyes on the trail to the Colne valley that we imagined into existence after our failure of two weeks ago, heading west along station road, by Dartmouth Mill and the Rec, and noting that the factory redevelopment on the south side is indeed becoming residential as dormer windows emerge from its roof, ahead of the roll up to Morley Bottoms, where the closed off stub of Queen Street has been reopened to wreak havoc on the block paving, where we rise up to Scatcherd Park, passing below the Cenotaph and through Hopkins gardens to our way away up Queensway. It's all familiar going beyond too, past Morrisons and the Leisure centre, and up to the civic complex of fire station, police station and health centre on Corporation Street, which is passed as we join Scatcherd Lane, to take us past the Cricket and Rugby Union clubs and on to Dartmouth Park, which is shadowed as St Andrew Avenue leads up to its eponymous church and the A650 Bruntcliffe Road, which is crossed to finally make a new path, into the Lego house estate of St Andrews View, where Perry Way leads us over the crest to the reveal of the views to Emley Moor mast and the Calder catchment, ahead of the footbridge over the M62 and our winter astronomy spot.
Sunday, 18 June 2023
Morley to Low Moor 17/06/23
Another 9-day engineering possession lands on the railway line through Morley as we arrive at the weekend bracketing the Top of the Year (already!), not that it will have that much impact on our plans, as we’re going to be walking from home for most of this year, and the difficulties will only become apparent on our return legs if we were to pick route that needed a pathway back via Leeds, Huddersfield or Calderdale, which we’re not up for today as energy levels are low while the days are at their longest, and we’ll be pulling the shortest possible trip up from our slate of plans. We might be planning to head west for today, but we need to linger at Morley station when we arrive, just ahead of 9am as there’s a whole lot to observe going on here, not least the fact that the line closure hasn’t been a factor in the installation of the new station footbridge which has had its support stanchions and deck installed while the line was still open last week, and removal of the old footbridge is going to be a primary objective over the next week, as well as track re-laying, as rails and sleepers are being removed on the ‘Up’ side toward Manchester, apparently only a few months after they were renewed. We’ll also visit our other vantage point while we are here, below the green space off Seven Hills Way, where the new station can be over-viewed, at least on the ‘Up’ side where it’s all fully surfaced, edged and fenced, with signage installed too and looking almost complete aside from the fact that it’s inaccessible due to a lack of steps on the footbridge, and no exits apparently existing to the Valley Road side, and it’s altogether difficult getting the looks that we had some months back from up here, as Spring growth of the vegetation atop the bank has gotten so thick and tall as to pose quite the obstacle to a short-arse like myself.
Sunday, 11 June 2023
Morley to Mirfield 10/06/23
We seem to have arrived on the first hot spell of the year, in mid June, as we reach the end of my first worked five day week in a while, and there's no telling if the energy levels are going to keep up for regular walking days as we attempt to push on towards the Summer, as my body has gotten used to working shorter weeks through May, though we're not getting too ambitious with our planning yet as there are at least 14 destinations around West Yorkshire that could be plausibly walked from home and added to the local Tier of Relative Proximity, and we've sights set on three of them for today as we set out, aiming ourselves towards Kirklees district for the first time in a while. There's no morning chill to be had as we arrive at our start line, at Morley station naturally, at 9.05am, and thus attempts to stay ahead of the swell of warmth count for nought, despite getting out an hour earlier than usual, and I can already feel like I'm getting a work out as we set off away up Station Road, noting Dartmouth Mills getting reconstructive works after suffering a fire last year, and rise up the angled path that leads up to Albert Road, where we join Troy Road and pass over Troy Hill by the still derelict St Mary in the Wood, around to Commercial Street, which we quit via Little Lane by the library and the the unity hall, down the ginnel that leads to Queen Street and the looming presence of the Town Hall. Pass behind that pile via Wellington Street and up through the Windsor Court shopping centre and on through Morrisons car park up to the civic complex on Corporation Street, where we hang a left past St Francis of Assisi RC church and the Fountain centre, as well as the WMC and the GNR goods shed, to join Fountain Street to lead us off to the southwest, pacing the sunny side of the street for a change in an attempt to get a different perspective on a local landscape that we've observed up close a good many times already as we track a way down from the Morley Academy to the Fountain Primary school, with all the terraced fronts and ends lying between, down to the former chapels on the A650 corner.
