I'm not going to ruminate on running out of steam as my third walking season runs into Autumn, that would involve even more writing when my enthusiasm for this blog is already at an all time low, so let's just admit that once October rolled around, I was desperate for a weekend off to have a couple of long mornings in bed and to look forwards to running down the season with some more modest exploits. That means there will be no attempt on Black Hill this year, and a late season jaunt to Mallerstang shifts to the improbable side of unlikely, and filling in the blanks on the map starts to look like the plan for the remainder of the year, as once the three years of lines have been overlaid on Google Maps, there are still a few distinct holes where my feet have failed to fall. So after the third celebration of a 40th Birthday this year, for my best friend IH whose distaste for birthdays is unmatched among all the people I know, has gone by on the Friday evening (Thai food and Ales in Hebden Bridge, if you are wondering), I've still got most a weekend to use, and going out for a Sunday morning exercise seems to be the best course, and to make a return trip to Calderdale after claiming that I would only make it out there the one time, and the plan for the day is Colne to Hebble, or out through the north of Huddersfield, and into Halifax from the south, both routes which I have not taken on my travels around the county.
Huddersfield to Halifax, via Lindley, West Vale and the Halifax Arm. 10.4 miles
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Greenhead Park War Memorial,
Huddersfield |
The day had promised sunshine from the outset, but a distinct pall of fog hangs over Huddersfield as I exit the station at 9.35am, and with the distinct temperature of Autumn, and I depart St George's Square via the cobbled road that leads in the direction of the bus station, leading onto Trinity Street, where the Catholic Centre is built in the 1960s version of Gothic, facing one of my favourite pub names in the county, the Old Hatte, and I pass out across the A62 ring road, and head past the old buildings of Huddersfield College and a couple of well concealed old factory buildings to hit the rising pavement of the A640. This could easily be the way out of town for the whole jaunt, but I like to pick my route according to the desire for green spaces, and soon depart form the Victorian terraces, which gradually improve in quality as you move away from the town centre, and detour into Greenhead Park, the sort of municipal recreation area which Huddersfield should extract great amounts of civic pride. Whilst many city centre parks look well-used and slightly run-down, this one is still immaculate, with well manicured lawns and most of its Victorian features still intact, including, bandstand, grotto, split level walkways, miniature railway and tennis courts. It is dominated by the wide boulevard leading up the town war memorial, a vast semi-circular colonnade around a memorial cross, standing atop balustraded terraces which from a sort of bastion around it, the sort of monument which puts most others in the shade, especially that in Leeds, and I'll walk all the way up it, despite the slippery going on the steps to admire the whole of this space. Moving on out of the park to the northern entrance, I'm seriously happy that this park has exceeded my expectations, and am glad that so many people come out to utilise it, even on a grimy morning like this one, and I leave knowing that this town has a park to be proud of, and from there it's over a couple of tenuous road crossings, back over the A640, and down the attractive terrace on Glebe Street. This trip over to the A629, and the leafier part of Huddersfield, is essential in order to see the Edgerton Road Tram Shelter, a wooden octagonal gazebo with a conical roof that has recently been restored to 1896 condition and repainted in the old town corporation livery of vermillion and cream, and now provides the sort of relic to a disappeared age of transport that really appeals to the wanderer such as myself, as you should all be aware by now.
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| Lindley Clock Tower |
Leafy alleyways are the draw for the ongoing route to the north, descending from the road to cross Birkby Brook and then rising to the path around St Patrick's Primary school, which has an impressive mural of dinosaurs on an exterior wall, before continuing along the fenced footpath at the perimeter which eventually becomes a track walled on both sides, offering no perspective as to your whereabouts behind the various back gardens and offers no solace for the claustrophobics as the tree roots cause the walls to bulge alarmingly in places. Pop out onto Birkby Hall Road, in an altogether more expensive corner of suburbia before slipping onto another secluded footpath back over to the A640, this one being altogether more spacious and overgrown, crossing over Halifax Road and along Daisy Lea Lane, which feels even more exclusive and claims to be a private road, complete with an ornate gate half way down to prevent the oi-polloi driving down it, but it's not an obstacle to deter the walker. Moving on into the district of Lindley, and passing the playing fields the sun starts to peek through the fog and the feeling of the day improving comes on as I emerge onto Lidget Street, where the parish church of St Stephen and the Arts & Crafts styled clock tower of 1902 stand on opposite sides of the road, another echo to the days of the Edwardian benefactor who loved their town so much that they donated something completely impractical. Onwards up the lane, where the shopping parade suggests further that this is one of the swankier parts of town, an impression that lasts until you meet the low rise estate in dark brick at the top on West Street, which is followed as we start the move out of town near the edge of Birchencliffe, where I have a route plotted across the fields from Weatherhill Road, but the path is impeded by a new housing development, which post-dates the Google Earth map, and whilst a tarmacked path leads midway through the houses, it stops dead at a fence and mess of buildings works, so I have to backtrack and along the way tell the 12 year old site agent that I am not lost, or a weirdo. So on up the lane to eschew following the Kirklees Way paths as a dense fog settles on the top of the Colne - Calder watershed, and I feel safest sticking to where there are pavements to keep me away from traffic as visibility dwindles as I move along to the A643 with only headlights, walls and pylons providing any visual frame of reference.
