To keep this adventure on track, July needs to be a busy cycling month. The magic spinner was spun as soon as we returned home from my ENE ride to Bridlington and the Yorkshire coast at Flamborough. This time the spinner came up NNW – a long ride to Cape Wrath in the wildest extremities of north west Scotland. That would be quite a different undertaking.
Jenni and I spent the day together after Flamborough, and after a walk on the beach, we stopped at the magnificent stately home and park of Castle Howard (of Brideshead Revisited fame). Jenni – with her connections to the landed gentry – was able to secure us free entry thanks to her Chatsworth garden volunteering. It pays to be in the club. It was well worth the visit, and surprisingly quiet compared to a normal day at Chatsworth.
They were setting up for a wedding in the grounds and it must have been the most expensive I have ever seen. They were constructing a huge, ornate glasshouse on the main lawn to accommodate all the guests, while a sea of identical glamping tents, each with its own hot tub, had been erected in the walled garden. But we didn’t have an invitation for that. You have to know your place.
With just one day at home to turn things around, I was up and out on a warm, sunny Thursday morning to tackle the longest straight line possible from my home. I have budgeted seven long days of cycling to get to Cape Wrath, with a couple of rest days en route. The first of these, as is now customary, would be after day one with Jenni, and so I arranged to meet her for a couple of nights together in the delightful North Yorkshire town of Skipton. In theory that gave me a shorter than average first day ride. In practice, it gave me almost 7,800 feet of ascent over 70 miles on a day when the hills never stopped coming.
I made my way out on the only sensible road available, which heads off north across Strines Moor towards Penistone. I have only cycled this road a few times, although I love to drive it in good weather. It takes a lonely, circuitous route that alternates between open moors and long twisting descents into deep wooded valleys. The traffic was light but the hills were brutal. This road was chosen for the latter portion of a long day of the Tour de France when it came to Yorkshire for its first two days in 2014. We cycled out from home to see it live, along with thousands of other cyclists, and it was a superb experience. The extreme nature of the hill climbs here puts me off coming more often; but today there was no escape. I coped manfully and made it in a couple of hours as far as a pretty section of the gentler trans Pennine trail, which is a dedicated cycling route that follows the course of the old Woodhead railway between Sheffield and Manchester. It was here that I found an unexpected and welcome delight in the shape of the Magic Wood cafe: a hidden gem in a small clearing through an archway in a wall, with outdoor seats and pots of flowers. And that was breakfast sorted!
Upon reaching the entrance to the old Woodhead tunnels at Dunford Bridge, I turned north again to resume my roller coaster ride. After a few miles of climbing, the road plunged straight back all the way down into the next valley and the small and rather quaint town of Holmfirth. You might recognise it even if you have never been, because it was here – and in the surrounding hills – that the long running BBC sitcom “Last of the Summer Wine” was filmed. The town clings to either side of a steep valley and has a very northern, working class feel about it. The buildings are all solidly fashioned from dark coloured stone and, while attractive, could not be called fancy. In the town centre, next to the church and a steep flight of stone steps, and across from the old fashioned Picturedrome, is the famous “Sid’s Café”, which featured heavily in many an episode; but it was busy and I wasn’t ready to stop again. I vowed to return – by car – and do the town justice.
Hereafter, there was no respite. The first climb, over several steep miles to the top of the moors, took me up quiet lanes between the stone walls of Upperthong village. The lofty views of the surrounding hills were commanding. On the western horizon was the tall radio mast transmitter on Black Hill – another Tour de France climb – while away to the east beyond Huddersfield stood the even taller Emley Moor transmitter, the tallest free standing structure in the UK and the 25th tallest tower in the world. You could see all around for many miles and everywhere was beautiful; but the steep riding was tough.
Of course, what goes up must come down, and a few miles later I was hurtling downhill to the Colne Valley and the up and coming mill town of Slaithwaite. All of the towns I saw today must have expanded very rapidly during the industrial revolution. There are many large mills in the valleys throughout this part of England, often architecturally very fine buildings. Many have been converted to new uses, including modern apartments. Higher on the hills are pretty villages and many desirable residences with views to die for. There is a confidence about many of the places I visited today and it was a pleasure to see in an area once so dominated by smoking chimneys.
I lunched outdoors by the exceptionally narrow Huddersfield Canal in Slaithwaite ( which is pronounced “Slathut”) – literally the width of a canal narrowboat – and enjoyed a rather fine macaroni cheese with chorizo. It was that kind of place. Then it was back up, up, up onto the moors, over the M62, and once again steeply downhill to Greetland in the Calder Valley on the fringes of Halifax. I was now in completely uncharted territory.
Halifax, it turns out, is big. Bigger than I was expecting anyway. It has a good collection of imposing Victorian stone buildings, (alongside some more recent ones that should never have been allowed) and some quite nice new stuff, like it’s brand spanking bus station. It makes for a mostly positive town centre with a feeling of former importance – which is reflected in the clock tower of the imposing Town Hall – and also hope, that the obvious efforts being made to revive its fortunes all work. But the piece de resistance, without doubt, is the Piece Hall. This is a huge enclosed area reminiscent of an Italian Piazza, like St Mark’s Square in Venice, with a tall, slender church spire doubling up as the campanile. The impersonation is completed with double storey colonnades around all four sides that today house various shops and restaurants. The enormous paved empty space in the middle is used throughout the summer for big music events and they attract some very big acts. The large temporary stage was still up across one of the corners and it made me keen to experience a concert here under the stars. Already this year they have had the likes of Crowded House, Blondie and Sheryl Crow here. I just hope it didn’t rain! It was a great place to sit and relax with a latte for 15 minutes before my journey called me away again.
I took a road leading in my direction out of the town centre and simply followed it uphill. It carried on through suburbs of varying types for several miles, climbing al the time. Eventually I reached the open country and the road got smaller and quieter. It carried on through a couple of villages high up on the moors and was eventually reduced to a country lane the width of a car as it reached the height of the wind generators and radio masts on the highest point. I had made no turns. Almost alone now, my road began to descend rapidly, leaving all trace of Halifax behind. Ten minutes later I was down in another valley in the attractive village of Oxenhope, the first of a series of well to do places I passed through before I reached the Aire valley and then Skipton. All this involved yet more steep climbs and hair raising descents on mostly small country lanes. It was all lovely; but the miles passed slowly and I began to wonder when it would ever end.
A notable highlight was the steeply cobbled high street in the large village of Haworth, whose parsonage is famous as the home of the Brontë sisters. It maintains an olde world feeling with a range of period shops and inns, and is rightly popular with visitors from afar. It all felt just a touch Harry Potter to me and perhaps it was an inspiration; but Haworth is real and might not be altogether unrecognisable to the Brontes, albeit with fine dining options. There was a vinyl record shop still open at the top of the hill by the church. In the window it said it was owned by T. Venables ( then in brackets it said Tony). I saw him shutting up for the evening and he looked much more record collector than football manager to me.
Skipton – along with the villages that immediately preceded it, such as beautiful Cononley – immediately felt like somewhere you wanted to stay. Which was lucky because I would be doing exactly that, with Jenni, for the next two nights. We had a splendid time in warm, sunny weather and I highly recommend it for a short break – or even as somewhere to live. This idea we have had, to meet and look in detail around places a day’s ride from home in every direction, is turning out to be rather a good one!
