Wakefield Way #4 - Lofthouse Hill to Pontefract 27/06/15

15 miles, via Bottom Boat, Stanley Ferry, the Aire & Calder Navigation path, & Castleford.


Self at Lofthouse Hill

First walk of Summer and back on my planned walking schedule, with it actually looking like Summer out there, so the jillet finally gets an outing as an early start is due, taking the now rather-too-familiar jaunt out via Wakefield Bus station to hop off the #110 at the hurry up for a start from the side of the A61 at 9.25am, with the houses and farmsteads of Lofthouse Hill soon left behind as the farm track sets us on a course towards the distant shape of Ferrybridge power station. The heat soon comes on, as I pass between the rhubarb fields, paralleling the M62 as paces are made over to Lee Moor Road, showing up a lot more colourfully than the last time I came this way, before branching off at Fenton Road, among Stanley's outlying houses, before striking off on the field boundaries down towards the A642, with a grand lower Calder vista opening out as we go. Plenty of the coming miles are retracing paths that I have pounded over the last few years, and I had another fancy detour in mind before I realised that an excursion via Newmarket Colliery and Methley Junction would stray too far into leeds district, so I stick to the route as written, passing down into Bottom Boat, across the path of the Methley Joint lines and hitting the riverside path that now forms part of the walker's route of the Trans Pennine Trail, once occupied by the Leeds Country Way. A fresh path is met beyond Stanley waterworks, leading down through polythene covered fields and across a farmyard to meet the Nagger lines and the path down to Stanley Ferry, and this seems to be one of those corners where walking route will always be converging, and steps are made around the Fayre & Square to find my way to Ramsden's Bridge and the elevated way over the Aire & Calder Navigation.

Wakefield Way #3 - Horbury Bridge to Lofthouse Hill (amended) 20/06/15

9.9 miles, via Healey, South Ossett, Gawthorpe, Kirkhamgate & Carr Gate.

My half term report only needs to be brief as we hit the top of the year, with my cumulative mileage total having far surpassed my expectations, and only two days having been lost from the schedule, most recently last weekend having come off the back of a horrible head cold to be greeted by an extremely grey day. So only my mid-season trip to High Cup with FOSCL is lost from the 2015 schedule, and I return to the Wakefield Way for leg #3, a week later than planned, riding the #232 bus out to Horbury Bridge for a 10.25am start on another short day, with less than happy weather in the air.

Self at Horbury Bridge

I know it's an official trail, and should be walked as written, but the first 3+ miles of the day are covering paths I have already trodden, on the Calder & Hebble navigation, the Kirklees Way and the Dewsbury-Ossett greenway, and as I'm at such proximity to another couple of things which interest me, I'm going to allow myself a small measure of editorialising. Set out north across the Calder then, instead of hitting the tow path, passing through Horbury Bridge village, striking out on the rising Storrs Hill Road towards the plateau which Horbury and Ossett sit upon, and pausing to take a look at the site of Healey Mills Goods yard, initially opened in 1920 and massively expanded as a hump marshalling yard in 1960, but now only home to a burgeoning forest among the rails since its closure in 1987. It's relic to be admired from many angles as I follow the perimeter path making the westwards track, past the old motive power depot, towards Healey itself, the industrial hamlet which supported a trio of mills at it height, and still sustains industry and the home of Ossett Brewery nowadays, thus keeping the Brewer's Pride pub in business. Meet the official Wakefield Way route, and the Kirklees Way trespassing on its neighbour's turf, as the path loops around the Healey Old Mills site, but I'm soon doing my own thing again, hitting the rising path away from the Calder, and getting the good views that really show that properly hilly Calderdale stretches further to the east than you would credit it, with the field walk eventually leading me up to the Runtlings housing development, on the southern edge of Ossett.

Wakefield Way #2 - Bretton Park to Horbury Bridge 06/06/15

9.8 miles, via Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Bank Wood, New Hall, Overton and Middlestown.

Self at Bretton Park

I don't feel like I've had my A-Game on all week prior to this weekend, so I'm glad I've only got a short section of the trail to do right now, not requiring an early start but I still don't get onto the trail until 10.50am, thanks to horrible connections at Wakefield Bus Station and a slo-ow ride out to Bretton Park on the #96. So almost elevenses time already once we get going, entering the Yorkshire Sculpture Park on the path that shadow the edge of the River Dearne channel to the north of the Bretton Lakes, and a fearsome wind comes on, just to add another degree of difficulty to the day when I feel like I'm running at only 90% already, and the fields offer more sheep than sculpture, and my philistinism kicks in as Henry Moore is one of those artists whose works really fail to engage me. The track follows the lawn in front of Bretton Hall, down to the bottom corner of the park, where the 123454321 sculpture in breezeblocks and one of Anthony Gormley's figures high atop a tree are the most engaging works to be seen, and the northward cue of the path takes me around the YSP's perimeter offering views to the west last seen when on the Kirklees Way last year. At the top lane, our path joins the track across the northern pastures of Bretton park, with the wind kicking in hard as it ascends, but the views across the Dearne Valley compensate, and I'm struck that despite knowing that Wakefield and Kirklees district share a border, I did not expect them to have so much in common at this particular corner.

Wakefield Way #1 - Wintersett to Bretton Park 30/05/15

14.8 miles, via Haw Park, Walton Common, Newmillerdam, Notton & Woolley.