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| Holywell Green Viaduct |
No view into Calderdale as I cross the M62 at Haigh House Hill on this occasion, and a steep field walk downhill on the shortest possible route seems like a good way to get lost, but a right of way does exist to get down to Hollins Hey Road, and only the slightest of visual references are needed to come down to the correct corner of the field, but there's no way across the fence, or any appearance of there having ever been for that matter, so I have to get my best limboing on to get around the barbed wire and back onto a hard surface, convinced that this is one of those ROWs that no-one uses at all. The lane is the much easier way to descent, rapidly dropping from the hill crest, which looms behind you as you try to make landscape identifications through the mist, and quite a way has gone down before you start to pick out the distant shapes of buildings that must form the edge of the village of Holywell Green. Visibility starts to improve once I pass around Hollins Hey farm, with it's distinctly vintage outbuildings, and the lane rises slightly to meet the road at Broad Carr, finally getting us off the foggy hills, and this is followed until I can slip onto the bridleway that departs northwards next to the house with a very good view, a track which my ancient E288 still lists as being a road, bafflingly, as its too narrow and muddy for most traffic. Good views across to Holywell Green are gained before we meet a raised edge around the hillside that sits above the woodlands that rise above the mills on the village's edge, where some industry still endures, out of the sight of the passing world, and along the way we meet some rather ornate gateposts, which might challenge those seen near Gargrave all the way back on Day 1, and just like those ones, these ones don't appear to lead anywhere obvious. At the end of Rawroyd Wood, a slippery path leads from the works access road down to the stream, and my reason for coming this way is revealed, as the path drops below Holywell Green viaduct, on the L&Y's North Dean branch of 1875, built to service the textile mills of this village and nearby Stainland, and really heavily engineered for a branch not much over a mile in length, with two long viaducts on its route, and again the age of enterprise strikes me with just how ambitious it could be to drop huge amounts of capital on projects that might never have covered their investment. Still, it's always good to uncover another railway relic, when I'd thought Wheatley viaduct might have proved to be my last, and this is graceful beast, curving gently, but I can't be too sure of its length due to the surrounding tree growth, and the beck beneath is a riot of soap suds, apparently due to a leak at the works upstream.
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| West Vale Viaduct |
I can't get a good view when I look back from the north either as the low sun has finally emerged, dropping it into contrast, but as I move out through the muddy field to Stainland Road, among the wary-looking cows, the view forwards illuminates the village of Greetland, spread across its elevated hillside, a place which I have had only the slightest of interactions with on my travels. From the road, where the signage for another works is quite hilariously multi-lingual, attention moves forward to the distant bridge over it, West Vale viaduct and me pondering the possibility of the old railway getting a second life as a cycle path, which as far as I had know had been put to bed because of to many NIMBYs, so as I move into West Vale, I'm positively overjoyed to see the heads of cyclists riding over the it, and I look to walk over the viaduct myself, but unfortunately have no idea how to get onto it from the southern end. So my passage takes me along Stainland Road, under the viaduct to find there are few good angles to photograph it from between the terraces, before losing sight if it altogether as I pass around the huge mill in the centre of the town, then hairpinning back on Saddleworth Road to finally get a good view of it along most of its length and to be gladdened that the structure endured since ending its life in 1959. A cycle path, a tiny stretch of Route 69 (dude) leads up the embankment beyond to link to Rochdale Road, but the trackbed southwards is now open to use, after a construction that ultimately took 6 years to get it open earlier in 2014, and I wander my way across the bridge, adding some extra miles to my day and offering some superb views up and down the valley of Black Brook, with Greetland looming above the valley to the north, another one with a good curve too, but hard to hang over the edge to capture with the camera. Roll off past the heavy fencing to keep me out of the eye line of the residents, and drop out on Green Lane, where a ridiculously large house has become a residential care home amongst the suburbia. Back down to Stainland Road, but don't retrace steps., instead take the path that leads along the edge of Black Brook, still looking like the piddly little stream it was up near Scammonden Water, from where no good views are gained down the valley, before arriving up on Saddleworth Road again, and ploughing on down among the terraces to close the loop and get back on track towards Halifax.
