Bailiff Bridge to Oakwell Hall.

The final day of our walk on the Bronte Way. By more good luck than management there was a bus stop outside the hotel to take us back to Bailiff Bridge. After some steep uphill road and lane walking we were once more in amazing rural areas. We had joined The Kirklees Way and a Brighouse Boundary Walk. There were some vicious dogs penned up in some of the properties we passed some on a running chain which is quite scary as they charge at you. We postulated what could happen if the chain snapped!

Some time was passed in a large pristine golf course, there’s always one on any long distance walk. Fortunately no fairways had to be crossed on this one. After crossing a motorway, M62, little lanes led into Liversedge where first we came across a quaker grave yard. Way back a man, who was a Quaker, had been refused a burial at Hartshead church, so he bought a piece of land for burials of his family. This is still being used today and there are four 17th century graves. It was on Hartshead Common that Luddites congregated in early 19th century to march on Arkwright’s Mill at Rawfolds with disastrous results. Could something similar happen in the future as robots take over workers jobs?   We are also sharing The Luddite Trail now, oh and did I mention The Spen Valley Trail. there must be a lot of keen walkers hereabouts.

A little further was a plant hire depot with some interesting old tractors, two looked as though they had come straight off the American prairie. And another aggressive guard dog going nuts as we stopped to take pictures.

We were now in the Spen Valley area which was the backdrop to Charlotte’s novel Shirley enacted at the time of the Luddites. This novel sounds interesting and will get a copy for holiday reading. On our route was a farm cafe which turned out to be an excellent stop for coffee and toasted tea cakes. The waitress was interested in our route and was clearly enthusiastic about Oakwell Hall. On leaving the cafe we spotted the resident cat waiting patiently on the back step.

Up the road was an old house, Clough House, bearing a plaque to the Rev. Patrick Bronte who lived here before moving to Thornton.

Some rather messy navigating through lanes and parks, all very rural though, brought us into the honest looking Shirley Estate, Gomersal. We wandered into the local church bazar hoping to find an old copy of The Bronte Way guidebook. On mentioning we were on the Bronte Way we were escorted to the grave of Mary Taylor a lifelong friend of Charlotte. Mary apparently was a Women’s Rights advocate who incidentally led a women’s group to climb Mont Blanc in 1875.

Open fields should have led us down to an entrance to Orwell Hall but probably distracted by females we took the wrong field. All was not lost and I think we had a better way into the grounds of this beautiful and obviously popular property. Oakwell Hall may have been the inspiration for ‘Fieldhead’  in Charlotte’s novel Shirley. This is the last of our Bronte associations but I wonder how many we have missed. We came out on the way we should have gone in, a far inferior way. A bus stop was on the main road and eventually a bus full of friendly locals delivered us to the efficient Bradford Interchange.

The end to a really varied and interesting five days of walking.  Sir Hugh’s new knee just about stood up to the whole trial.  We’ve seen a lot and learnt a lot.

Sign in the cafe.

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Denholme Gate to Bailiff Bridge.

The train got us to Halifax almost on time despite having to make toilet stops at various stations en route, the train toilet being nonfunctional. The toilet stop at Hebden Bridge was cut short when it was realised that the station toilet was also nonfunctional, all very strange and can’t all be Northern Rail’s fault. Of course our bus waited for us and we were soon walking from the moorland Denholme Gate. Enclosed rough fields with ancient wall stiles took us eastwards into what looked like an urban setting but the route cleverly kept us mostly on green ways. Paths wandered past houses and barking dogs. We were heading to Thornton the birthplace of the Bronte sisters. Little streams added interest and then the largest cemetery I’ve been in for years. A moorland ridge above was home to Sir Hugh’s first house, as there was no plaque to commemorate this event we didn’t divert. Then we were in the main street of Thornton full off characterful houses off the beaten track and not a Japanese tourist in sight. No 74, was heralded as the Bronte sisters’  birthplace, their father Patrick being curate at the Chapel. A cafe-cum-museum here gave us a rest, coffee and entertainment listening in to the local ladies’ Yorkshire conversation.

A deep valley had now to be crossed but to be honest we seemed to be cruising along despite the long grass in parts. There were distant, if hazy, views down into Bradford city centre. My memory is of fields and lanes going nowhere, stone walls, buttercups and dog walkers eager to converse. The hidden world of West Yorkshire.

Somewhere we joined The Calderdale Way in a wild valley and eventually emerged into the affluent Norwood Green. More of the same took us down to the suburbs at Bailff Bridge and thankfully a bus into Brighouse for a night on the tiles – well not really – an early supper in our hotel by the canal followed by an early night.

Check out Sir Hugh for another version of today’s walk.

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Stanbury to Denholme Gate.

