Two warm and pleasant days off from the trail are spent, filled with activity before we get back to the business of the walking plan for this round of Summer Jollies, and we did not expect moorland mist to be on our menu in the midst of our warm spell, as it hangs in the air for the full duration of our 23+ mile ride out onto the moorland top, during which Mum demonstrates an amount of fearlessness in her motoring that belies her years as we tool our way up to the crest of Blakey Ridge again, to resume our exploration of the railway and ironworking that took place in the moorland edges of Rosedale, which falls away to the west and south of the road we ride the high road. We alight at 9.45am at Blakey Junction, with a 5 hour trip in our sights as we descend beside the infilled cutting that passed under the ridge road, down to the site of the Little Blakey hamlet that stood by the division of the railway lines around both sides of Rosedale, of which nought but feint foundation remnants remain in the landscape, and we'll head south from here, down the western branch, for reasons that will become apparent as we start our circular tour, with the mist already burning off as we pass through the gate by the end of the long switchback siding, with mist still obscuring views to the east, and the kiln complexes at the end of the eastern branch, which will get much of the day's attention. It's a steady contour-hugging walk to enjoy as we progress south, at about 360m with only the slightest of declines as we trot away on a decent cinder track surface, with sleeper markings still present underfoot as we look over the valley of Rosedale, trying to get some context of the landscape below as move on among the banks of purple heather that illuminate in the sunshine behind us, settling into the shallow cuttings that run atop the edge of the Glead Holes edge, and looking down across the long rib of Middle Ridge, where it looks like a huge piece of the valley side sloughed its way downhill in antiquity, leaving a scarred and wild landscape in its wake, one not caused by human mining or quarrying activity, with our surroundings becoming more steadily apparent as we track south.
Thursday, 7 September 2023
Rosedale Railways #2: Rosedale Circular 06/09/23
Monday, 10 July 2023
July's Three Day Weekend 07-09/07/23
Alighting on the second weekend of July, we find that it's a long one, with an extra day booked off so that I might be able to have a weekend at My Sister's place without having to run the gauntlet of Friday commuter traffic, but as they have a situation with My Elder Niece having finished her GCSEs and My Younger Niece having a strike day which coincides with one of the warmest and brightest days in a short while, the opportunity is there for a whole family day out, giving them a plan to travel out from Bolton to Brimham Rocks in their new van, with me meeting them midway along by hopping the train to Skipton as the most practical and least time-consuming of the meet up options. It's relatively shocking to realise than almost 6 years have elapsed since I was last out here on the high north side of Nidderdale, though the landscape abounding on the upper limit of my Field of Walking Experience still seem totally familiar as My Sis ad I take a rather languid stroll around the rock formations and among the wild semi-moorland, while Dr G and the Girls get on with some bouldering in the sunshine, which could barely be counted as a proper walk as we amble about for the better part of three hours, wandering well past the limits of the National Trust site and regularly finding places in the shade to sit and contemplate the landscape and our place in it. I think we might be both feeling our age, as I continue to toil with my Post-Covid Experience and the struggles of balancing it with working life, while she contemplates her daughters on the cusp on actual adulthood and reflects on where she was at a similar time in her life, aided by the rediscovery of her old journals and diaries of the period and her desire to revisit the music and style choices of the very late 1980s, which carries us on a nostalgic wave as we wander and then travel away in the late afternoon, back over the Pennines via the East Lancs valley, at least while we're not trying to talk around the problems of the world that have expanded over the last 7 years. This weekend could easily be counted as an extension of the hiatus in my walking year when Saturday's plans fall apart thanks to a rum turn in the weather, with much more cloud and rain, and much less heat, passing over to prevent our planned jaunt down the green path of the Irwell valley coming to naught, so our travel to the city has four of us travelling to the Manchester Museum instead (without Younger Niece who's already becoming a social firefly), and I'm always going to be game for some natural history presented in an interesting way to fill my afternoon, before we pass another evening with takeout Mexican food, beers and a session in fron of the TV, catching up on the Tour de France and watching 'This is Spinal Tap' and 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (and if you wish to see me act like a total normie, just observe my reactions to the latter of those, because What is Going On in that Movie!?).