Sunday, 6 June 2021
Mirfield to Saltaire 05/06/21
June arrives to bring us the big push to my first 5,000 mile target, not attainable today, but within spitting distance after the mileage put down in May, and after all those chilly days that blighted the first half of Spring, it genuinely looks like we've come around to the complete opposite in terms of weather conditions, actually promising us the potential of a Flaming June for the first time in my walking career, bringing us early heat even as we travel out to the Calder valley to get back on the trail, for the trip that got bumped from the schedule by all that rain that already feels like a distant memory. It' s after 9.10am when we alight at Mirfield, with a long day ahead of us, so getting moving under the bright spring sunshine is the immediate priority, down Back Station Road by the Ledgard Bridge and South Brook mills developments, and under the western end of the station plinth via Northgate, taking us over the end of the C&H Navigation's Mirfield Cut by the flood lock, up the Calder riverside from Mirfield weir and down from the bridge pier without a crossing, and up past St Paul's church East Thorpe, and Fold Head mills, to meet Huddersfield Road, which we track west to Ings Grove Park. Cross the A644 to join Doctor Lane and Nettleton Road, taking us behind the Railway inn, under the absent viaduct and around the Battyeford good yard site, also noting the railway cottages of Littlemoor before we join the council estate cum suburban lane that rises uphill to the urban hamlet of Knowl, which convinces me further that Mirfield is really a bunch of small settlements that have been smooshed into a larger one, as we track past the terraces and Co-op on Nab Lane before hitting the rise of Heathfield, bringing us more suburbia on the rise up to the footpath of Fox Roy Lane, beside the playing fields. Land on Kitson Hill Road, and get the reverse view of the middle Calder before rising on, with Slipper Lane taking us between the old houses of Moorlands and the Mirfield Free Grammar school, before we reach the urban limit of town and the stub of the high-hedged rural lane beyond, which offers our first view of the Calderdale - Colne Valley division to the south west as well as unwelcome warehouse development on the side of the A62 Leeds Road, which is crossed as the lane stub continues up to Moor Top, to meet the B6119 Far Common Road.
Sunday, 23 May 2021
Bronte Way #1: Birstall to Thornton 22/05/21
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| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #1 at Oakwell Hall. |
Sunday, 16 May 2021
Ravensthorpe to Bradford 15/05/21
It's immensely frustrating to lose a weekend's walking in May, especially when it's due to foul weather, with a double-raindrop sort of day completely blanketing Saturday, and brain fog coming on to completely discourage me from the idea of aiming at 16+ miles on a Sunday, or any other distance for that matter thanks to the issues with Sunday train services hereabouts, and thus hopes for a tilt at my first 5,000 career walked miles target before the end of the month fade from view, having just entered the final 100 miles on our last excursion out. It's already looking like this might be the worst May of all my walking years so far, barely able to string two nice, or even warm, days together, and I'm immediately feeling anxious that we might be looking at 2021 turning into a repeat of a garbage year like 2007, when it rained from June right through to its conclusion, as we ride the train out to Ravensthorpe, to alight at 9.10am under glum skies and a persistent light drizzle, taking in our spartan surroundings for plausibly our last visit to the station on its current site before we set off properly. The day's plan is to make my second trip from Calder to Aire via the city of Bradford, and our initial steps take us out over the former river, and onto the north bank if it, having finally located the accessible path that slips down a cobbled hairpin slope to find the way upstream that I completely failed to locate when tracing the length of the C&H Navigation in 2012, and as we pace along the riverside, below Ravensthorpe's industrial band, it's clear that someone has recently been down here to keep the grassy track mown, keeping the damp leaves from soaking my legs in the early going. It's positively damp with atmosphere down here, with the path coming around to Greenwood Lock, at the start of the Navigation's Greenwood Cut, slicing off a corner of the river above Shepley Weir, forming another quite green strip along the waterway that conceals the industrial buildings on both sides as it lead us up to and under the Low Mill bridge and flood lock, and on around the long curve of the sweeping Calder before we rise away to join the side of the A644 by the sole riverside house in the area.
