A linear walk - 9 miles, 3 to 4 hours.
After a visit to the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway recently, I was reminded of a linear walk I had planned earlier in the year starting in Oxenhope and ending in Hebden Bridge. Now June had been a wet old month, and so getting a day where it wasn't lashing down was a matter of pure luck!
The time was getting on again, so another late start to a walk - finally arriving into Keighley station at just after 3pm. I made my way across to the preserved side of the station and took the steam train up the pretty Keighley and Worth Valley Railway to the village of Oxenhope...
Oxenhope Station 660 feet above sea level...
Making my way through the nice little village, the pathway below allows you out onto the moors eventually...
At some point recently this pathway was a fast flowing stream judging by the debris that have been left to dry out on the still muddy surface. This has been a wet summer so far...
Particularly green this year after all the rain, the fence in the below picture has a stile allowing you out onto a road...
High up above Oxenhope now...
A bit of road walking here for a good mile, but some good views. The wild and windy moors were living up to their expectations that day...
Home?...
I cut left from the road here at the fencing shown here, high on Oxenhope Moor, and headed up towards the mounds...
Methods in my madness, heading towards a Trig Point...
The Trig Point on the summit of Hollin Hill at 451 metres, the highest point on the walk, laying next to the Hollin Hill/Ovenden Moor Wind Farm. There is a nice memorial plaque on this Trig to someone who has lost a walking companion at some point, well worth a read. The Trig also has a neighbouring cairn. It's amazing how this Trig has survived really considering the quarry at one side of it and the Wind Farm at the other!...
Making my way back towards the road again now, here looking towards Warley Moor Reservoir...
A well walked path allows you to walk around the edges of the reservoir...
Another path now splits South West from the reservoir following a drainage ditch...
Beast guarding the pathway...
Looking across the open moors towards a distant Black Hill, and to the
far right a distant Blackstone Edge...
Heading towards my next objective, High Brown Knoll...
It's a little bit boggy...
The Trig Point on the summit of High Brown Knoll at 443 metres, commanding some fine views of the surrounding moorland and towards Caldervale..
Continuing
on downhill now across the boggy moor, with Stoodley Pike Monument just
about visible here on the opposite hill
top, with the high point that is a distant Blackstone Edge visible on
the left again...
At this cairn I cut onto the right hand pathway that alows you to descend quite steeply downhill towards Hebden Bridge...
Back onto a lane...
Hebden Bridge below...
It's up to you how you descend into Hebden Bridge, there are lots of footpaths, lanes and roads to access the pretty town centre...
Finally making it to the Yorkshire side of the staggered platforms at the well kept Hebden Bridge Station. A lovely town is Hebden Bridge with traditional pubs, and independent shops it's well worth a visit, and also considering the town had been inundated with flood water a few days before you couldn't tell.
A good walk on the moors was this walk, and not as boggy as I thought it was going to be - opening up other potential walks in the area. Good one, thanks for reading :)
