Length : 40 miles ( according to the guide - I'd say it was a bit longer )
Started : 4th January 2004
Finished : 15th April 2012
Companions : Julie Farrell ; (in part) Simon Farrell
Guide : Set of leaflets produced by SCOSPA 1992
Well, we certainly made heavy weather of this one didn't we ? For a relatively short and not over - demanding route close to home it shouldn't really have taken 8 years to complete ! Some of the story behind this laggardliness has already been told in other posts but this walk had some mini-dramas all of its own.
Julie and I started out walking this as "our next one" after The Wyre Way. The Bronte Way dates from the early 1980s as a partnership project between councils and water authorities on both sides of the Lancashire -Yorkshire border who contributed to the Standing Conference of South Pennine Authorities. The route connects a number of different sites associated with the Brontes in the South Pennines area starting at Oakwell Hall to the south east of Bradford and finishing at Gawthorpe Hall near Burnley. It mainly uses existing rights of way but a concessionary path was granted by Yorkshire Water Authority to avoid a lengthy road walk beyond Ponden. Some of the route particularly on the Lancashire side has subsequently been re-used by the local authorities for their own trails ( causing a bit of confusion when picking out the route on OS maps ) and I'm not sure anyone now recognises an obligation to maintain The Bronte Way. Although many of the original pink waymarks remain in place they're all looking a bit weatherbeaten.
So we started it on Sunday 4th January 2004. We parked at Oakwell Hall which is set in its own parks noting the time the gates were locked. We had no set target for the first stage ; as the route crossed a number of bus routes leading into Bradford we would just stop when the clock dictated we would need to get to the city for the bus back to Oakwell Hall. The first few miles were unremarkable weaving their way between the little towns to the south of the M62 but I like the West Yorkshire landscape and that offset the melancholia I was feeling at the likelihood ( ha ha ) that this was the last one I would complete in my thirties. Our problems began after crossing the M62 near Hartshead Moor Services. We didn't have a map of the area apart from the sketch map in the leaflet and the directions made no mention of the extensive golf course now before us. With no waymarks to guide us through the maze of tracks we ended up going quite badly off course. Though we eventually found someone who was able to get us back on the route we arrived in Bailiff Bridge too late to make the bus connection. I rang up Oakwell Hall to explain the situation and after a rather fraught discussion the woman agreed to arrange with the security guard who went on duty at 4pm to leave the gates unlocked. It was absolutely pitch black when we got back to the hall and the walk through the unlit park was quite unnerving. There was no sign of the security guy but the gates were unlocked and we made our chastened way home.
We returned to Bradford a fortnight later for the second leg. I remember we were listening to 5 Live on the way in and the discussion was all about Maxine Carr , whether she would be released with an electronic tag and whether she'd try to publish a book about her experience ; neither in fact happened. We parked at a multi-storey in the centre of the city then caught the bus out to Bailiff Bridge. It was a murky but dry day. As the eastern side of Calderdale isn't blessed with great routes the next few miles to Shelf Hall ( the bulk of our walk ) followed the Calderdale Way. I hadn't done this stretch since the penultimate stage of that initial adventure nearly 25 years earlier ( see post 1 ) albeit walking in the opposite direction. It felt quite weird to be revisiting ground last covered with Mick Smithson and Steve Meehan when I was still at school. I have no memory of the last bit on to Clayton Heights at all.
I think we used the same car park for stage 3 on 29th February 2004. Our plan was to do the whole stretch covered by the second leaflet from Clayton Heights to the epicentre of Brontedom, Haworth, a distance of 7 miles according to the guide. For the most part it was very pleasant although Julie had a headache and we stopped to buy some painkillers in Thornton. It was a bright day although there was still some snow around on the high part near Thornton Moor Reservoir. Just beyond that we hit a part of the route already covered on a trouble-free Civic Trust walk a few years earlier so I was anticipating an easy finish.
However just as we got to Leeming Reservoir two dogs came bounding towards us a greyhound or whippet and a border collie, no owner in sight. The greyhound was calm and just seemed to want to hang round us but the collie was very aggressive , snarling and making repeated charges at me. I was shouting, half the time at it to get off home and half at Julie to keep going to the next gate as she had frozen mid-field . My biggest fear was that it would excite the other dog and we'd have two to contend with. After what seemed an eternity a man appeared from the direction of Rush Isles Farm some distance up the hill above the path. The dogs immediately obeyed him and retreated. He rather tactlessly asked "Has it bitten you ?" and immediately got a broadside of blue abuse from Julie. The Dingle seemed to take offence and came out with the old chestnut "This is the country. If you don't like it, f**k off back where you come from ". I wish I'd had the presence of mind to ask him how much tax-funded subsidy enabled him to live there but I just wanted to get away. I reported tthe incident to the police but they didn't seem very interested and Bradford's Countryside service said they hadn't had any other reports of trouble in that vicinity . However in the summer of 2005 I led a walk for LYPWG from Todmorden and it attracted a young couple who lived in Leeming . I mentioned our misadventure and the guy said it was a frequent occurence on that route; the farmer wanted to deter people from using that particular path. Let's hope he's been taken to task over it since.