Sunday, 12 February 2023
Trails around Morley's New Developments 5-6-8-12/02/23
The first Long Week of being NIW arrives and we're going to get going in the locality, as the post-Covid walking experience starts to feel a lot like the Covid Lockdown period as we stay close to home among the fields and paths to the immediate east of Morley railway station, and that turns out to be not the worst of options as there's plenty going around abouts as we see new developments on the Trans Pennine rail route unfolding, as well as suburbanism creeping into the fields in a manner that I'd noted like it seemed inevitable three years ago. I'd like to think that I've usually got my ear to the ground when it comes to local happenings, and I've been kept fully up to date on the construction of the new White Rose station thanks to mail shots from Network Rail, but the very first new that I got of development happening at Morley was when three weekends and one week of total closure of the line between Dewsbury and Leeds was announced to commence in late January, one month on from a long engineering possession for track re-laying over the New Year weekend. This turns out to be due to Morley Station being completely relocated, along the line to the east, away from the portal of Morley tunnel and onto the section of track between the old goods yard and the former gasworks site, which we've been watched being cleared of vegetation and spoil since last summer, in reasonable anticipation of catenary being installed for electrification as part of the Trans Pennine Route Upgrade, rather than having a fully accessible station built with apparent access to improved car parking in the level plots around. Being NIW when there's a full line closure in place thus allows me to go and have a good record of what's going on, which we started over the preceding weekend in January, where we tested out the waterproofing of my lightweight boots as we toured around the station site, observing the relaying of track that didn't seem to straightening out the curve of the line going into the tunnel nearly as much as was advertised, while also giving illustration of the fact that in any heavy engineering scenario, there will always be far more men in high-vis clothing on site than seem to be actually doing anything, with clearly more observing than working.
Sunday, 26 June 2022
Morley & Leeds Circuit 25/06/22
Our pattern of smooth sailing through the 2022 walking year gets rudely disrupted as the first weekend of Summer lands, as a sequence of national train strike hit the country (after the RMT takes issue with management (and government) seeming to have forgotten that the railways have been important Key Workers over the last two years and ought to be treated accordingly in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic), and when this is coupled to an ongoing (and total) strike action by Arriva Yorkshire's bus crews in Wakefield district, the outcome for me is that my chosen walking field to the south and east of home has been rendered largely inaccessible by public transport, and enforced local walking will have to fill my weekend, which is not the easiest of tasks as lockdown walks absorbed nearly every path around Morley during 2020/1. We'll have to be creative to ensure we're not repeating ourselves too much as we roll down to Morley station for a 9.20am jump off, initially heading city-bound on a plauisble circular route via the path that rises away above the rock cliff to the top of New Bank Street and thence on to Daisy Hill, joining the rough path into the hidden, and somewhat overgrown valley beyond, which deposits us into the fields of wheat ahead of joining the track that leads up to Broad Oaks farm, where future residential development looks like a certainty, as work has already started on the groundwork in the fields around Lane Side farm, which have kept Morley and Churwell distinct. It can remain rural as we rock past the farmstead, cresting to the view towards the city in the northeast, not being able to approach the railway via the downhill path due to the construction work at the new White Rose station site on the embankment, which can be observed at a distance as we keep on the previously untraced path that leads us into the eastern side of Churwell, landing us by the old chapel and Sunday school on Back Green, which leads to the crossing of the A643 by the Old Golden Fleece Tesco and the memorial garden, before we head down old lane into the terraced and suburban village, passing Bar 27 and the village club on the way down. Hang a left by the old Manor farm and pace a way along New Village Way among the Lego houses of the still expanding village suburb, which continues to grow, having now completely absorbed the site of Snittles farm at the side of the M621, which is passed under to emerge by the side of the embankment of the Leeds New Line, which is passed over as we pace the boundary of the Jewish cemeteries and land on the A62 to pace the Gelderd Road over its crest by the factories on the edge of the Beeston Royds hillside, passing below the abandoned Hilltop cemeteries and joining the railway-side path by the split of the flying Farnley Junction.