Once the car shuffles had been completed we set off to walk back up to the Pennine Way/Bronte Way. The PW continues up to the isolated Top Withins farmhouse, with its solitary tree visible from down here. There is no convincing evidence to support the claim that the farm was the ‘original’ Wuthering Heights, but if it is not, it is certainly the type of place that Emily Bronte had in mind when she wrote her famous novel. The picture below is from a previous visit. Our way today however branched off and headed into the valley of Staden Beck and down to Bronte Bridge, a stone clapper bridge across the beck. The water tumbles over a small series of rocks above and below the bridge. The area is somewhat optimistically known as Bronte Falls; it isn’t really a waterfall, but is a wonderfully picturesque spot and a popular area for picnics. The original stone bridge was swept away in a flash flood in 1989 and replaced the following year by the present bridge.

Signposts helped us onwards with addition of Japanese instructions reflecting their interest in the Bronte history. Signs kept coming thick and fast. The track took us out of the valley and over Penistone Hill heavily quarried in the past. Now a country park there are confusing paths everywhere, popular with dog walkers who all seemed to have Cocker Spaniels. We arrived into Haworth by the atmospheric graveyard, the Brontes are not buried here but have a crypt in the adjoining church. Above was the Parsonage where the sisters lived, now a museum. Bronte associations were everywhere. Below in the main street tourists flocked into the gift shops and cafes.

The Bronte Parsonage.

Bronte School.

We of course were above such things, avoided hoards of Japanese and headed out on ancient tracks to Oxenholme. Here we found a bench for lunch which happened to overlook the Worth Valley railway line and in came a steam special hauled by a Standard Four locomotive, withdrawn for scrap from the Southern Railway in 1965 but subsequently restored.

Things went a little astray as we took to small lanes, too much time chatting and admiring both the scenery and the local properties. We found ourselves on a narrow lane a few hundred feet above where we should have been. I’d already remarked that we seemed to have missed most of Oxenholme, dammed right it was there below us. Fortunately a lovely path was found to reunite us with the correct way but we had enjoyed our diversion and had chance to meet one of the locals.

Charlotte, Emily or Anne?

No sooner were we back on track when we seemed to go wrong again on small streets in the village and ended up on the wrong side of Leeming Reservoir. No problem, just walk across the damn access road. The hot afternoon drifted on and once more we found ourselves on old flagged paths going where? A hill was climbed past old enclosures and water catchment culverts to arrive at a fine belvedere. An opportunity for a breather, a snack and drink and time to admire the view over fine countryside. From here a good lane just under Thornton Reservoir made for easy walking. A cyclist stopped to show us his electric assisted bike with a multitude of gears, impressive until I realised I couldn’t lift the beast. We emerged from Black Edge Lane into Denholme Gate where a parked car was waiting for us.

Onwards looked more urban, a bus passed signed for Halifax so we’ve come a long way into Yorkshire. The last two days may be better reached by train and utilising overnight accomodation.

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First of all I have to admit getting my Bronte’s mixed up.

They were a nineteenth-century literary family, born in the village of Thornton and later associated with the village of Haworth.  The sisters, Charlotte (1816–1855), Emily (1818–1848), and Anne (1820–1849), are well known as poets and novelists. Two other sisters died at a young age as did a brother Patric.

Like many contemporary female writers, they originally published their poems and novels under male pseudonyms: Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. Charlotte’s Jane Eyre was the first to know success, while Emily’s Wuthering Heights, Anne’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall  were later to be accepted as masterpieces of literature.

The three sisters and their brother, Branwell  were very close and during childhood developed their imaginations first through oral storytelling and play set in an intricate imaginary world and then through the writing of increasingly complex stories.

The deaths of first their mother and then of their two older sisters marked them profoundly and influenced their writing, as did the relative isolation in which they were raised.

The ‘Bronte Way’ is a 44mile cross-Pennine route linking various places associated with the lives and works of the Bronte sisters. Starting at Gawthorpe Hall, visited by Charlotte, it goes by the Thursden Valley to Wycoller Hall (Ferndean Manor in the novel Jane Eyre), Ponden Hall [Thrushcross Grange in Emily’s Wuthering Heights] the moors to Top Withins (Earnshaw House in Wuthering Heights), Haworth Parsonage, where the Brontes lived and now a Bronte Museum, the Brontes’ birthplace at Thornton, along the hills west of Bradford to the Spen Valley (Shirley country) before finishing at Oakwell Hall (Fieldhead in the Charlotte’s novel Shirley).

You will be familiar with Sir Hugh from my previous posts, I should really have a tag to my walking companions. Well he has recently had his second knee replaced or whatever. He managed to walk thousands of miles on his first knee replacement much to the credit, amazement and interest of his orthopedic surgeon. He is keen to field test the latest operation so we have arranged a few short days walking on The Bronte Way. He has connections to the Yorkshire end of the walk so was keen to explore the route.

Sir Hugh’s new ‘new knee’

Guide books of the way are out of print but the route is marked on the OS maps so we should be OK.

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