Sunday, 2 May 2021
Batley to Baildon 01/05/21
It's taken a while to get here, but our arrival in May finally has it feeling like we are safe to declare 'Serious Business' on the year, as we're three weeks out from my second Covid vaccine dose and this country is now equally far out of its tightened lockdown restrictions which means our local bubble can be escaped and the season pushed further afield, not that I've got a mass of pre-prepared routes readied, as my cautious nature knows how these pandemic conditions have played out already and where the best laid plans often end up. Thus we look to travelling from the Calder valley to the Aire valley, by as many paths as we can find, as it's the major trajectory across West Yorkshire that we've been ignoring for the longest, and our first of these has us alighting at Batley, at a remove from the actual Calder because Dewsbury lacks obvious fresh routes north, for a 9am start, with a generally westwards path to initially trace, downhill along Station Road among the proud Victorian warehouses, and across Mill Lane and Bradford Road with a surprising amount of ease. The rise out of the valley of Batley Beck then starts as we hit Hick Lane, rising up below the imposing former Methodist chapel and then taking a turn away from the town's main street by the Union Rooms to follow Wellington Street as it passes its eponymous pub and a whole lot of not much else, until we meet the old public baths and technical school, across the way from the Fox's Biscuits factory, which along with the Variety Club is one of the main reasons for the town's national profile, The Pleasures of Batley indeed. It's uphill still beyond there, up to the Healey Lane corner and on along the path previously traveled past Jessop park and into the landscape of suburbia that has crept up the hillside, passing through the estate ahead of taking the turn off West Park Road to follow the old road alignment as it wanders into the concealed village of Healey, where some of its rustic flavour still endure around the George Inn and its own version of Healey Mills, just like it namesake down by the Calder to the southeast of here.
Sunday, 25 April 2021
Mirfield to Ravensthorpe via Cleckheaton 24/04/21
With Spring feeling like it might have finally Sprung, more than two weeks later than usual, but ahead of having had long enough for my second vaccine dose to work its full effect, we aim to keep things kinda local before we look to start expanding the walking field much wider as we march on into May, and as this tenth season has seen us retracing some old routes among my continued explorations, that seems like a good theme to continue as we aim to revisit the lost railway lines of the Spen Valley, first seen in the early days of 2012. So, to Mirfield we return, with another wandering route planned ahead of us, alighting just ahead of 9.15am, with the early morning chill still in force as we head off west along Back Station Road below the long brick retaining walls of the station plinth and past the looming bulk of Ledgard Mills, before we head across the Calder to its south bank via Ledgard Bridge, to graze the corner of Lower Hopton and pass back under the railway with its many arches above Chadwick Fold Lane, around the Butt End Mill site and the Hopton Cottage residential home. This leads us into the Calder View housing development still on a counter-intuitive route westwards, but my reason to be here among these still blooming lego houses is because we are on the site of the L&YR Mirfield engine shed, which operated from 1885 to 1967, of which nought remains aside from the access bridge across the modern railway, which itself will be soon removed with the expansion and widening of the lines through Mirfield so that's one to snare a look at before it's day is done. Through the brownfield site development and away across the flood plain that's sensibly being laid out as a riverside garden, to get us on track for our exploration of the bulk of the L&NWR's Leeds New Line, landing on the path on the south bank of the Calder to progress west once more, soon meeting the arched remains of the northern side of Battyeford viaduct ahead of the embankment on the far bank, ahead of the high abutment on the south side, east of Heaton Lodge junction where the projecting iron girder span passed over the river at an acute skew.