Sunday, 18 April 2021
Mytholmroyd Bubble Walk #6 17/04/21
Post-Easter holidays, and Post second Covid vaccine dose, seems like a good spot in the year to return to my Support Bubble in Calderdale, which isn't point that we would've imagined being in at this point in the season when we last convened to flush 2020 away, more than three months ago, but with Spring resolutely refusing to be sprung, a sociable get together with my good friends IH & AK seem like a good option for a couple of evenings, to get in the necessary drinks and dinners while bracketing another bubble walk, while otherwise taking it easy before the year starts to get serious again. For them that means getting psyched up for trying to bring a school year to a satisfactory conclusion in only three months, while also organizing an examination regime on the top of it, so it's natural enough that landing with them on the Friday evening disappears into a quantity of red meat and wine, ahead of us all feeling the need to sleep off the effects, and thus Saturday morning means a late rise, and no option for getting out until after lunchtime, and there's no trouble with that as there's still plenty of fat to be chewed between us, and another day of early chill to be cleared before we head out. So it's away from our base on Cragg Road at 1.25pm, as getting out of doors in the British countryside seems to be a better way of patriotically expressing ourselves than staying in to watch the Duke of Edinburgh's funeral, and we've a new location to visit a short distance from Mytholmroyd, unseen by my local friends despite having been resident for nearly 15 years, though it's proximity is offset by the altitude away to the southwest, and thus we have to take a long circuitous route to get to it, pushing away on the trajectory out of town to the south, to gain height gradually as we pass up Cragg Vale. Thus we head past Royds Ices, Hoo Hole Mill, and into the countryside, over Dauber Bridge and uphill, getting a good view of the passage of Cragg Brook through the still leafless trees, before passing around the caravan site that has already filled to available capacity with visitors and below the bowl of Broadhead Clough, and rising on beyond the Clough Foot farms and into the dramatic lower stretch of the valley, which still seems short of Spring colour until we meet the Cragg Vale community gardens with its riot of still ripe Daffodils, where we split off from the roadside.
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, 14 March 2021
South Leeds & Middleton Circuit 13/03/21
We've passed the first anniversary of the declaration of the Covid-19 Pandemic, and we find ourselves still constrained by the restrictions of National Lockdown, still in a situation which I'm sure none of us through we'd find ourselves after 12 months, but as HM Government is not looking to offer any meaningful release for the remainder of this month, we need to plot out things for our walking year on a local bubble basis for the next three trips, and thus the breakout of the season is held back while I seek parklands or other points of interest in the vicinity if Morley. South Leeds is thus the target for the day, as I've never done a there and back to the city before, and we don't get started early as the morning is looking aggressively mediocre, with wind being the major issue as we don't get to the starting line at Morley station until 10.10am, and setting off on a northbound and clockwise path that leads us up the steps to King George Croft and on to the ascent of New Bank Street up to Daisy Hill, and we haven't got much further along, onto the dirt path through the valley, before the day's issues start to take hold. As soon as we start to descend on the muddy slope, my feet slip from under me, planting me on my backside as I realize that I don't have my walking stick with me, before finding that traversing up the field path towards Broad Oaks is much harder going than expected as the soil is extremely damp, and once on the lane I find that my camera has decided to get fritzty and under-responsive as the farm track out to Elland Road is traced, meaning my photography is going to slow me down further as is the wind as it blows in hard from the southwest. Cross the A643 feeling muddy and mightily frustrated, all ready to quit on the trip before we've barely traced a mile as we continue on to seek the footpath beyond the end of Daffil Road, that leads us onto the end of Smools Lane, and into the top of Churwell's suburban spread and urban woods, tracing the Daffil Wood path until we reach a split off onto an older right of way that leads us out into the open fields on the side of the M621, which have still managed to resist both phases of Churwell's suburban expansion. With the motorway droning away to the side of us, we pass alongside a large leveled off area which seems to be formed of colliery spoil, before we are compelled to descend with the path as the valley space below Farnley Wood hill, formed by its beck, crosses the landscape, offering a view to the city and a slippery service that I lose traction on again, hurting two different muscles in my right leg as I slither downhill, cursing my rotten luck noisily as we come down by the most recent development of the Churwell new village at Fairfield Rise.
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.