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| Clay House, Greetland |
Up to the trackbed once again, and continue northwards along the remaining stretch of the North Dean branch, down the heavily shaded and quiet cutting down to Rochdale Road, a fine bit of reuse for a couple of hundred yards of old railway line, and who knows, it may one day get all the way back to Holywell Green and I'll hopefully be around to walk it again. The bridge over the B6113 is now missing, so descend to the pavement for a short stretch, and then slip into the lane that leads up to Clay House, almost seen when I walked the Calderdale Way, but now to get a visit properly, at least once I've observed the Sunday league game on the football field below and admired the collection of parish boundary stones inlaid into the retaining wall along the roadside. Clay House is to be admired for certain, built in the 1650s and still in the ownership of the Clay family after all these years, it now mostly serves as a wedding venue, which makes it this district's stylistic and cultural counterpart to Oakwell Hall, a gem in blackened stone that could easily be a fantasy nuptials venue if the realities of my life are ignored. I'd happily linger in its heavily shaded parklands if it wasn't for the business of having to keep going, so I'll return to a familiar track and pavement as I walk along the side of the B6112, Stainland Road, passing under the Calder Valley Line and over the River Calder, doing my Calderdale way retracing all the way up to the guillotine lock on the Calder & Hebble Navigation. Then it's re-treading the footfalls of my canal walking as I wander my way around Salterhebble marina and up by the pair of locks with the gorgeous little lock-keeper's cottage adjacent, looking altogether more appealing in the light of today than it did two years ago. Set course northwards from there, and onto a fresh track as I make my way along the towpath of the Halifax Arm, the only section of the Navigation which passed out of use, closing in 1942 as the 14 locks along its 2 mile route rendered it deeply impractical, especially in a wartime economy, and whilst only a third of a mile of it endures in water, it's a pleasing little glade with a popular path for both strollers and cyclists, sitting slightly elevated above the silvery Hebble Brook, another of West Yorkshire's rivers that never quite asserts itself into major stature despite the size of its valley.
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| Exley Wharf, the Halifax Arm |
The only enduring feature along this remnant of canal is the Exley Wharf, where it now terminates, providing a watery backdrop for the local Premier Inn, probably one of the better situated ones in this land, and it would be really nice to have a towpath walk all the way into Halifax, but building and redevelopment have rendered that impossible, but the cycleway continues following the canal route as closely as possible. This is quite literally true as it passes from the wharf under the Salterhebble Hill bridge, beneath the A629, and passing through the clear remains of the stonework of a lock chamber before sitting on a ledge along the edge of the brook, then around the edge of the housing block at Millside Way and passing over the aqueduct over Hebble Brook to continue the rise up the valley. The former channel gets vaguer as we go, each rise encouraging the walker to look for more forgotten lock stonework, and the dead giveaway is a former overbridge to nowhere hidden away beneath the cover of trees, whilst the remainder of the path is more of a fitness trail these days, and still busy on a Sunday lunchtime. The path runs out at the Phoebe Lane mill complex, where the road snakes among the factories to guide me onto the cobbled track that leads to the cobbled Shaw Lane, another one of the roads in this town that could easily transport the imagination back to the 19th century. This even more the case as it passes above the Shears Inn, and between the buildings of the Shaw Lane and Boys Lane mills, which only a lack of grime prevent them from looking like are still in the grip of the industrial age, this is probably the thing that I love most about this town, and we head back into the 21st century as I move over the railway and down the slick surface of Gaukroger Lane to get onto Shaw Syke and the fast track to the finish line. One short detour is needed though away from the pubs, terraces and warehouses and that's across the old iron footbridge over the former railway goods yard, from where the best views of the old GNR goods shed can be gained, but unfortunately this ROW doesn't drop you into the yard of Eureka! and passes under the railway to the wrong side of the tracks instead , so steps are retraced back to the road to roll up to the railway station, on the edge of the town and below the many elevated hills that surround Halifax. All done at 1.35pm, and that was an awful lot to see in a 4 hour stretch, with the good and bad sides of Autumn coming down during it too, so let's hope this end of season period proves as rewarding as this day did.
Next on the Slate: Taking the old alignment of the Leeds Country Way to Wakefield (again!).
1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1346.6 miles (2014 total: 433.4 miles)
(Up Country Total: 1251 miles)
(Solo Total: 1119.6 miles)
(Declared Total: 1138.4 miles)
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