RSF - The Off Road Cycling Club

The Adventure Starts Here

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Click on the image above to view more of Roger's photos on Flickr

 

Cleckheaton Town Hall clock strikes ten, eleven of us set off to explore the Railway Heritage of the Spen Valley.  We cycle up to Tesco car park, the former goods yard of the Cleckheaton Central Railway Station.  The Spen Valley Greenway follows the line of the old Lancs and Yorks Railway.  I stood here in 1952 to catch a steam train to start my National Service in the Army.  We leave the Greenway shortly and cross to the other side of the valley to access the Spen Ring Way, the former Leeds New Line, a more direct  line to Leeds from Huddersfield, avoiding Dewsbury and Wakefield. John Kemp tells me he too rode this line in the early 1950s to do his National Service.

We ride past Liversedge Spa station and enter Heckmondwyke cutting, a dramatic steep sided cutting spanned by numerous brick arched bridges.  Heckmondwyke Spen station is no longer, replaced by modern housing. The portal to High Street Tunnel has impressive stone masonry.  One or two hardy fellows push and carry their bike along the overgrown track bed and we meet up with them shortly. We climb up to view the last remaining evidence of  the Heckmondwyke Viaduct.  In the summer time you cannot see this because of the trees and foliage but in the winter when the trees are bare, a huge masonry buttress stands proud. 

We continue past the Ponderosa Rare Breed Farm to access the Dewsbury Country Park, a huge landfilled area landscaped into lakes, walkways and cycle paths. After visiting the sites of both Northop Lower and Northop Higher stations we ride up the Calder Valley Greenway.  A cycle path alongside the River Calder and then the Hebble Canal takes us to our lunchstop at the Stables Cafe at the Saville Town Marina.  An excellent lunch is enjoyed by all.

We pick up the Dewsbury - Ossett Greenway and climb through the Ealesheaton Tunnel to the site of the former Ealesheaton Station. A photo stop beneath the information panels and a retracing of our steps leads to some urban riding through Dewsbury to pick up a cycle path alongside the River Calder.  Boxing Day three years ago we wouldn’t have been able to ride this part, completely under water from the devastating Boxing Day floods in the Calder Valley.

We cross the main Dewsbury - Ravensthorpe road to pick up the return leg of the Spen Valley Greenway.  Sunday afternoon and it is busy with dog walkers, families out with children on Xmas Day bikes and joggers. We pass under the long -gone Heckmondwyke Viaduct.  Two more railways merge at this point before passing Heckmondwyke Central Station, Liversedge Central Station and then we are back in Cleckheaton.

The weather stays dry but overcast.  21 Miles approx with a great group of Guys and Gals.

Sol Lomas