Sunday, 28 February 2021
Middleton & Cross Flatts Parks Circuit 27/02/21
Throughout this pandemic, it had been a small point of pride to me that I had managed to not be unwell through it's first 11 months, but that long streak came to end this week as I somehow got afflicted with a head cold, despite all the personal precautions that have been taken, which blighted my working Thursday and knocked me out of Friday completely due fierce sneezing and a persistently running nose, leaving me feeling rather flat but not showing up any symptoms that could be a harbinger of something worse once the weekend rocked up. So I might be only feeling about 80% charged on Saturday morning, and the impetus to rise with the lark isn't there either, but we need to get some oxygen back in the blood for a few hours and thus we start out a bit late, hopeful that the afternoon will bring the sunshine that isn't apparent as we descend down to Morley station for the 10.40am jump-off on my next parks circuit, targeting the major pair in South Leeds, with our route starting us off out of the valley and up the steps flight to Albert Road. From there, we immediately we start our track eastwards, through the small industrial zone that has grown on the site of Morley Main colliery, and then on among the houses that have recently been developed over the sites of the old spoil tips and alongside the estate that arrives as we merge in with the end of Peel Street, turning with the lane corner to meet a local pavement that oddly hasn't landed below my feet before, down to Wide Lane between the nursery in the former Low Common End farm and the recently rebuilt Newlands Primary school. Meeting the B6123 by the Gardener's Arms, we're on to the red route out of town soon enough, between the Newlands and Owlers estates, and into the fields that development hasn't claimed just yet as we run on to meet the Mcdonalds by the roundabout on the A653 Dewsbury Road, which we have to cross to get onto the track of West Wood Road as it descends among the fields to pass over Mill Shaw beck before rising to meet the railway bridges, both contemporary and former. We split from the track here to take the rough path up through West Wood, which feels more familiar now after last year's visits, rising though the tree cover and getting a better look at the lost GNR line thanks to the lack of foliage before we emerge out into the pasture on the western fringe of the Middleton estate, where no horses seem to be grazing today, which at least opens it up for the locals for some free dog running, as trace our way around its perimeter, tracking north until one of the few formal paths into the estate appears to send us eastwards again.
Sunday, 21 February 2021
Morley Roads: North-West Circuit 20/02/21
The climate has returned to something approaching its February norm as our walking year gets back onto it's regular sequence of filling in the Saturdays that follow my walking weeks, with the glumness remaining, but the bitter cold being replaced by a more tolerable temperature, so we're free of snow and the bleaching effect of so much gritting as we alight on the second of my pair of obvious road circuits around the town, but starting out as late as possible to let the morning's inclemency pass, getting to my starting line at 11am. To match my last trip, we this time start out from Morley station, to pound the uphill pavement of Station Road and its pitch that gets more noticeable the older I get, noting that someone has recently been planting trees in the middle of the recreation ground's slope, as if someone wants to render this parkland even wilder than it was before, and then rising up to Morley Bottoms to see yet another empty property getting a makeover to join the local bar culture, drawing these three commercial blocks to as close to full occupancy as I've seen since first moving here, nearly 14 years ago. Then on, around Victoria Mills/Court along Brunswick Street to start the road loop proper at Morley Hole, joining the side of the A653 as it heads towards the city, rising from the primary school past the Ingles Estate and following Victoria Road as it heads past the Springfield Mills roads, St Peter's church and is its pubs on the junction corners, and on to the long downhill stretch, easing us past the villas of the Victorian town above Laneside farm, and the mills sites across the way with the own impressively scaled houses. Walking a north-easterly trajectory on hugely familiar road means there's not a whole mass to describe as new as we run into Churwell, still distinct beyond the open fields to one side of the road, heading down Elland Road on its absurdly steep stretch between the many former churches and chapels, and its enduring pair of pubs, passing the community hall and the memorial gardens before angling to pass down below the bulk of Churwell viaduct, still obscured from view by all the trees despite the seasonal lack of foliage, and over Farnley Wood Beck as it emerges from below the various railway lines that hide it away.
