Every walking season so far seems to hit a point in the Spring where my early season enthusiasm drops off and the need to take some time out from the trail comes down, mid-May last year and mid-June in 2012, and sure enough, at the end of May this year, my enthusiasm falls off once again. It's mostly the need to have a Saturday morning lie in this time around , and not having much desire for the planned trail along the Barnsley canal, thus ending the month with only 7 days walked when I had hoped for 9, but the need this time is more the need for a rest, and knowing that June is going to be a much quieter month, some time out feels earned. However, the change of months has some excellent weather upon it, and that means the weekend can't go to waste, and with a trio of walking targets still outstanding from my last walk, it takes only the slightest amount of shuffling to find a fresh route to take in a Sunday morning stroll through the industrial heritage of Leeds once again.
Morley to Leeds, via Middleton Park & Hunslet 7.6 miles
 |
| West Wood Lane |
There's not much life to be seen around Morley Town hall at 9am on a Sunday morning, and the first hour of the trip will feel like I'm out among the early birds for once, and as I'm finding so many different routes out of town on this year's travels, I depart from Queen Street via Peel Street this time around. There are still fresh things to see too, like a number of mills and factories, used, re-used and derelict, as well as a sizable Victorian school that is now home to path of the Joseph Priestley college, which give me further indication as to the scale and significance of my place of residence, Morley is definitely an entity in its own right rather than a satellite of a greater one. I move on through Levisham Park, the third public green space in the town, and little more than a playing field between the surrounding houses, but another illustration of the town's civic pride, and one I hadn't noticed before, and here the early risers are already out for a kickabout. Onward to Middleton Road and its council estate, where the south facing houses have a 12 hour sun trap in their front yards, and folks are already out to enjoy them, and as i head east, directly into the sun, the heat starts to really make its presence felt, it must already be 20 degrees Celsius and I wonder if I have enough water for such a hot day, even though I don't plan to be going for longer than three hours. Move on to Wide Lane and past the Gardeners Arms and the rapidly redeveloping Newlands School, where the odd farm building remains among the suburban piles and bungalows with the odd elevated access path, before exiting the town to set sights to the hillside on top of which Middleton resides. Drop onto Dewsbury Road and cross over to the bridleway that leads down through the fields over Millshaw Beck and up towards the railway line, which we pass beneath as our ascent starts, thankfully with plenty of shading as we go. West Wood Land also passes below the abutments of the embankments of the GNR spur between Beeston and Ardsley junctions and that's another couple of excellent masonry assemblages to add to the list, glowing warmly in the sun, and after a shaded ascent the track seems to peter out and I'm left to bluff a path towards Middleton's cyclepath, looking back to see a fresh perspective back to Morley, the reverse of which I must have seen 2,000 times by now.
 |
| Middleton Park waggonway |
Not entirely certain where I need to make the final steep ascent to the Middleton estate, I hit the first well trammelled path that i find up through the trees, happy that the residents have cut a walkable path in this corner, and I emerge about 50m from where I had expected to, passing through a back yard to come out on Bodmin Road in the corner of the estate that has far too much late 60s styling and grey stucco for my tastes. I doubt many walkers visit this particular council estate, so I move on conspicuously, up Bodmin Crescent and past the Plantation pub, and the pizza parlour that seem to have been styled after a garden waste incinerator, up to the approach road and out onto the Ring Road, right opposite the water tower that is probably the district's most distinctive landmark. To Town Street where the semis are scaled to suggest a suburban hope that Middleton never attained, as well as a parade of cottages that suggest a vintage that one wouldn't expect for the area, but the truth is Middleton's history is key to the development of the city of Leeds. The ancient manorial estate is now home to Middleton Park, leased to the city and rather high Victorian at its southern edge, but also the wildest of its green spaces, featuring many acres of ancient woodlands and still home to the remnants of the coal industry that can be dated back to medieval times. The most substantial of these can be seen with the reconstructed Horse Gin, a winding mechanism used in the 17th century, and the path I take leads down the horse & gravity waggonway that once transported coal away from the pits to the town, a peaceful and quiet trail through the shade, with slight evidence of the bell pits and spoil heaps lurking in the undergrowth. The last of the trio of pits on the site remained in use until 1968, and I think its pretty fair to say that the coal from Middleton first established Leeds as a town of substance before firing its growth in the industrial age to eventually grow to the city we know now. I wonder of the dog walkers and cyclists on the track appreciate the history in the surroundings, they ought to as there are various trails and illustrative boards to illuminate it, and do I hope the citizens of south Leeds love this park dearly.
 |
| Middleton Railway |
Of course, the local industrial history of Middleton is about more than coal, and exiting the park we meet the other significant innovation of note at Park Halt, the southern terminus of the Middleton Railway, authorised by act of parliament and built in 1758 by Charles Brandling as a horse drawn waggonway to transport coal to the city, making it the first established railway in the world. In 1812, it became the first commercial steam railway after its conversion to iron rails by manager John Blenkinsop and engineer Matthew Murray, and despite the closure of the collieries, the Middleton railway trust took over its operation in 1960 as the first standard gauge line to be operated by volunteers and as it has never passed out of use in 256 years, it is the longest continuously used railway in the world. Considering these facts against the fact that is is hidden away among the shifting industries and redevelopments of south Leeds, and that makes it maybe the city's most notable industrial survival story, and this would be a great cue for a train to roll up as I take in the history, but no such luck. The cyclepath follows the track northwards though, and the view to the city emerges as I go on, and the development of the South Leeds stadium into the John Charles Centre for Sport has certainly come on since I last came this way, and the South Leeds academy seems to be the major upper school for this quarter of town too. Passing over the road bridge midway down gives me a chance to orientate my perspectives towards Beeston and east Leeds before carrying on down a much less cared for section of path between rail track and factories to meet the tunnels beneath the M621, which makes the railways survival even more improbable when you consider that the original path of the M1 was built across it. Beyond is the yard of the Moor Road terminus, on the edge of Hunslet, and a peer through the gates shows that Slough Estates No.3 is steaming up to get the railway's going shortly, and I carry on hopeful of views into the yard, but a thick hawthorn hedge has been grown to discourage unwanted visitors and observers. This is definitely a place to visit if you have a thing for industrial locomotives, which is the reason that Hunslet resonates in my mind, after all, but they are mostly hiding from view, and all I can see are those hoping to be restored from the rusting hulks that they have become, like a much smaller version of Barry scrapyard.
