Hebden Bridge to Haworth

26 June 2011 - Hebden Bridge to Haworth

Distance - 8.85 miles

Weather - Hot & Sunny

We stayed at - Old White Lion Hotel, Main Street, Haworth, Keighley, West Yorkshire, BD22 8DU Cost - £92.75

Tina with knitted bunting

As it was a short day's walking today, we had a lie-in, a leisurely breakfast and didn't start walking until 11:00. As I have mentioned before, there was an arts festival in full swing and the town was decked out in knitted bunting. I must confess to never having seen knitted bunting before! The first part of the walk was a bit of a fiddle coming out of the town, finding the correct streets and so on, but we got there OK. Just outside the town was a steep, cobbled path. The parts of the path under trees had not dried out and were really slippy. We had thought about detouring up to Heptonstall, where Sylvia Plath is buried, but it was up a biggish hill and we'd had enough culture yesterday.

Rochdale Canal complete with Banksy

One thing we noticed, especially in this first section, was how many public toilets there were - loads. I'm certain Hebden Bridge and its environs have more public toilets than the whole of Edinburgh. Anyway, we had a bit of a forest walk, before going back down to the river and up the other side, along a path called Crimsworth Dean. This ran above a tributary of the Hebden, up to the moors. It was somewhere along here we realised we'd forgotten to buy sweets. All we had for the day's walk was one yoghurt bar - I don't like yoghurt! We met up with a narrow road, which took us to the top of the moor. It was up here, Alistair realised the lid had unscrewed from his water bag, and most of its contents were soaking his back. Most of his gear was in a big waterproof liner, so only his trainers got wet; however, we now had a lot less water on a hot day.

Moorland near Penistone Hill Country Park

Then we came down the other side of the moor and round a small, near-empty reservoir. From there we took some footpaths up to Penistone Hill Country Park and down into the top end of Haworth.

Morris Girls at Haworth

Haworth is a very picturesque village which mostly runs down a hill. It was where the Bronte sisters lived, and their dad was the parson in the beautiful church. When we arrived, there was a Morris dancing convention happening. Teams from various towns were talking turns to dance. There were a team of women who were dressed in 'Mill Girls' clothes and clogs. I spoke to one who said that the cobbled streets of Haworth were really frightening to walk in clogs, never mind dance. The dancing was all going on in front of our hotel and we couldn't get through, so we sat in the square outside a deli and had alcoholic ginger beer along with apple crumbles with icecream. Yum!

Eventually the dancers jingled off, and we got into our hotel, the Old White Lion. A quick shower and cool down later, we were off for an explore - a look at the church and parsonage, but not going into either because the latter charges £7 entry as it's a museum. We walked down through the rest of the village, which has lots of shops selling old stuff - old sweets, old books, old clothes, old bath salts etc. I suppose they go to one of the larger towns if they want anything new, like baked beans.

Refreshments!

At the bottom of the hill was a railway station, a special one, because it is on the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway and has steam trains. We were lucky because we arrived in time to catch the last train that had a journey with a return trip. So we set off to Keighley, on a whim! Impulsive or what! Great journey there, with pretty stations along the way. Journey back was better when we found the award-winning, real-ale vending buffet car. A pint and a half of Goose Eye K&WVR special later, we were back at Haworth. The village was completely different as we walked up the road. The tourists were gone, and the shops were all shut - even the chip shop. All the pubs were open though and for a small village at the top of a steep hill, there were a lot of them.

Our accommodation was more modest than our previous one, but the food was excellent and the view from the bedroom window was gorgeous - a fantastic panorama down the dale towards Bingley.