Sunday, 14 February 2021
Morley Roads: South-East Circuit 13/02/21
Arriving at the concluding weekend of my week off, the need to start the proper push on the walking year comes along with it, but as we look to longer mileages, the sunshine that shone through the previous days has been lost, and is replaced with glumness, while the penetrating sub-zero temperatures remain, and coupled to the enforced local trails, there's little impetus to try to do anything toe exciting, and to instead to look to some raw mileage on the local main roads, as there is a pair of local circuits that advertise themselves obviously. The challenge they present is no more complicated than picking where to start out on their circular routes, and so we commence out from Morley Hole at 10am, to initially draw a line across my earlier parks circuit, down the groove that divides the town in half, traversing Brunswick Street to Morley Bottoms and on down Station Road along the hidden and culverted route of Cotton Mills Beck down to the railway station, where last year's Social Distancing Circuit can be met and traversed for old times sake. This leads us down Valley Road, to the town'd gasworks site, and the Valley Mills, which we move around on the footpath, where the cold weather has caused the natural spring that regularly moistens this path to turn into an ice sheet that turns the descent down to the footbridge into a slippery slope par excellence, ahead of us striking east on the muddy paths to the south of the railway which have frozen into hard and uneven going, as the absence of trains along the way is noted thanks to the reduced lockdown timetable. We are thus lead to the edge of the White Rose Centre's site, where the southern portion of its woodland walk need to be approached for the first time, as it meanders its way downhill alongside the circuit road, matching the boundary of the sewage works site that it now occupies before we are dropped out by the overflow car parks, and our way is made out onto the Dewsbury Road, right by where Morley's concealed stream emerges, flowing under the A653 towards Millshaw Beck. Join the footway alongside the dual carriageway as the road circuit proper starts off southbound, rising steadily up this small valley, which West Wood on the Middleton fringe looms over as we pace on along one of those sections of roads that I have very little reason to encounter, on foot or otherwise, as we head up towards the Wide Lane roundabout, the familiar transit point out here, where my instinct from last year to the Harvester's seemingly imminent demise proves to have been correct, as it's been replaced by a Macdonalds, which doesn't really feel like a massive social upgrade in my eyes.
Friday, 12 February 2021
Morley Parks Circuit 11/02/21
My original walking season plans for 2021 hadn't intended us to get off to the rapid starts that have featured in previous years, but the renewed lockdown has me thinking that the Nine Day Weekend (which is what we can regard weeks of annual leave as if we are unable to travel away) might be put to getting down multiple days of local mileage, but no such luck as my start-off Saturday, the 6th, is lost due to constant rainfall, and the subsequent four days are blighted by repeated snowfalls and persistent sub-zero temperatures as the third storm that I can recall being named 'The Beast from the East' passes over. So it's not until Thursday that the risk of further snow has passed, and the climate has settled into one of generally cloudless skies and arse-freezing-ness, and 2021's walking year has to be kicked off before I start to succumb to the risk of going stir crazy, donning all my thermals and leaving my flat to see if all the local walking from last year has left enough of an impression in my mind to tour around all of Morley's notable parks and green spaces without the need of a map, hopeful that the constant coldness won't have blighted the town with sheet ice literally everywhere. So it's to Morley station we head to start our circuit, departing at 10.30am, and full of intent to get around without stopping, heading off southbound and clockwise as we depart Valley Road and head up the non-treacherous flight of steps up to Albert Road, arriving between the Miners Arms and Fisheries and pacing on along Ackroyd Street to the old Co-op and chapel, and then on to the terraces of Cross Peel Street and to Peel Street itself, carrying on up its pavement to the City Mill and former Board School, where we take a left onto South Parade. He we can detour into our first green space, Lewisham Park, which was laid out with the building of the Middleton Road estates, and now offers a dog-exercising and perambulation space behind the semis, as well as frozen playing fields and a pavilion complex that aren't seeing much business as of now, as we traverse our way along the northern perimeter path, which leads us east over its long axis to the exit onto Clough Street, where we renew our wandery trajectory southbound, directly into the low sunshine along the estate's snow-dusted pavements that are doing their absolute best to melt off in the radiant heat of the sun.
