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| Run/Walk6 Altar Lane, Deep Cliff, Goit Stock |
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nine miles |
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| Cross Ireland Bridge and take the footpath opposite the Brown Cow that leads up to Altar Lane. Head uphill and then take the footpath that leads left into the wood. Go up the wooden steps to the top. At the path junction carry straight on through the wood to come out at the small lodge on the St Ives estate road. Cross over and take the path leading down into the wood. Follow this until you meet the bridleway above Cuckoo Nest. Go uphill a short way and then bear left on the footpath which takes you to the estate road just before the lodge at the Harden entrance. |
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The lintel on the lodge door reads WBF 1851 and must refer to William Busfeild Ferrand whose monument can be found behind Lady Blantyre's Rock on the path to Altar Lane. WBF inherited the Harden Grange estate in 1854, changing its name to St Ives and setting about its improvement. The 1852 OS map still shows the access to Harden Grange as being via Cross Gates Lane. This explains the presence of the now incongruously grand� gateposts on the bridleway leading left half way up Altar Lane |
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Head down the road towards Harden and then turn right along Moor Edge. Take this road past the terraced houses and justbefore thelarge house on the right, head right uphill on steps that lead into a field. Follow the path over a stile and intothe woods. Bear rightand then left togain the path that keeps above the steep bank down into Deep Cliff and leads to the permissive bridleway coming from the Keighley road. Turn left and go a short way down till you see a stile on your right. Follow the path to the gate to the right of the farm. Head across the fields, playing spot the stile until you come out at a junction of paths and tracks at the top of the moor. Now take the path which heads south straight across the middle of the moor. It has a new gate courtesy of the council. The path has distinctive well-worn stone flags for a while. Arthur Gemmell suggests the indents on stone paths like this were worn by iron-rimmed cartwheels. |
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| Keep to the left hand side of the quarry spoils and as you move towards the edge of the moor, and lose height more steeply, take a path bearing sharp right. It's easy to sail blithely past so take time to orientate yourself. |
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| Head back along this path and then go left down the right hand side of a deeply cut little valley. Cross a stile and then go through the double gates of a� small holding that has numerous messages for the passer-by. Carry on the track that leads through the village of Ryecroft to the road. Take the stile on the opposite side of the road and follow the path that becomes a bridleway. Go past Hunter Hill and take Dolphin Lane on your left that leads you down onto the Harden/Cullingworth road. Dolphin is an ancient Lane and possibly once continued over the moor. The Victorian local historians thought Dolphin was a personal name which dated from the Anglo-Saxon times.� Turn right and cross over the road. A little way down a stile and steps lead off left. Follow the path, ducking underneath the trunk of a contorted hawthorn and passing� over stiles, bearing left through a gate and continuing until you spot a distinctive� old chimney. |
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The chimney is all that remains of Goit Stock Mill, originally a cotton mill but in the twenties a cafe and pleasure palace, complete with orchestra and ballroom.��"Goit" means a watercourse, northern dialect from Old English. Locally goit was used to describe the watercourses provided for the mills. Old OS maps of Bingley show a Mill Goit on the riverbank on the town side. |
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Go past the chimney and� through a stile by a gate. Turn right down into the caravan park. Follow the signed path over a footbridge to come out on the tarmac entrance road. Turn right as if heading for Goit Stock waterfall but take the path leading up left by the side of the bungalow. Take this winding path uphill through the wood, cross the wall stile and turn left. Follow the path that turns back into the wood, going underneath a pylon and coming out by a row of terraces just above the garden centre. Turn left and almost immediately take a stile and a path down to Wilsden Beck on the right. Ford the beck and then move up to the winding sandy track. Take this uphill past the entrance to the quarry and follow the road for a couple of hundred yards. Take the stile on the left and the path that leads into the woods. Take the path that leads off the track left down through the wood and across the golf course coming out on Beckfoot Lane. Turn left and then right towards Hesp Hills. Go by the left of the house and take the stile leading into the wood. Take the path leading down to the tubular bridge and go through Myrtle Park back into Bingley |
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Click to return |
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