This time last year I had just about run out of energy and was trying to keep the season going when my body was feeling extremely reluctant to keep going, and it's a good feeling to find that twelve months on my demeanour is feeling much more resolute and my body feels like there are still many more miles to be put down this season. A change in the weather helps, and after glum days and general exhaustion taking hold in September, the weekends of October have felt much more amenable to being out of doors, and with the joys of Autumn in the air, I finally look towards that major architectural feature that has cropped up again and again on my travels without me ever getting that near to it, and if the day is only going to be a relatively short stroll once again, I'm going to find plenty to see as I fill in another gap on the map and make a significant trip between Wakefield district and Kirklees for the very first time. (A deeply trainspotterish thing to note along the way is on riding out to Wakefield Westgate, I think that on all my travels, I have now ridden on every type of rail unit that serves the lines of West Yorkshire, the class 322 EMU being the only one not previously encountered, and whilst that has nothing to do with my walking exploits, it shows that a small part of my youthful brain is still active.)
Wakefield to Dewsbury, via Lupset & Ossett 9.3 miles
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| Thornes Park Motte |
On to the trail at 9.40am, anyway, leaving the new Westgate station, heading down past the entertainingly austere Unitarian chapel, and onto Westgate itself, another older-than-you'd-think road, and looking over to the now fenced off old Westgate station, an unattractive structure in beige bricks that is surely not much longer for this world. Passing under the railway, there's one good remnant of the original GNR station to note, the doorway to nowhere with is stone carved architrave, one of the few visible reminders that Westgate station endured before the late 20th century, and then it's away from the corner of Wakefield that still has Georgian origins, heading down Quebec street and Charlesworth Way among the many superstores and fast food joints that have all been built to a uniformly dull plan. There would be some good angles along here towards Wakefield viaduct, if it wasn't for the fact that I'm looking directly into the sun for most of them, convincing me that the longest viaduct in the county is also the hardest to photograph, and the city centre is left behind as I join the A636 Denby Dale Road, heading out into the burgeoning suburbia to take a closer look at St James, Thornes, a late Georgian styled church that look like a plain companion to St John from back in the town, one which oddly fails to appear in Pevsner West Riding (indeed the whole town gets an unreasonably short shrift. Across the road, is the park with three names, which I'll just call Thornes Park for the sake of brevity, and beyond the roadside pavilion and drinking fountain, is a small hill that maps claim is a Motte and Bailey, and detouring from the paths onto it reveals that this is indeed the case, with broad terraces running around its northern face and a prominent crown sitting below a cover of tree and shrubbery. You'd hope it would offer excellent views across the city, but the tree cover largely prevents that, and despite being a similar elevation to the castle at Sandal, there's no good sightline across the river either, still it's good to see it endure, largely as an exercise mound for the dog walkers, though getting down from it has me heading to the southern corner of the park rather than progressing westwards, and my disorientation gets worse when I find that a branch of Premier Inn dwells within the parkland itself, and I'm not entirely sure if I'm wandering into their property.
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| St George's, Lupset |
Hit the southern boundary anyway, progressing among the local sports facilities, offering tennis, bowls and miniature golf for a small fee, and avoiding the heavy duty runners who look like triathlon types compared to the usual class of joggers, I make my way around the Gill Syke Pond, where it looks like every Canada goose in the district has come to winter, and this is definitely a good spot to be if you enjoy urban birdlife. Last surprise in the park is the formal garden and glasshouses, arranged inform of the old 18th century house whose grounds have become parkland, and like Huddersfield, Wakefield has a municipal park that is very easy to love, and having enjoyed the green interlude, it's back to the roads again, following Thornes Road and the council estates out towards our old friend the A642. Not the prettiest of lanes to tramp along to be sure, taking time looking south towards Wooley Edge across the district golf course, before meeting the pub call the Lupset, which takes my route into the Lupset estate, naturally, heading up Broadway to find the shortest route out of Wakefield and into the countryside, found along St George's Road where Snapethorpe Primary School looks like it came out of the same pattern book as the infants and juniors that I attended in Leicester many moons ago. Also worthy of note is St George's church itself, seemingly far too old to live in a 1950s estate and an odd design too, a double naved church in stone with an undercroft because of its sloping site, and again ignored by Pevsner, which has me hoping that Yale UP will get its finger out and get the second volume of West Rising (South) published before we are too much older. To the fields anyway, where bold boundary paths take me west and north, despite possessing no ROWs heading up to another tertiary trip point, at a whopping 73m elevation, offering a good view of Horbury, one of the few towns in the county that I have totally failed to visit, and finally an appearance of the sentinel that has loomed over so many trips, Ossett parish church, peeking across the crest an already looking large at this distance. That's where our course is set, heading north to meet the cycle track that ruins downhill out of Wakefield and under the M1, a steep track that would be no fun to ascend followed by a long tunnel with no illumination at all, where it would be far to easy to startle and be startled in equal measure, as is found out in practice.