Thursday, 12 November 2020
The 'Back in Lockdown' Finale Circuit 11/11/20
Sunday, 18 October 2020
The Halifax Circular 17/10/20
Sunday, 16 August 2020
Mytholmroyd Bubble Walks 4 & 5 15/08/20 & 16/08/20
It hadn't been my intention to drop out from my walking schedule this weekend, but when a call came inviting me out for another return to my Support Bubble in Calderdale, taking the opportunity seemed too good to miss, as the local lockdown restrictions don't apply to our particular type of socialising, and Barbecue is offered as a clincher by My Good Friends, and that seems like a most appealing prospect when the weather projection isn't great, far cooler and greyer than last weekend turned out, demonstrating further that this Summer has no idea at all what it's trying to do. Sadly, opportunities for major exercise aren't really forthcoming as my invitation only gets a late response due to me not seeing it until Friday evening, curtailing the chance of a two night stay, and also precluding an early start on Saturday as supplies need to be gotten in ahead of my visit, as they haven't been obtained preemptively, and so we don't land at Chez IH&AK until after Saturday lunchtime, meaning there isn't enough afternoon to head out for an uphill blast after brews and a conflab, meaning that none of us will have the chance to hit the 383m summit of Crow Hill for the first time. So we only stroll in the village instead, and I really mean stroll, as the walks we do would barely feel worthy of recording at all if it wasn't for all the potential miles lost during 2020, heading out from base on Cragg Road at 2.35pm, walking into the village , beyond the station and viaduct to see how more of the flood defence works have progressed, noting that while so much has been built anew along the sides of Cragg Brook over the last couple of years, some of the older walls retaining the gardens of Streamside Fold have started to suffer from cracking. A detour off New Road takes us through the churchyard of St Michael's, which gives us a dramatic foreground for the fine view up to the woodlands and rocks of Scout Scar above the valley, a grand backdrop to take in as we visit the public gardens around the bowling green, recently replanted after the civil engineering depot that had spent many months on the tennis courts site finally moved out, having completed most of the work deepening and widening the channel of the Calder, downstream from Mytholmroyd Bridge. The major local interest point remains the relocation of Caldene Bridge upstream, with the original span now completely removed as a pool is created upstream from the Calder-Cragg confluence, hopefully to allow water to back up safely in times of spate, and the increased width of the river is obvious as the south bank is completely rebuilt, with the piles now driven in and the construction of new retaining walls having started, allowing my friends to feel like this project is coming to a conclusion after nearly 4 years of work, as the village centre seeks its own new normal again.
Monday, 13 July 2020
Mytholmroyd Bubble Walk #3 11/07/20
Broadhead Clough, Erringden Moor, Bell House Moor, Lumb Stone, Cragg Bottom,
and Cragg Vale.
Having exhausted my supply of local and socially responsible walking circuits, and now finding myself at another ten day stretch of being NIW, I naturally feel like it's time to venture out to my Calderdale Support Bubble for some sociable R'n'R before we start to think about formally reviving the 2020 walking season that has been on hiatus for the better part of four months now, and thus we ride the rails out to Mytholmroyd on Friday evening straight from work, to get our weekend off with IH & AK to a quick start, catching up on the concession of Chicago deep dish pizza that I missed out on last time, before settling into the wine again as we chatter our way through the last few weeks of happenings. Boozing like that ensures that an early start won't be easy to come by, and factor in a Test Match on the TV, and the scope for a lot of walking drops away, so we don't head out until after our lunch break that has coincided with that of the cricket, departing our base on Cragg Road at 1.20pm, and setting off out of town to the south, to find that Mytholmroyd isn't really much more than half a mile deep in this direction, passing out of town by the Royds Ices factory and the Hoo Hole mill into the low fields, scattered suburban houses and high wooded banks that form Cragg Vale, the most significant branch of the Calder in this quarter. Our plan is too follow the Cragg Vale Coiners Walk, a path created to take us past the historical sites of the infamous counterfeiters of the 18th century, and those of their fictional counterparts as featured in the novel 'The Gallows Pole' by local author Benjamin Myers, following a map plotted and illustrated by Christopher Goddard, our admirable local variant of Alfred Wainwright, which is almost too nice to use as a route guide, which we follow as it leads us out of town up to Dauber Bridge to split from the main road and onto the rise away from Cragg Brook, along a steepening track that does lead to farmsteads at its high and distant ends, which are not to be seen on our ascent. The route is soon sending us up one of the main branches of Cragg Vale, elevating us above the stream in the cleft of Parrock Clough as we twist around below the cover of trees gaining altitude all the way before we enter open fields which give us some scope of the environs and the amount of ascent still to come, before we meet a herd of young Highland cattle who won't be stirred from the track they are blocking, forcing me to take a dynamic lead in clearing a way past them as these are the sort of cows that are placid enough to not inspire fear in me as we head on with the rise to meet Spring Wood.
Sunday, 5 July 2020
Morley Far North Circuit 04/07/20
Sunday, 28 June 2020
Morley South-West Circuit 27/06/20
Lamplands, Upper Batley, Brown Hill, Birstall, Field Head, Moorside, Adwalton, Gildersome,
Hart Hill, St Bernard's mill, Rooms, Daffil Woods, Churwell (Lane Side), Daisy Hill,
Chapel Hill and Banks Hill.