Official trails means Selfies!
at Anglers Country Park

Still May, eh? This is the month that just keeps giving, and a good cue is given to start on the next scheme for 2015, using the top of the year (already!) for the fifth and final of the West Yorkshire circular trails, the Wakefield Way, and it has to go down this year as it's been on my last three to-do lists. Time to get familiar with the district's buses on the course of this trail, riding out to the hamlet of Wintersett on the #196 for a start after 9.30am, not the most auspicious of start points but a half mile short of the official start at Anglers Country park, and that's not an extra mile along Haw Park Lane that I can be certain of walking twice. Fresh Spring weather will be the order of the day as the lane is taken between the ACP and Wintersett reservoir, heading into Haw Park woods, for nice broad woodland tracks for most of the way until a very sketchy route directs us to the towpath of the Barnsley canal, eventually. Not always keen on retracing old paths, but I'll make an exception for this one, as Walton Park cutting might be my favourite place in the county (no, really), and that send us onto Sike Lane and to Rose farm before hitting the field boundaries on Walton Common, passing over the old North Midland mainline and along the lane so named to the descending path through the barley down to the beck crossing and then uphill through fields of rapeseed to the microwave mast on Gallows Hill.

Leeds to Wakefield 25/05/15

11.3 miles, via Clarence Dock, Rothwell, Stanley and Pinder's Fields.

Back to the West Riding after my jollies, and time for a change of focus after spending most of the first four months of the season in the lands to the north-east of Leeds, it's now time to head into the heart of Wakefield district for the height of the walking year, and using Bank Holiday Monday to cut a new trail between those two cities seems a good way to start. It's a modest distance, so we don't need an early start, departing Leeds station via the New Station Street entrance at 10.35am, taking the steps down to the passage along the side of the railway arches to Lower Briggate, mostly for the sake of variety, before hitting Call Lane to make for the Centenary footbridge (not sure which one it celebrates) over the River Aire to Brewery Wharfe. It's longer a virtual ghost town, last decade's residential developments having now filled up, but it lacks the neighbouring Tetley Brewery these days, and the trip through early 21st century city living continues as I cross Crown Point Road to walk through the Clarence Dock development, which sits well around the old canal wharf but fails to stimulate the senses as it seems to have been constructed in the same shade of grey as the sky. Student living now sits at the top of Clarence Road in the form of Liberty Dock, but light industry and post-industrial wastelands soon take over this outer edge of Hunslet, dominating the landscape from the A61 South Accommodation Road flyover and down Atkinson Street and National Road, all looking like its waiting for development of some kind to come this way.

Beverley to Kingston upon Hull 22/05/15

11.6 miles, via Beverley Beck and the River Hull.

Having not had to drop any days from my schedule on my Trail to the Coast has left me with a day free for a bonus walk, and it makes sense to make for the East Riding's other coast, and to the big city too, not least because a red route presents itself to guide me through this flat landscape. So get an early start from Beverley station at 9.15am, and I'll allow myself a few moments to admire the canopy roof, signal box and station house before moving away down Armstrong Way, and on to Flemingate, where the former industrial sites are getting redeveloped into a new shopping centre, which suggests that this town is in definitely in good health. This leads me to Beckside, now free of the road works that had blighted it all week (finally allowing view of the statue of a dock worker), and beyond lies Beverley Beck, the tidal channel which brought to outside word to the town for many centuries, canalised in 1802 and fuelling the relative industrial boom of the town in that period. Once even boatbuilding took place along this riverside, but now all the signs of industry have passed, the beck forming a starting point for leisure boating and the warehouse and dock buildings having gone to be replaced by apartments and a mid range waterside redevelopment, 'like Bruges' according to my Mother, but all feeling a bit airless and inert to me. Push on along recently developed path on the north side, under the A1174 relief road and into the countryside, thankfully on the other side of the beck from the anglers but having to negotiate the narrow road between boatyard and council depot, leading on to the crossing of the Beverley & Barmston drain, and passing across the flood lock at the small marina at the beck's end.

Beverley to Hornsea 20/05/15

16.7 miles, via Hull Bridge, Leven, Catwick & Sigglesthorne.

Only my fourth night away of my jollies, and already I'm on the last leg of my Trail to the Coast, which seemed like a serious undertaking when conceived during the winter, but now the sea lies only a few miles away across the flatlands of Holderness (or maybe not, that district might be to the south of my trail for today). A 9.35am start is due at Beverley station, but before the trail turns east, a large section of this town centre ought to be examined, taking my path down Trinity Lane, past the Masonic lodge, and to the bottom of Eastgate for a walk around the Minster Yard, taking a look at the outsize parish church which shows the town's medieval significance, before making my way up Highgate, and past the Wednesday Market Place, still setting out its stalls as we pass. Up the main drag of Butcher Row and Toll Gavel, showing the Georgian face of Beverley's second prosperous phase, passing the Saturday Market Place, and on to the other pair of Medieval relics, St Mary's church, which would be a proud parish church in any other town, and the 15th century brick Toll Bar, still with a main road running through its narrow entrance. Historical touring done, it's time to make for Norwood road, finally setting course for the coast and closing my loop around the town, crossing my previous path and following the passage of the A1035 over the railway and among the outer suburbs to cross the relief road and make my way along the shared use track alongside Beverley Meadows, which still functions as the town's common land. Break off the main road at Hull Bridge, taking the old road alignment to the original site of the crossing of the River Hull, replaced in 1976 after two centuries of use, and we turn to the bankside by the Crown & Anchor, rising onto the flood embankment and passing away for the noise of the roads to enjoy a leisurely, and long, walk at the riverside with fields for company and the town slowly receding from view.