With the 1,000 miles before I'm 40 target achieved, and three more 1,000 mile targets set, this is not the time to rest on my laurels, as there are new paths to be traced, and this journey through my mind has me thinking of a view from my childhood that I have never forgotten, and I want to go see if it's still there, and still the awesome sight that my 7-10 year old brain thought it was. It will also allow me to complete an error from my 2012 season, having bragged about walking from one side of West Yorkshire to the other, when in reality I had actually come up a few miles short, plus it's in a corner of the county that hasn't been visited yet, and it allows me to get in another stretch of Canal Walking after being forgotten during 2012's exercise, as well as earning a Better Late then Never tag, as you might have noticed that the power stations down the Aire valley have kept popping up in my commentaries, but have remained at a studied distance.
Castleford to Knottingley, via Fairburn Ings and the Aire & Calder Navigation. 10 miles
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| Library & Old Market Hall, Castleford |
Start out from Castleford, which is in real danger of becoming the Ilkley of 2014, at 9.50.am, where it's feeling distinctly colder than it was when I left home, so I curse myself for thinking that Spring had sprung, and be glad that I'm still wise enough to keep my woolly accessories in my bag, and the railway station has at least had a new shelter installed so the locals might not get their buns frozen. So it's going to be a cold and heavily clouded sort of day then, ideal for finding another route through Castleford, which takes me down Powell Street past the Royal British Legion and the disappointingly located War Memorial, and thence into the throng of shoppers on Carlton Street, where it seems to be market day, and this end of town seems to be doing good business at the moment. We can also get ourselves a bit of astroglide synchronicity, bizarrely, and appreciate the nicest bits of Victoriana along the way, notably the Public Library and the Old Market Tall, before emerging to Bridge Street and crossing over the road in front of The (former) Ship Inn, and strangely nearly every pub of this scale and vintage seems to closed these days. Over the Aire on the 1808 bridge and then onward to Lock Lane and the path along the Castleford Cut of the Aire & Calder, and this is my third time along here, as it's the only viable route out of the town in this direction, and I promise myself that I will not not come this way again for a while, just as well I'm not trying to compile 1,000 miles of uniquely walked paths as this is a mile that keeps on coming around. So past Bullholme Lock and into the Fairburn Ings Nature Reserve, and the view to the north and west is well known, but my track for the day is going to take me into the East, and the unknown, so head off beneath Castleford Viaduct, and I swear it looks more corroded and warped with every occasion I encounter it. Once again we are into a post industrial landscape, as the coal mining industry once dominated the north bank of the Aire, all the way from Swillington to the county boundary, five major open cast pits operated from the 1870s until declining from the mid 20th century, and along the way of my walking, I have already met the workings at St Aidan's, Allerton and Ledston (Luck), and the remaining pair of Wheldale and Fryston will fall into today's wanderings.
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| River Aire |
The path I'm choosing to follow is one that claims to exist on Google maps, but not on the OS and we all know what happened the last time I attempted I attempted to follow one of those, so thankfully, the permissive path is clearly marked and contained by a fence, not allowing us to wander too close to the banks of the Aire, which rapidly drops below the height we are at, indicating more canalisation to protect the mine workings. The industrial chimneys of Castleford recede from view, and the riverside turns to feeling remote quickly, with the broad sweep of the Aire way down below us, and the wrinkles of the nature reserve rising to the north, it seems that the site of Wheldale colliery has been reclaimed by the RSPB to be a particularly wild stretch of nature reserve, preferring rough ground to the stretches of wetland to either side of it. Judging by the colour of the soil, it seems to have been constructed from massive quantities of colliery spoil to create a semi-lunar lunar landscape as it's mostly scratchy grass and lone outliers on the hillsides, clearly the sort of habitat that might take a few years to develop, so more of my attention drifts to the plant life down by the path, to see what I can recognise that isn't Birch trees. My skill at botany is demonstrably lacking though, as I fail to correctly identify any of the blossoms or seed bearing cases among the spring growths, and it's mostly dried up reeds, 'Catkins' expressed generically, or last years dried up Rosehips or Hawthorns that I can recognise. The river provides a graceful and considerable presence though, and a good viewpoint is met at the end of the Wheldale colliery section as the track rises to offer a profile to the west and a look toward the major featured objective of the day, Ferrybridge Power Station.Meet the path of the older half of the RSPBs Fairburn Ings estate, moving away from the riverside on a decently hard surface towards the large wetlands that occupy the site of Fryston colliery, which has been a protected habitat since the 1950s after flooding effected the mine workings, and this being a notable country park means the casual stroller, dogwalkers and twitchers emerge at all quarters after my solitude across the previous fields.