In our final episode of 'June doesn't know what the hell it's doing' we get it dropping three midweek days of unbroken sunshine and high temperatures which are concluded by one of the most epic cloudbursts that I have ever experienced (and I should know because I was right out in it when it happened), and as the weekend lands it decides that it's going to shift our climate back into that of early Spring rather than Summer, presenting weather of teeming rain than might inspire me to stay at home in normal circumstances, but as we know, we are in a world that's far from normal, and I need my routine of stretching to keep my head in good order. So to Morley Hole we head, waterproofs donned against the persistent drizzle, for a 9.10am start, aiming to get this tour done at the hurry-up to stay ahead of the threat of storms in the afternoon, starting out up the causey into New Brighton, because original routes are proving hard to come by now, risking early injury on the slippery setts before we head south via the way to Corporation Street, which we cross and find a couple of un-walked roads through the estate beyond, Highcliffe Road and Gerard Avenue, which pass St Francis' RC school along the way to Scatcherd Lane. Steps are retraced again past the cricket and rugby clubs and on into the upscale Victorian suburbia that surrounds Dartmouth Park, before we actually do locate the route along New Park Street, which leads us among its terraces towards Fountain Street before not actually joining it, instead slipping down the back lane of Oak Road, which gives access to a whole block of suburbia that would otherwise go unnoticed as it leads us to a ginnel behind the old chapels on the corner of Bruntcliffe Road, on which we land by the Halfway House inn at the top of Scotchman Lane. Over the A650 and again onto familiar pavements, down among the suburban ribbon out of town and over the M62 before we split onto the route of last year's Long Walk, angling down the farm track and across the fields on the site of the original Howley Park quarries, getting none of the views down to Batley and across Kirklees that we enjoyed in 2019 as we pass above Morley tunnel and between its vents, meeting a crowd of grazing horses and foals at the bottom corner of the field where we join the path that skirts the perimeter of Howley Hall golf course, where the well-grown vegetation shows up a greater risk of giving you a soaking than the rainfall does.
Sunday, 21 June 2020
Morley South-East Circuit 20/06/20
Baghill), West Ardsley (Beggarington Hill & Common Side), Woodhouse lane, East Ardsley,
The Fall, Thorpe on the Hill, Ardsley Junction, Sissons Wood, West Wood, Owlers, Gillroyd,
Low Town End, and Corporation Street.
My calendar tells me that this Saturday is the first day of Summer, though I'm sure that it isn't due until the following day, meaning that the seasons might have shifted around without having informed me, not that anyone seems to have informed June of what season it is meant to be either, as we experience three days of chilliness that might have you thinking about putting the heating back on before promising an increase in warmth and brightness for the weekend that never quite arrives, and thus I'll look again to local paths as I'm still feeling wary about striking further afield despite the relaxation of lockdown. There's another three loops to do around Morley for now, and we'll start out at 9.05am at Morley Hole and pace that usual route out to the bottom of Queen street, where we split off between Body & Sole and Tasty Balti to ascent the flight of steps up to Troy Hill, a right of passage for many local school kids back in the day, which elevates us onto the seventh and last of the local hills, where we pace around the tree shroud that conceals the still derelict shell of St Mary in the Wood, before heading onto Commercial Street, the town's back lane of interest which hides away such features as the Congregational school, the public library, and at least three other chapels in this famously non-conformist town. Beyond Peel Street it takes on the industrial landscape of mills and factories, while also concealing an animal hospital and a Thai restaurant on the way down to the Commercial inn, where we slip over Fountain Street and head up High Street, to pass the former Sycamore Hotel, as my interests turn to locating Morley's lost pubs, leading us up to the top of Magpie Lane and the island at the bottom of Chartists Way, where so many of this last month's paths have piled up, hitting the rise onto Bridge Street by the site where the Albion inn used to reside. This route out of town seems all a bit familiar, as is the way with doing a lot of local walking, but we sneak our views off towards Leeds to the north as we hit the top of the Aire-Calder ridge, as well as noting the VW Beetle dressed as Herbie in one back yard, tallying off another former chapel opposite the Mormon Temple and emerging by the now completely refitted Tingley Mills, where we cross the tangle of the A650 junction at Tingley Bar, or Birks, before we join the A6029 Rein Road, that suburban lane that sets off from town with great purpose but then never really goes anywhere.