Sunday, 11 April 2021
Dewsbury & D.R.C. Walk #3: Mirfield to Dewsbury 10/04/21
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| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #3 at Mirfield Station. |
I'd have loved to have gotten this whole trail down within the Easter weekend, and a different vintage of myself would have eagerly been out there on the Monday, but my contemporary vintage is starting to feel the need to not push things so hard, and thus time is taken out to do other necessary things and the D&DRCW has to wait its turn in the schedule, dropping in on the last quiet weekend before the National Lockdown restrictions see their next significant easing, and also ahead of myself getting my second dose of the Covid vaccine to hopefully ease my mind ahead of the renewal of the crowds. We also have a nice day promised by the forecasts as we ride back out to Mirfield for a jump off ahead of 9.15am, rejoining the circuit path below the deep Station Road overbridge, heading south on Hopton New Road between the open fields and the large plots of allotments to approach the crossing of the Calder at Hopton Bridge, all the way feeling that the dense bank of cloud lingering to the south of the river was not something projected to happen today, before our path takes us a little way east along Granny Lane before slipping onto a path that takes us along between the back gardens, both old and new, of the suburban enclave of Hopton Bottom. Enter the fields as the path skirts the looming woodlands of Briery Bank, tracing the boundary before heading across to Valance Beck, which is crossed before we hit the sharp rise beyond, seeing naught but gloom ahead of us the the southwest, with the blue skies receding to the north as we look back over New Hall farm and woods to Mirfield and greater Dewsbury, and expanding the horizon northwards before we crest and field walk downhill again. A track is joined, skirting around Royds House farm in its own little glade, as we are lead downwards to pass over Liley Clough and then rise among more foliage free trees, to meet the track up from Hopton Mills, passing below Brier Knowl farm perched above, a lane which we traced southwesterly a good few seasons back, and those steps are retraced down towards the cottage cluster at Whitley Wood Bottom, whilst we aim a new track southeastwards, on one of those rare trajectories that has been distinctly absent on all our previous local travels.
Monday, 5 April 2021
Dewsbury & D.R.C. Walk #2: Birstall to Mirfield 03/04/21
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| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #2 at Bradford Road, Birstall. |
Sunday, 4 April 2021
Dewsbury & D.R.C. Walk #1: Dewsbury to Birstall 02/04/21
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| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #1 at Dewsbury Minster |
With the 'Stay Local' lockdown restriction ending on 29th March, we are now officially released to cautiously approach the idea of walking further away from home again in 2021, and with a promising-looking long Easter weekend coming up, it's the perfect time to pull the Dewsbury & District Ramblers Centenary Walk off the To-Do list, as I've had the route guide on my shelf for years and it sat as a plausible fall-back route for last Summer until I decided to go full bore into the Pennines, so its moment is now, easily dividing into three legs that are only modestly long, and with none more than a straightforward ride away from Morley either. Good Friday morning thus has us up, but not with the lark, to ride a still under-populated TPE service down to Dewbury station, to alight at 10.05am, and making our way to the start line via the western side of the town, across the A638 Ring Road and down Wellington Street, by the Dewsbury Reporter flatiron building and the Elim Chapel, across Daisy Hill and down Southgate to the bus station on South Street, before spilling out of Church Street and across the A638 again to the official beginning of the trail at Dewsbury Minster, the ancient church of this parish. Away we go then, anti-clockwise on the trail, along the side of the ring road, eastwards below the looming Town Hall, past the Sports Centre, Job Centre and Bingo Hall complex, and the Matalan dominated retail park, all located on the former goods yards of the L&YR and the GNR, all completely scrubbed from the landscape aside from the name of Railway Street bisecting the two sites, as we rise up to cross the foot of Wakefield Road and carry on up the side of Old Bank Road to trace the Kirklees Way route on paths seen seven seasons ago. Up the toe of this hill we travel, along the wooded Hollinroyd Road, above the terraces of Eastborough before Sugar Lane drops us onto the A653 Leeds Road by the Crown Inn, with the way leading us on into Caulms Wood park, where we infamously lost the trail in 2014, but this time we are prepped, and find the correct route from the main path across this lofty green space over the town, as we meet the circular arboreal feature at its heart where we are led up into the eponymous woodland.