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| Faiburn Ings Lake |
The initial views are somewhat disappointing, as the path offers no vantage point to either wetland or riverside, and I wonder if there really was another path closer to the riverside, but eventually patience is rewarded as the embankment that separates the lake from the river is met, constructed from spoil by the NCB to prevent flooding of the workings and to prevent colliery waste from choking the river, which in due course created the most populated inland bird sanctuary in the country. It provides an excellent track with waterfowl to one side and pleasure boating on the other, beneath a canopy of Birch (naturally) and Alder, according to the notice boards. Elevenses are taken at Village Bay viewing shelter, across from Fairburn village, but not having any binoculars means I cannot identify anything smaller than a Swan. Move on with the distant sounds of a slow moving train rumbling away, and descend from the embankment to see that the railway isn't far away at all, crossing the imaginatively named Aire Bridge on the NER line between Castleford and Sherburn in Elmet, an exclusively freight line these days. Resume the riverside trail under skies that seem to have grown even glummer, passing over the lake's outlet channel and sluice, which is choked with foul dark sludge, indicating plenty of colliery run off, and then pass under the railway bridge (which can claim to be viaduct by my criteria of possessing three arches), and it's a beauty too, built on a skew with some excellent brickwork in pale yellow. It even has a footbridge attached to its eastern side, apparently built for miners who lived on the south bank if the Aire to use to reach the mines on the north bank, which must have made for a lot of workday walking back in the day, now only used by the local dogwalkers and amateur anglers. Next up comes an altogether less interesting structure, not showing up on my E289 because it is that old, and we pass under the A1(M) carried on its massive steel girder spans atop concrete columns, and whilst it has imposing hugeness in its favour, it lacks the grace and detail of the 19th century's constructions.
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| Ferrybridge Power Station |
Attention can now be focused towards the featured objective of the day, Ferrybridge Power Station, which starts to loom large on the south bank, having occupied the site through its three incarnations since 1926, and initial views of the coal piles to the south make them appear small, until you recognise that the toy vehicles working them are very big indeed, and are made to look tall by the 115m cooling towers and the 198m chimneys. Good to see a bit of real industry going on, after so many trips through the post-industrial landscape, lots of coal on the move the feed the generators and turbines, but even here we can look into the industrial past as the docks are no longer in use and the barge hoist stands permanently idle. The path suddenly takes a left turn away from the riverbank, as the land is owned by the successors to the CEGB, and it makes it way between a pair of settling beds, where fouled water from the power station is pumped to allow the particulates to settle, leaving deep pools of slurry in their wake, not the sort of thing you'd want to encounter at close quarters. Find the footpath that leads to the nearest available village, Brotherton, a name that will be immediately recognisable to anyone who has had dealings with the hospital or university in Leeds, and emerging from the driveway of the local garage, I note that the bus stops tell us that we are now in North Yorkshire, so that is West Yorkshire officially traversed from side to side. It looks like a pleasant enough village, with a bit too much pebble dashing for my taste, but you'd think not exactly desirable with the cooling towers looming across the river, but there's still new building going on so what do I know? It's got a good Victorian church too, St Edward the Confessor fooling me for a much older building and at the bottom of the village we have a really good box girder bridge taking the railway across the Aire, on another freight line linking the lines above and below the river. The cooling towers now loom particularly large as the path drops down to the riverside meadow, and this sort of field is apparently what an 'Ing' is, the low lying semi-marshland by the riverside that is only really any use for occasional grazing.
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| The Old Bridge, Ferrybridge |
The feature ahead is the A162, which until not so long ago was the A1 and the Great North Road before that, and interest must be taken in the Old Bridge of 1804, standing at the site of the crossing that has endured since the 12th century, for centuries the lowest crossing on the Aire, and my route will take me across it, amazed that this Grade 1 listed beauty stayed in use until the 1960s, and it's from the newer bridge above that my childhood memory of the view of the Power Station comes. Crossing the river on various trips to York in the early 80's always had me in awe at the size and apparent vitality of the Power Station, and was always the sign of finally arriving in the north after the long ride from Leicester. Sadly, the view is not the same to my older eyes, it looks like a power station these days, undoubtedly big but not inspiring the awe that it did, so I'll look down into the flatland of the lower Aire to see Eggborough (putting on the best show today), and the distant belching beast at Drax (the only Yorkshire village to share a name with a Bond villain) to reconnect with my childhood fascination. Crossing over to the south bank and returning to West Yorkshire, my older head will note other things instead, like the generating hall of the first 'A' power station, retained as workshops and the prettiest building on the site, and also the Great North Road toll house on the edge of the local memorial garden, apparently To Let and added to the fantasy house list. Meeting the edge of Ferrybridge village, we'll head below the A162 bridge to find the way around the back of the Golden Lion pub to join the path alongside the Aire & Calder Navigation to traverse my way along the edge of the Knottingley & Ferrybridge Cut, and I'll need to take the footbridge over the flood lock to take the route along the north side. Oddly, it's from here that the best view to the west is gained, maybe that extra bit of elevation makes the view better, and the cooling towers that bit more imposing, and the collection of canal buildings add to the scene, especially the Lockeeper's house.