Anyhow we plodded on into Oxenhope and calmed our nerves with a brew in the tea-rooms at the station. I remember joking with the waitress about still having time to propose to someone and she said that she'd had it with marriage after two previous mistakes. I managed to persuade Julie to finish off the walk into Haworth ( passing the house used in The Railway Children ) which had no further terrors.
And that was our last encounter with The Bronte Way for over 5 years. How much of the interlude was down to that damned dog ? Well it certainly dampened our enthusiasm for the project but I'd say it was more to do with Bolton Outdoor Group. As previously discused it started to revive soon after this episode and took up more of our time ( mine especially) for the next 2-3 years. Then in the summer of 2005 the former chairman Marcus independently submitted the Haworth-Wycoller stretch as a walk he'd lead for the B.O.G. programme. Julie didn't like the idea of B.O.G. members she wasn't that keen on becoming part of the experience and didn't go. I did because I still felt the necessity to turn up to more or less every event to make sure things went smoothly and we didn't mislay any of our hard-won new members. What it did of course was take away any impetus for recommencing the project with Julie for a long time. Julie and I still did walks together but there was always something more attractive or interesting to me than repeating the walk I'd done with Marcus et al.
Then of course we had Simon in 2007 , followed a year later by Julie badly injuring an arm at work so it wasn't until 20 November 2009 that we finally returned to Haworth. We had to both take a day's leave during the week so that we could leave Simon with the childminder and we were constrained by her drop-off and pick-up times meaning we'd have to do the walk at a fair pace. It was a lousy day. We parked in Keighley and took the bus to Haworth. A heavy shower greeted us as soon as we got off the bus and we sheltered for 10 minutes before setting off. It soon materialised that Julie was terrified of re-injuring her pinned-up arm and wanted to go at a snail's pace whenever the ground was slightly uneven so the very easy walk to Bronte Bridge took an eternity. By the time we got to Ponden Reservoir it was clear that we hadn't got a hope of reaching Wycoller in time, particularly with rougher terrain just ahead , so we diverted away towards Stanbury for a bus back to Keighley with the pleasant surprise that the first bus stop was much nearer than I expected.
It was nearly 18 months before we got our acts together to do the next stage on 30 March 2011 under the same strictures as before. This time we drove direct to Scar Top ( near Stanbury ) and started walking. The crossing over into Lancashire through the pleasantly rough Worth valley ( the concessionary bit ) is the scenic highlight of the walk and Julie had recovered her confidence. The weather was also very good though a bit cold when we reached Watersheddles Reservoir. The only scare was over-spending in the cafe at Wycoller and the pub at Laneshawbridge ( we had to extend the walk a mile to get the bus back to Keighley) which left us dangerously short of cash for the bus fare. We just about had enough but the bus took a very roundabout route and we missed the connection for a bus back to Scar Top. We had to take a bus to Haworth (after a visit to the cash machine) and then a taxi back to Scar Top.
The next stage took place on 19th October 2011 and was slightly easier to arrange because I had quit my job a few weeks earlier. We drove to Burnley and parked near the bus station but had just missed the bus to Laneshawbridge so we went for a coffee and I checked my bank balance to see if my severance payment had gone in - it had. The weather looked very unpromising in Burnley but it soon turned into a lovely day as we walked back through Wycoller and along the easy track below Boulsworth Hill. There was a brief scare where the Thursden road was closed to traffic but the workmen didn't mind us walking through the site. It was another stage where the ultimate destination was whatever time allowed and at Swinden we realised we'd have to break off and walk into Worsthorne for the bus back to Burnley. We'd just started along the very quiet road when a car stopped by me. It was my old friend from Littleborough Civic Trust, Joe Taylor. I had seen him only the day before at his wife's funeral and he was on the way back from returning a pair of glasses that a guest had left behind. Julie , who hadn't been able to go to the funeral , gave him a big hug and then he dropped us off back in Burnley.
We let last winter go by and by now Simon himself had become a good little walker on the Scrambler walks organised by the Chorley Ramblers' Group. We therefore took him along for the next stage on 18 march 2012. I knew we couldn't get to Gawthorpe Hall in one go particularly as we'd have to re-trace the road walk from Worsthorne that Joe had spared us but hoped Simon could manage the stretch down the Swinden valley to Bank Hall Park. He did so admirably in his wellies despite wetting his bum when he fell over in a muddy patch. He had enough gas left in the tank to walk the towpath back into Burnley thus facilitating another mini-drama when we met an Asian runaway teen asking us for directions. Julie phoned her whereabouts to the police - who were already looking for her - as soon as she was out of earshot.
The walk was finally completed yesterday but not before Simon threw us another curveball by having a little accident 5 minutes after assuring us that he didn't want to go behind a tree despite signs to the contrary. We foolishly took him at his word so he had an uncomfortable last couple of miles and we had to have our celebratory drink at Gawthorpe Hall outside the tea-room. The nice National Trust girl at the Hall took the photo of us you can see above ( must lose some weight ) and said she and her colleagues had been discussing doing the walk themselves.
Despite all the delays and mishaps we experienced it is a good trail with great variety and well-spaced points of interest.