Sunday, 28 March 2021
Birstall, Birkenshaw, Tong & Farnley Circuit 27/03/21
Having spent the bulk of my just-passed 10 day weekend making myself useful elsewhere, we return to the trail, having passed the first anniversary of the start of our first national lockdown and finding ourselves at the hopeful end of our third national lockdown, a situation we probably hadn't imagined when we rolled into that long weird Spring of 2020, but at this time around, we can start to imagine trails a bit further afield once the 'stay local' restriction ends as of next week, and thus we aim ourselves into the last local circuit for this phase of the Covid pandemic, at least. Our targets all lie to the west and north of Morley, so it's natural that we will pick our eastern start line for this occasion, departing Morley station at 9.25am, and heading up Station Road as far as Dartmouth Mills, and joining the ascending footpath that rises up the wooded angle above the valley and the recreation ground, up to Albert Road and across to the bottom of Troy Road, and continuing the ascent onto Troy Hill, possibly the most pronounced of the town's seven, along the terraced parade on the south side. At the top we meet St Mary's in the Wood, with the church building still derelict after being gutted by fire in 2010, and its graveyard looking increasingly forgotten in the interim, a site we skirt around as we drop out onto the top of Queen Street at Coffin Corner, before heading up Queensway, passing Scatcherd Park, Morrisons and the leisure centre on the way up to Corporation Street, which is crossed as we make our way forward through the council estate along Wynyard Drive. We're obviously varying the routes so we aren't always making the exact same footfalls, but emerging onto Bruntcliffe Lane again, it's equally clear that we are running short of dynamic routes after all these local walks, and thus everything remains familiar as we pace on up the A643, beyond the cemetery and the school on the rise up to the cross roads, where every plausible crossing option has already been used this year, heading on south past the Bruntcliffe Club and downhill beyond the Methodist Chapel and the Cassellie plant, and over the M62. Southwest again we head with the Howden Clough Road, past the outying terraces and the expansive view over Kirklees district, and through the edge of Birkby Brow woods as it reaches up to the roadside, descending to the bottoming out by Howden Clough mills and the stream that feeds the valley, where it's already been noted that neither Leeds or Kirklees seem to want to claim the valley floor, according to the signage, and as we rise among the terraces at the edge of Howden Clough village, a novel route forwards needs to be sought.
Sunday, 21 March 2021
Greater Dewsbury & Crow's Nest Park Circuit 20/03/21
As Winter comes to its end and Spring looms, it's probably time to start taking our planning just a bit more seriously, even if we are going to be staying close to home for another few weeks, as focus needs to be gotten on to get me out of bed and out of the house in the mornings and to walk with a bit more impetus as we don't have any fixed deadlines on our walking days, so that we might pass into the next season with a bit more mental order than we managed last week, altogether a good collection of intents as we aim as distant a public park that I can claim as local. So we're almost up with the lark for a 9.20am start, with climatic conditions looking a bit more favourable than were projected through the week, and thus the sun shines through as our next circuit over the top of the local watershed ridge starts, heading off northwesterly, in the wrong direction, up Asquith Avenue again, past the school, the terraces and estates, while generally making short work of this familiar lane, walked on the unfamiliar side as we pass Deanfield Mill, and head out over the M621, snaring to view towards Leeds before we start to move away from the big city. We can't have every excursion tracing the exact same pavements, so once through the spread of Dean Wood, we take a turn with the available walkway to pass through the 62 Leeds industrial estate, only laid out in the landscape very recently and claiming all the fields between the cleft of the woodlands, fenced off below, and the A62 above, with most of it being occupied by an industrially scaled laundry, with more security on site than workers it seems, and the access road to the southern side, on its embankment over Dean Beck can be paced too despite the works here being apparently abandonment. This extensive and barren foundation plinth has been observed before but as a right of way passes around it, it remains publicly accessible, as does the way down to the longitudinal path at the edge of the older commercial facilities, which we'll pass over and through a gap in a theoretical barrier gate to pass on westwards through the Treefield industrial estate, which is dominated by the Leeds TNT depot (for distribution rather than explosives), and only a short traverse before we alight onto Gelderd Road again, between the Street Lane rec and the Overland Park retail stores at Gildersome Street.