 |
| Hunslet Engine Company office |
Follow the path below the A61 roundabout, and along the edge of the playing fields to the footbridge over the motorway next the to the site of Hunslet railway station on the former Midland line towards Castleford, and a look over the district shows up just how much it has changed in the last century, indeed it's probably the best example of urban regeneration in the city. I've had several colleagues who grew up in Hunslet's terraces, and have said that they cannot comprehend the changes that the area has endured, from the slum clearances and demise of heavy industry, to be replaced by high rise flats and council estates, which have in turn passed to be replaced by an almost suburban landscape, proof if you needed that cities are never set in time, but continue in flux forever. Someone with a keen eye, and one who has taken an interest in the Godfrey edition of old OS maps can still travel back in time though, back to 1906 to find the remains of the locomotive works which made Hunslet's reputation, hiding away among the contemporary industries which endure beyond the A61 along Jack Lane. The offices of the Hunslet Engine Company is the most prominent survivor, established in 1864 and remaining active on the site until as recently as 1995, lending the districts name to generations of industrial locomotives and still extent as a going concern, the rails to the works still embedded into the road surface as if hopeful that the industry may one day return. Next door is the sadly disused office of the Boyne Engine works of Manning Wardle, active on this site from 1858 to 1927, and a notable survivor, and the feeling is that every old building around here might have an interesting history attached to it, and I will need to seek out the former homes of John Fowler & Co, Kitson & Co and Hudswell Clark in the future too, as Hunslet deserves the study that I have lavished on Holbeck. Pass along Leathley lane, over the stone cutting of the former Midland railway line to the goods depot on Hunslet Lane, now home to Crown Point Retail park, and I get the feeling that someone might be living in the transport container below the bridge as someone must be tending the grazing horses. Onwards past the cars going to Costco, and noting the remaining terrace ends that sit beside Hunslet Road, possibly the only survivors of the slum clearances which changed the district's face forever, and even with the old industries passing into history, a couple of wholly intact sites still endure by the main road, notably the Braihme Foundry and the Crown Point Print works.
 |
| Third White Cloth Hall |
Heading into town along Black Bull Street, the old industries have only left low walls by the roadside, with wastelands beyond awaiting redevelopment to accompany the contemporary living apartments of Clarence Dock and Brewery Wharf, and even though I was never a fan of Tetley's beers, the utter destruction of the Leeds brewery in 2012 after 189 years of operation is still a shift in history that stings. Pass over Crown Point bridge, and the River Aire to head into the city via The Calls, a street I have somehow never visited, though the William Turton warehouse on the corner has always been a aspiration residence location in my mind. I actually thought that it was all clubs and bars down here, but it's actually mostly residential down here behind Leeds Parish Church, finally appearing on one of my walks, and the fun end of the street seems to be further along, where a few riverside warehouses still await the snazzy redevelopment they might have expected to receive two decades ago. Up Crown Street, underneath the railway bridge to find the real survivor in Leeds history, the third White Cloth Hall, active as the city's market place for undyed cloth from 1776 to 1865, when the NER decided to build their extension to Leeds station through the middle of it. I don't think I'll ever understand how it survived, but it's now home to Pizza Express and the Brew Dog pub, where the young staff have facial furniture so luxuriant that even a long time beard wearer like myself can think 'Get a shave, you filthy Hipster'. Opposite is Cuthbert Brodrick's masterwork, the Corn Exchange of 1864, an architectural gem that needs no introduction, and then I head on along Boar Lane, which does need some explanation, as it may look like an agglomeration of Victorian building of various dates, but in reality it is mostly the work of one man, Leeds' great forgotten hero Thomas Ambler, creating an old road from scratch in the 1880s. There's also Holy Trinity church, and the shopping centre that has claimed its name to pass before heading across city square with its statue of Edward the Black Prince, various nymphs and the four Leeds worthies, of whom I'd campaign to replace James Watt (a Scot who worked in Birmingham) with the much more deserving Matthew Murray. Up Infirmary Street, where the hospital hasn't resided in nearly 150 years, and through the financial quarter along East Parade and on past the Town Hall and over Millennium Square to end my day at Cuthbert's again, at 12pm on the nose, with a good excuse for a lunchtime pint and a sit to absorb the maps that i brought with me, and don't think I'm getting bored of cutting fresh trails into Leeds either, I think I can still find two more distinct route to traipse before this walking season is done,
Next on the Slate: A week off for another 40th Birthday bash, which surely won't end as oddly as the last one, and after that,
Can I manage to fit in a Big Cumbrian Hill and a dinner date into one day? EDIT: Not even going to try, actually, instead another Kirklees stroll comes off the reserve list.
1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1136.2 miles
(2014 total: 223 miles)
(Up Country Total: 1056.8 miles)
(Solo Total: 937.8 miles)
(Declared Total: 928 miles)
No comments:
Post a Comment