Distance: 8 miles
Ascent: 955 ft
Walking: Andrew
Weather: Sunny spells, wool
OS Map: OL21 South Pennines
Photography: Andrew using Nikon D610 / Nikon 24-70 mm f2.8
A "go for a wander and see where I end up" walk from home. A bit of road walking and some great woodland and moorland scenery.
I've often passed a sign on Keighley Road in Oakworth that caught my attention. It sounds like it's from a novel by JRR Tolkien or JK Rowling or even CS Lewis pointing, as it does, down Slaymaker Lane to a place called Slippery Ford. Being furloughed for work and with the COVID-19 lockdown rules having recently been relaxed slightly to allow exercise outdoors, I decided to go for an explore.
Setting off from home, I took a short cut through Holden Park to Highfield Lane, then over a couple of fields, to meet Slaymaker Lane just outside Oakworth. I followed the lane down to the crossroads by the old Baptist Chapel and turned onto Mackingstone Lane to head down the hill through the cluster of farms at Holme House to the pretty hamlet of Goose Eye, right the bottom of the valley.
Turning off the road onto a woodland path, part of The Millennium Way, I followed the beck along the valley, past an old mill pond and steadily uphill, above Newsholme Dean, until I left the woodland behind and the stunning views back down the valley towards Keighley were revealed.The path emerges on Todley Hall Road, then almost immediately heads back downhill along the drive to Bottoms Farm, where the views just keep getting better. Unfortunately, the path beyond the farm was virtually impassable so I was forced to turn around and head back up to the road.
Walking past Greystones Hill, there was a shocking amount of rubbish fly-tipped in pretty much every gateway and pull-in, including a sofa and table at the end of a rough track. Thankfully, a couple of council workers in a van were behind me collecting it all. This was another unpleasant side-effect of lockdown to deal with.
Greystones Hill overlooks the collection of farms that make up the mythical Slippery Ford and, from this angle, it looks every bit as remote as you'd hope it would be with the colourful Keighley Moor looming beyond it.
Walking down the road past Far Slippery Ford Farm and Middle Slippery Ford, I rejoined my intended route at, wait for it, Slitheroford Farm. The climb up the road up White Hill was steep but mercifully short and I followed the this the short distance to Field Head, where I turned onto the track down to Newsholme (a quaint little village with a peculiar-looking church which appears to be in a farmyard).
Another short steep climb past Oakworth Crematorium, took me into the Griff Wood, which again reminded me of CS Lewis, then out onto Grey Scar Road (actually a rough track) and down into Oakworth again.
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