Sunday, 7 March 2021
Wilton & Oakwell Hall Parks Circuit 06/03/21
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| 2021-22 finally gives us the chance to really fill in the blanks in my walking calendar! |
It hasn't been extensively trumpeted on my blog, but one quiet fascination that I've developed over the walking seasons has been watching the sequence of available Saturdays shifting around as I've travelled, and as entering the tenth year of my career, we finally land ourselves on the seventh, and final, schedule of dates that have not been traced thanks to the movement of the Leap Years, and from now until the end of February 2022 we are going to have the chance to fill in a lot of the blanks in my calendar, to see if we can walk on all 285 days in what I've deemed to be my walking year before I turn 50 at the end of Season 13! So, with that thought in mind, we open out March, without it's business feeling too serious as we are still compelled to keep things local through the enduring lockdown conditions, heading out with the intent for more local park walking, over the border in Kirklees district, as we start out from Morley Hole at 10.10am, and immediately finding that the amount of local trails blazed is really starting to run me short of original routes to illuminate as we are compelled to set off up the A643 Bruntcliffe Lane, among the estates and industry, cemetery and school, in order to travel to the southwest. Crest to the south side of the Aire-Calder ridge beyond Bruntcliffe Crossroads, and note that over the last nine years we have been witness to the decline, closure and finally demolition of the Shoulder of Mutton inn, which has now been replaced by a vacant lot in the heart of its urban hamlet at the town's fringe, which peters out as we cross over the M62 and aim ourselves down Howden Clough Road between the pair of rural outlying terraces, seeking the one local path that seems to have escaped my feet so far. We may have come up this way in 2012, at the conclusion of my Leeds Country Way circuit, on the trail out of Birkby Brow Wood, and paced across these open fields last year, but the long wandering driveway to Schole Croft farm across this lofty, and still rural, plateau had escaped my passage until now, directing us toward the decline of Scotchman Lane, with the Gawthorpe and Ossett towers directly ahead of us, at the edge of the long Kirklees horizon to the southwest, sadly shrouded by much cloud, though the pervasive gloom of the morning does look like it might break.