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| The Knottingley Cut |
Onward down the canal path, nicely laid out in recent years 'assisted by Landfill Tax Credit funding from Darlington Quarries through WREN & British Waterways' to which I can only say 'You're Welcome!', and it's nice to be back on a busy path, well used by the local exercisers and the police, strangely, and focus ahead lands on what really looks like a flour mill to my eyes. Thus I'm ridiculously delighted when proven right, it's King's Mill by name and on a site where milling has endured for over 800 years, but not related to the ordinary bread that still plagues the market. There's certainly been some post industrial development along several parts of the cut, with some rather nice riverside apartments and a few back gardens cascading down to the canal bank, and in other places it's a nicely green oasis, with a riverside garden nestling between the bridges of the A645, which sit on considerable rock cut abutments with excellent exposed strata (probably the last substantial exposed rock between here and the coast) looking much more railway than road. There's still industry to be seen, both old, illustrated by the coal staithes and boat wharves, and active, with two major plants backing onto the canal, and there's even a canalside pub, The Steam Packet, to tempt the ambler, but what is obviously lacking is a marina, as the best location for one is right opposite a very active factory, so I guess the leisure and residential boaters have found a better place to dwell. The canal bank does have a traveller encampment though, set up on an available stretch of grass that doesn't have any better current use, and having passed under five bridges along the way of the path, I ascend to cross the sixth on the cut, Trundles Lane, to find that the path down to the lock rejoining the Aire is fenced off, so my mile of canal walking comes to an end as the canal divides, but beyond the further industrial plant and the county's last active coal mine lie two more potential stretches through a largely flat landscape, 13 miles along river and canal to Selby and 20 miles in a virtually straight line to Goole.
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| Knottingley Town Hall |
Depart the Aire & Calder navigation to make my way back through Knottingley for some road walking and to try to get a handle on this town, firstly heading along Fernley Green Road to identify the major industrial plant at the east end of the cut, which seems to be Allied Glassware, another industry with a long history in the town, before crossing the Marsh End bridge to get a bit of residential history. I had the town as being mostly colliery terraces and council houses, a lot like Castleford, but this corner has a good mix of slightly nicer houses, including some good mid-sized Victorian townhouses, and Cow Lane leads me over the canal again to the local shopping parade along Racca Green, with an ancient Morris Oxford providing a superb retro throwback. This leads back to the A645 Weeland Road, where the terraces look like they need a good scrub to get off the accumulated road dirt, and the
Stölzle Flaconnage glass works offers a long perimeter, with social club and old works office hidden with in, whilst the old police station is now a bike shop (with cells!). Over the canal to the Town Hall, which looks totally like a repurposed non-conformist chapel, nowadays the local community centre for dance and exercise (plus bingo!), and the parish church of St Botolph hides away from view behind the trees, and more older houses hugging the roadside, I'd venture that Bridge End house is one of the oldest in the entire town. Beyond the last canal bridge the town looks a lot more like the one I'd anticipated, council houses and 50s semis with flour mill and power station looming beyond, and a larger parade of shops along Hill Top, with the sport centre providing a nod to modernist architecture, and the Morrisons superstore providing a useful bolthole when I feel the need for an emergency sandwich. The pubs at this end of the town would seem appealing if I had a longer wait for my ride home, but I'm making good to my schedule, so pass both The Bay Horse and the Station Inn, to roll down to the station hidden away behind more industrial unit, a couple of platforms sat between sidings and the railway junction for a 1.50pm finish. It may be at the limit of WY Metro services for this end of the county but it's not underused judging by the crowd of revellers that gathers for the train service that I'm probably going to end up naming the 'Five Towns Party Express'.
Next on the Slate: A long stroll to the heart of Kirklees.
1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1011.1 miles (2014 total: 97.9 miles)
(Up Country Total 931.7 miles)
(Solo total: 822.2 miles)
(Declared Total: 802.9 miles)
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