The Spen Valley Ringway 28/04/12

From leaving the end of the Greenway, to getting to the bus stop in Oakenshaw, the day takes a decisive turn for the worse as the passable weather turns to an apocalyptic rainstorm which goes on and off for the remainder of the day. A normal day would have me beating a retreat, but the last 2 miles of today's walk is the part that I'd really be looking forward to, so I wait for the 268 bus and get sodden, and then have to work out where I have to get off the bus as we ride out of Cleckheaton and into Liversedge, diving off by Royds Park and hoping that I'm in the right place.

Active April: Day Four, part 2

The Spen Valley Ringway - Liversedge to Heckmondwike  1.8 miles

Head up Eddercliffe Crescent to join the Ringway, a stretch of the London & North-Western Railway's 'New Leeds Line' which ran from Wortley to Battyeford, built as a relief line in 1900 to release pressure from the main line through Morley Tunnel. Originally just a mile of cyclepath from Royds Park, Liversedge to Cook Lane, Heckmondwike was developed by Sustrans, and it was hardly the most inspiring of sections, offering little excitement from Garden Avenue, over the Listing Lane and Firthcliffe Lane bridges and into the site of Liversedge Spen Station. The Thornleigh Drive housing development here is not the most attractive, but probably looks prettier than oil depot which used to occupy the goods yard ever did. Finding the path which leads under Leeds Road, the A62, is a bit of a challenge, but then the damp drag takes us into Heckmondwike and up to the Old Hall, previously the childhood home of Joseph Priestley, and now a pub with one corner of the building missing because planning law was a lot more arbitrary when the railways were being built.


Leeds Road Bridge

Listing Lane Bridge

The Cook Lane bridge is a plain plate girder bridge, but is the first in a sequence of bridges which gives Heckmondwike something that is really architecturally special; a curved cutting with seven bridges in short order which add up to more than the sum of their parts. When older railways had been built, the towns served had usually grown up around them, but as the New Leeds Line was a relatively late arrival, the town was already in place so the railway was forced to burrow its way beneath it, giving us something altogether special. The second bridge, Bridge Street is actually a short tunnel, and is the first built in the LNWR style with blue engineering brick arch and masonry spandrels.


Cook Lane Bridge

Bridge Street Bridge / Tunnel











This path exists in its current form thanks to Yorkshire Water, who had to close and dig up large sections of the Greenway as part of a pipe laying scheme in 2010, and paid for the development of the Heckmondwike cutting as recompense, so don't think your water bills don't go to good use at times. Not simply a case of tarmacking a new path, though, vegetation had to be removed and 300 tonnes of rubbish, dumped by the locals over 20 years, had to be removed, before a new surface could be laid. The curve beyond the tunnel, then reveals the next three bridges, all accented in their own unique way, as they carry Jeremy Lane, King Street and Victoria Street.

Jeremy Lane & King Street Bridges 

Victoria Street Bridge

It may be pelting down with rain, but that only adds to the atmosphere, and it also means that I virtually have the path to my self, only two other groups of people are spotted out along the whole stretch, and you know what else is good? An almost total absence of vandalism. I love, love, love this path, one of the hidden railway gems of this country, it may lack the grandeur of the Forth Bridge or the artistry of the Box Tunnel, and not have solved an intractable engineering problem like any of the grand viaducts of the north country, but it is special in its own way. Sadly, it's hardly known about by anyone, even by many locals, and I take it as my business to promote it, and this is one case where the absence of the railway is actually a bonus, because what could once only be glimpsed in passing can be experienced in full. Passing under the last two bridges, Upper George Street and Cemetery Road, I find myself wearing a ridiculously cheerful grin.


Upper George Street & Cemetery Road Bridges

Heckmondwike Cutting from Old Station Court

Here is the site of Heckmondwike Spen Station, now housing under the name of Old Station Court, and the path ends here, but there's indication of the plan to continue it south, but a peer under the High Street bridge/tunnel indicates that the cutting beyond is yet to be cleared and I err at the idea of walking it because it'll probably be needlessly wet and unpleasant. Still worth tracing from above though, so onward down St James Street to the Church Lane Bridge, and then Horton Street to the Brunswick Street bridge, and then the neatly stone lined cutting ends and the most enormous open cutting reveals itself, and I'm surprised that this has never received the landfill treatment. Walking down the edge of that is really quite vertiginous and then finally to the Walkley Lane bridge, the last in Heckmondwike's sequence, and I hope that someone gives Sustrans the money to complete the path to join it to the Spen Valley Greenway, which stands only a few hundred meters distant, as this path should be enjoyed by everybody.


Church Lane Bridge, from High Street

Deep Cutting and Walkley Lane Bridge

So back to find the bus to take me back to Morley, and I hope you appreciate why this two miles of walk required me to provide quite so much explanation and illustration...


1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 97.7 miles