Thursday, 12 November 2020
The 'Back in Lockdown' Finale Circuit 11/11/20
Sunday, 8 November 2020
Brighouse to Morley 07/11/20
Tuesday, 13 October 2020
Halifax to Slaithwaite 11/10/20
Sunday walking comes around again, due to Saturday inclemency and the promise of a much brighter day subsequent to it, and as we can still do inessential travel, despite the worsening Covid infection rates, busing and training it the log way around can get us to Halifax for a 9.55am jump off, alighting for a later start than usual under the brightest of late season blue skies, which illuminates the area around the Square Chapel and the Piece hall as we rise away up Horton Street, feeling like we've arrived in town ahead of all the regular local shoppers. Of course there are other reasons for the quiet, but that means I'm not going to look like so much of a stranger as we make our way up to the Royal Oak corner and angle ourselves away up St John's Avenue on the day's southwesterly trajectory, rubbing us right up against the town's old urban terraces that butt right up next to the Lloyds Bank offices, beyond Commercial Street, which gives us a nice contrast of Victorian and Modernist before we delve off into the suburbia which lies beyond Savile Road, where older villas and their estates got consumed in waves over the last century. So it's on among the semis on Well Head Lane, and thence into the more contemporary Lego houses on Central Park, seeking the Clover Hill Walk path as it traces its old course through the slight depression in the landscape, before we meet the steep rise of the cobbled Cat Steps path that leads us up into the terraced district to the east of Savile Park, which we approach via Clover Hill Road and Free School Lane, ahead of arriving by St Jude's church. We'll make our way down its eastern perimeter, along Queen's Gate, in front of the villas that have the prime location overlooking the expanse of grasslands and the avenues of trees, ahead of Wainhouse Tower and the Crossley Heath school, and in the current climate, it's good to see how many people have still come out to make use of it on a sunny morning, be it to jog, meet up with their dog-walking group or do a spot of circuit training in the fields beyond the lodge and chip shop, which we pass on our way to crossing the A646 Skircoat Moor Lane at its southern end. We are then drawn on, into the landscape of walled estates that have mostly had their gardens claimed by upscale suburbia, passing the Southwood Club and the Gleddings Prep School on Birdcage Lane, which provides our route off the town's plateau and into the wooded north bank of the Calder Valley, as we meet the path of Birdcage Hill dropping sharply downhill between the ancient woodlands of Long Wood and Scar Wood, before giving us some setts to carefully trace our way down on Woodhouse Lane.
Tuesday, 6 October 2020
Marsden to Halifax 04/10/20
Autumn, and the Late Season, is now upon us, which is frustrating as my walking brain is ready for the Summer, while my body is prepped for the season to be over ASAP, leaving me in an odd place as local lockdowns haven't pushed inessential travel off the permissible activities list yet, though Saturday falls from the schedule thanks to an all-day downpour, meaning that we are having to test out the weird public transport vicissitudes that come with needing to get out to the Colne Valley on a Sunday morning, travelling via busing it to Leeds so we aren't starting out with most of the morning hours already lost. So ride the express to alight at a whisker after 9.35am at Marsden station, where a familiar pall of low cloud hangs above the hills to the south and west of the town, which we won't be venturing into as our path aims us out of the north side of the Colne valley, starting out by joining Dirker Drive as it runs above the railway, among the council estate and on to the Plains terraces, which give us a look at the residential aspect of Marsden which has eluded us on many prior visits, ahaed of dropping over the metals via Planes Lane bridge and joining Marsden Lane as it runs east, along the suburban ribbon that spreads down the valley. The countryside soon take over though, beyond White Syke farm and the stream aqueduct over the railway line, placing just above the Narrow canal as we head downstream, ahead of passing around the north side of Sparth reservoir, one of the feeders for the navigation channel, which is as close as we'll be getting to any reservoir walking today after last weekend's excess of it, passing below the canopy of twisted trees as we rise up to meet the passage under the rails to meet the wooded lower reaches of Drop Clough, the deep groove in the valley side that prevents a straight forwards ascent to the northeast. Pass over the noisily running stream before we meet the ancient packhorse track which pushes up out of it eastern side, a pleasing runs of setts in a deep groove that wends its way up through the tree cover, an old lane that the modern world has mostly forgotten about, rising to a reveal over the Colne Valley, across from the sadly demolished Cellars Clough mills, and running us up to Marsden Lane, again, as it rises steeply up the side of Booth Gate Clough. It's steep pull to finally get us going in the direction that we wish to travel, revealing the sharp moorland nab of Booth Hey to the east of us, and passing the farm hamlet of Slaithwaite Hall to the west, feeling happy that there's no traffic trying to use this narrow track as we press on uphill, meeting the other walkers out in the morning gloom, as we rise to meet the high apron of fields above the valley, 100m up from its floor, as we pick a deliberately wandering route ahead, eschewing the option of available shortcuts.
Sunday, 27 September 2020
Smithy Bridge to Marsden 26/09/20