T’Forager has got wind that I have submitted walk reports of mine and The Colonel’s and was most upset that I hadn’t included his. To put that right, here is the first of two of T’Forger’s reports. This one was written in 2018.
The Colne Valley trail for a hardy duo
And then there were two.
Sadly, ailments, and quite frankly some pretty feeble excuses, reduced today’s outing to two of the older members, RSM Norky and T’Forager, who still gamely strive to maintain fitness in the face (at least in the author’s case) of declining faculties. A chap must do what he can.
The duo left Slaithwaite, stoically resisting the morning pastries at The Handmade Bakery, to tramp the remote Northern Line, a route suggested and documented by the Colne Valley Trust in 1999 in its series of leaflets entitled ‘The Colne Valley Trail – A Series of Countryside and Village Walks’.
The route, last navigated by the author about 20 years ago, and before today untouched by Norky’s feet, took us to: Stones Laithe; Owlers Wood; Wood Nook; Shaw Fields; Booth Bank; Bank Nook; Booth Naze; Slaithwaite Hall; (the locally named) Catoyles; Netherwood; and Green Hill Clough. We then spilled onto Marsden Lane and walked via Warehouse Hill to a lunchtime sojourn in Crumbles on the Corner (cake was resisted). The return route started with an intention to follow the canal towpath all the way back to Slaithwaite, but a diversion was soon found via Waring Bottom, White Hill, Dark Wood, the former site of Shaw Carr Mill and an investigation of the goit feeding the former mill pond to Upper Mills.
So much for the route but what was discovered along the way?
Walking in the footsteps of history
There are some serious stone paths, styles, steps and other features in obscure spots. These can only have been constructed either to take workers from one remote hamlet to another, or from a hamlet to a mill, or perhaps to a place of worship. Witness the steps in the almost vertical assent in the wall at the back of Booth Naze, leading to flagstones across to Hey Lees These features are still there almost 200 years after construction. The Roman road adjacent to Wood Nook is also still there completely intact, albeit under the surface, after almost 2,000 years – but we forgot to note that. A walk for another day, perhaps tracing the road from there to Slack?
This is the site of a Roman road that has recently been uncovered, and then covered over again near the old Roman settlement at Slack. Sergeant Norky is standing guard.
20th-century crimes and 14th-century architecture
The walk allowed us to witness the sites of two certain 20th-century murders, the first in the old working men’s club at Booth Bank and the second between the canal and river at the source of the goit to Upper Mills. Hey Leys brought to mind the suspected infanticide that caused local superstition and fear to leave the building unoccupied for many years. Our route also took in the mortuary used for the storage of bodies drowned in the canal, which formed part of the former lock keeper’s house at Warehouse Hill.
A nod was made to the oldest dwelling in the valley, which can be seen at Slaithwaite Hall. The subject of extensive restoration by the Pugh family over a period of 30 or more years, the dwelling has evidence of 14th and 15th-century architecture and was probably originally a hunting lodge for the de Lacys of Pontefract Castle. During the course of the restoration of the building in the 1990s, the family imported over 75 tons of new oak from trees grown at Kirklees Hall. A record of some of the restoration and history of the building can be found here.
Dark Wood: a house with a history
The house at Dark Wood was once exchanged by the owner for another chap’s wife. The wife later returned to her husband, who then had both the Dark Wood property and his wife. Some suspected the scheme was a premeditated swindle. One party to the exchange, I forget which, was a medical practitioner. There is a similar story from a nearby location, but this time including no duplicity, about a chap exchanging his wife for a sow. The bargain was reversed when the sow was found to be infertile. Nothing is known of the wife’s fertility.
Wives aside, a barn at Dark Wood housed prisoners of war at the time of the Napoleonic Wars, and two stone Hebrew tablets were once found there. No one knows from whence they came or where they are now. The Grade 2 listed barn was demolished a decade or so ago by a builder who clearly had little regard for these matters.
Two mysteries
The mysterious long concrete flight of steps with metal handrail leading down from Shaw Carr towards the canal used to run into the yard at Shaw Carr Mill, a substantial six-storey mill sitting at right angles to the canal. Long since demolished, it was the first mill in the valley to use steam power. (By the way, my elderly neighbours at Upper Holme used to pronounce Shaw Carr as ‘Shaker’.)
One of the cottages in the complex housed a WW1 veteran blinded in the war, who earned a living selling matches from a tray hung around his neck in Slaithwaite. He is known to have fallen in the canal at least once (hopefully not while carrying his matches) but did not end up on the slab at Warehouse Hill.
We crossed the old salt route from Cheshire to Halifax but forgot to note its existence at the time (my mistake).
Strangely, a leek was found discarded on the top of a hedge along the canal side at West Slaithwaite. It was lying awkwardly. What was it doing there? Are leeks a danger to foxes or badgers? We were unable to decide. [Norky adds: This is a reference to an incident where I was discouraging some other scruffy WARTS from discarding their banana skins, and to that end I suggested that a banana skin could choke a badger.]
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