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| Trinity Church, Ossett |
Baptist Lane offers me my path into Ossett, which is soon found to be much more extensive than I would ever have thought, and the route to the Parish church starts along Teall Street, where suburbia has developed in about as piecemeal a method as is possible, and interest is only piqued by the few old farm buildings hidden among some of the 20th century's least inspired designs. Pound the lane all the way up to Queen's Drive, where the Malagor Thai restaurant occupies probably the most interesting building in this quarter, and ascending Towngate gives me another view as the parish church looms closer, but the most straightforward way to get there is actually to not follow the roads, which seem to have been laid out to be as confusing as possible. Instead a footpath can be taken onto some rough ground , or a nature garden if you prefer, above the local miniature golf course, following some vague paths to a pavement walk among the houses of Whitley Spring Crescent before meeting the footpath that leads among the factories up to Wakefield Road, passing the route of the old GNR branch along the way, though no visible remains of it can be seen, that note is for the trainspotters only. More industry endures along the B6129, in buildings of a broad variety of ages, and the church continues to loom above the older terraces and villas around the town centre, and entry to the churchyard can finally be made via Far Richard Close, an uninspiring selection of recent houses with a prime location next door. The churchyard is big, feeling like it still has enough capacity for several generations of Ossettites to come, and I'm delighted to report that Trinity church is just as big up close as it is from a distance, like St Bart's, Armley, but in a much more traditional fashion, built in 1865, it's a bold Victorian take on the Early English style with a tall tower and spire at the crossing, with lancet and rose windows in quantity, with the yellow stone illuminated as the morning sunshine just starts to fade. It's a glorious monument to the certainties of the Victorian age and its builders certainly knew how to make their mark on the landscape, for like Emley Moor transmitter, this is one of those standard candles that defines the landscape of West Yorkshire in my mind, and it's one I think I might always love too.
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| The Dewsbury - Ossett Greenway |
My on going route demands a snaking path to be taken down through Ossett itself, proving that the shortest route from A to B is not always the most interesting one, and as the parish church recedes from view the route down Church Street offers me more interesting industrial relics, like the sadly forlorn Northfield Mill and the yard that still has rails running into it, but offering no indication of where they might have lead, certainly not to the GNR line, which is nowhere near here, a tram depot, perhaps? On past the primary school and the playing fields, and on into the town centre, certain that this definitely qualifies as a town, as along Dale Street, the town hall can be found, in an architectural style that defeats me, but makes enough a statement of civic pride, with its prominent gable ends and clock tower, and the market place spread out in front of it gives it a good location. Plenty of options for food or watering here as the middle of the day approaches, but my plans have me keeping moving, down past the War memorial and away from the shopper along Bank Street to find the path to National Route 699, and the new(ish) greenway to Dewsbury, found down West Wells Road, a lane which feels like time forgot about it, being lined with old weavers cottages and not being suitable for motor traffic, still having a surface of heavily rutted flagstones. The greenway starts out at the site of Runtlings Lane junction, west of the old Ossett GNR station, where a playing field now resides, and the cycle path sets off on the rising track towards Batley and Adwalton, rather than taking the lower path of the Dewsbury loop, probably because it is following already established permissive paths, and some land owner refused to open up his rough fields of former trackbed to troublesome cyclists. Altitude is gained around the edge of Ossett, and a good view would be had up the Calder valley towards Thornhill and Dewsbury, if it wasn't for the cloud cover greying everything over, and the according temperature drop makes getting to the end of the day feel very appealing indeed. The descent to hit the alignment of the Dewsbury Loop comes at a sharp hairpin, and the steepness is startling, as I always think of cycleways as being level tracks, and it convinces me further that cyclists are made of sterner stuff than I, and once down we hit a large and impressive embankment that rises above Pildacre Mill Beck, a feature that would be a whole lot more prominent if it wasn't for the tree cover which conceals it and the views.
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| All Saints, Dewsbury |
We have now moved back into a familiar landscape, having come out this way on the Kirklees Way, and I do ponder taking an alternative route to get in some paths that I haven't previously paced, as this is a Greenway which deserves to be walked in its entirety at least once, so pass by the many dog walkers and amblers who seem to be out for a lunchtime stroll, descending the snaking path to the site of Earlsheaton station, a much larger site than such a modest village would seem to need. Then onwards through the tunnel to take pics in the dark again, and two years on from getting my stick, I still don't use it a monopod, and the gathering chill of the day is brought home as the wind blows hard through the tunnel, in the fashion of a wind tunnel, appropriately enough. Press on to the hairpin down to the riverside track, getting much better views of Headfield viaduct along the way as the leaf coverage is much reduced, following the track on into Dewsbury, as the Calder flows far below the flood embankment, as an industrial or post-industrial landscape dominates on both sides. Our second retail park of the day is traversed to meet Link Road (that is its name), and a detour through the churchyard of Dewbury Minster, the church of All Saints, hiding away beneath heavy tree cover even after the fall of the leaves, and no really showing its best side to me, even after the sun starts to reappear and make the day feel warm again. Across the A638 ring road, and up by the parade of shops opposite the town hall to join the throng of shoppers, as my thoughts start to turn to food, and I'm convinced there's a chip shop to be found somewhere around these parts, and as I head across the old market place to Northgate, I'm even sure that I can smell it, but I can't see where it is, and I rise up Bond Street to the railway station without having found sustenance. All done at 1.10pm, mere minutes before my ride to Morley is due, so I've got time to get to the Miners fisheries at the top of the long flight of steps (not welcome at this stage of the day) before their lunch session ends, and whilst they've run out of fish, I do get a free Scallop (fried potato cake, rather than bivalve) for my trouble, and I've got some good news to report too, as having reported its demise back in April it cheers me greatly to report that the Miner's Arms is open for business once more.
Next on the Slate: I'm not going to Mallerstang with FOSCL, but a ridge walk still awaits!
1,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1366.4 miles
(2014 total: 453.2 miles)
(Up Country Total: 1270.8 miles)
(Solo Total: 1139.4 miles)
(Declared Total: 1158.2 miles)
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