Dewsbury & D.R.C. Walk #1: Dewsbury to Birstall 02/04/21

9.1 miles, via Eastborough, Crackenedge, Hanging Heaton, Croft House, Soothill Wood, 

 Howley Hall, Howley Park, Cliff Wood, Birkby Brow Wood, Howden Clough, Copley Hill,

  Birstall Fields, Fieldhead, and Oakwell Hall Country Park.

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.

Birstall, Birkenshaw, Tong & Farnley Circuit 27/03/21

14 miles, from Morley Station, via Troy Hill, Scatcherd Park, Bruntcliffe, Howden Clough, 

 Brown Hill, Birstall, Gomersal (station), Birkenshaw Bottoms, Birkenshaw, Tong Moor, 

  Cross Lane End, Tong, Roker Lane Bottom, Farnley Park, New Blackpool, Farnley Wood, 

   St Bernard Mills, Rooms, Clark Springs Wood, Lane Side, and Daisy Hill.

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. 

Greater Dewsbury & Crow's Nest Park Circuit 20/03/21

14.9 miles, from Morley Hole, via Dean Wood, 62 Leeds & Treefield Industrial Estates, 

 Gildersome Street, Birstall Retail Park, Birstall, Birstall Smithies, White Lee, 

  White Lee Common, Bunkers Hill, Staincliffe, Westborough, Boothroyd, Crow's Nest Park,

   Eightlands, Springfield, Batley Carr, Commonside, Batley Junction, Soothill, Croft House,

    Woodkirk, Tingley Common, Birks, and Town End.

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. 

South Leeds & Middleton Circuit 13/03/21

15.3 miles, from Morley station, via Daisy Hill, Churwell, Cottingley Hall, Royds Farm Ind Est, 

 Beeston Royds, Gelderd Road, Monk Bridge, Granary Wharf, Camp Field, Crown Point 

  retail park, Pottery Field, Hunslet Moor, Middleton Railway, Middleton Park (Belle Isle 

   railhead, & Broom Pit), Middleton, Thorpe Lane, Tingley Common, Glen Road playing fields, 

    and Magpie Lane rec. 

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. 

Wilton & Oakwell Hall Parks Circuit 06/03/21

13 miles, from Morley Hole, via Bruntcliffe, Schole Croft, Howley Beck, Upper Batley, 

 Wilton Park Greenway, Wilton Park (Carlinghow Shaw & Bagshaw Museum), 

  Birstall Smithies, Birstall, Oakwell Hall Country Park (Well Spring Woods, Oakwell Hall, 

   & Colliery Field), Gomersall (station), Birkenshaw (Swincliffe), Kittle Point Wood, 

    Drighlington, Lumb Bottom, Nethertown, Cockersdale, Gildersome, and Dean Wood.

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.

Middleton & Cross Flatts Parks Circuit 27/02/21

11.1 miles, from Morley Station, via Newlands, Owlers, West Wood, Middleton Park 

 (via The Urban Bike Park, Middleton Wood, Belle Isle railhead, Broom Pit, The Lake, 

  The Carriageway, The Rose Garden, Wood Pit, & Park Wood), Cross Flatts Park, Beeston,

   Millshaw (& the playing fields), Broad Oaks, and Daisy Hill. 

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.

Morley Roads: North-West Circuit 20/02/21

9.8 miles, from Morley Station, via Morley Hole, Lane Side, Churwell, Cottingley Hall, 

 Beeston Royds, Far Royds, New Blackpool, New Farnley, Upper Moor Side, Cockersdale,

  Drighlington, Adwalton, Gildersome Street, Bruntcliffe, and Morley Hole. 

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.