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Stepping Out From Leeds and Bradford by Keith Wadd

TWENTY GOOD WALKS AROUND 11 MILES IN LENGTH WITHIN EASY REACH OF LEEDS AND BRADFORD. All walks have a detailed description, map and colour photograph of a feature of interest. Price £7.50 from retail outlets. Special discounted postage free offer of £5 on first 500 copies sold to West Riding Area members: apply for a copy to John Lieberg, 11 Woodroyd Avenue, Holmfirth HD9 6LG

20s and 30s putting on up to FIVE walks a week

The area’s 20s and 30s group, Take A Hike, is now running it’s full summer walks diary which can include as many as five walks a week.

Committee member Dave Pannell commented: “On weekends we usually have a walk on both Saturday and Sunday, but as the weather improves and turn-out to walks increases it’s not unusual to post two or even three walks on the same day and still get a good attendance on each one.

Our weekday evening walks are also popular which shows just how important walking is to our generation.” The group is just about to launch it’s revamped website, for it’s full list of walks and social events see www.takeahike.org.uk

Public Inquiry Gives Go-Ahead to Nidd Gorge Bridleway

Good news! There will soon be a new bridleway route from Harrogate to the bridge over the river Nidd between Killinghall and Ripley. A public inquiry was held in February, and the inspector in his report published in March confirmed the bridleway order, overruling the fifteen objections.

The new path starts at Bilton just north of Harrogate and uses the track bed of old railway lines to Ripon and Pateley Bridge, including a spectacular listed viaduct over the Nidd Gorge. From the end of the new route, walkers will be able to continue up the Nidd Valley to Hampsthwaite. Or they can walk into Ripley village from where rights of way go north up the little-known Cayton Gill valley, and westwards towards Burnt Yates.

It is expected that the new route will be open in 2012, and there is every indication that it will be well used by walkers, cyclists and horse riders.

“WALK!” – Colin Speakman's New Book

Let me say right at the outset that “Walk! A Celebration of Striding Out” is both a good book, and an important book. It’s so important in fact that it ought to be read by every walker, whether member of the Ramblers’ Association or not. I say this because I know nowhere that describes so clearly and eruditely how walkers in England and Wales have acquired the marvellous network of rights of way and open spaces that they now legally walk. It is also elegantly written in a style that makes very enjoyable reading. This is saying a lot, and it is well deserved.

Of course it is a polemic. You wouldn’t expect anything that Colin writes not to be. It is actually a double-polemic, a polemic for walking, and a polemic against the private car. You may or may not want to go all the way with Colin on the latter, but you must go all the way with him on the former.

The excellent Chapter 4 is entitled “Paths, Maps and the Freedom to Roam”, and Colin writes: ”Despite its weaknesses and shortcomings, the preparation and publication of Definitive Maps of Rights of Way for England and Wales was an astonishing achievement. These are documents that safeguard the democratic right of millions of ordinary people who do not own land or country estates to enjoy and experience the countryside over which the paths run. It is a law that defends the right of the weak to share our countryside heritage and protects this right against the rich and powerful who might choose to deny this right.” But it didn’t happen by accident as Colin very clearly shows, it had to be worked hard for, fought for, by committed enthusiasts like Corrie Gaunt, and Jack Madden, and Eric Barker from West Riding Area (all of whom Colin mentions). And may I add (my polemic as well) that we are the custodians of this marvellous legacy, and it won’t survive by accident either. It needs defending.

Chapter 2 “Walking and the Romantic Imagination” is a particularly enjoyable chapter. There is not so much of the polemic here, but a scholarly appreciation of how the enjoyment and experience of walking has enriched the work of many writers, both well-known and less-known.- amongst the well-known he discusses Wordsworth, Emily Bronte, and Thomas Hardy. Less-well known perhaps are John Clare, Edward Thomas and George Gissing.

It is also an eclectic perspective on walking, so the book is not just about walking for enjoyment in the countryside, but about functional walking, walking for health, long distance walking, and about urban walking (with a welcome appreciation of the municipal park). ven competitive walking gets a mention. The final chapter, not surprisingly, is entitled “Walking For The Earth – Living A Car-Free Lifestyle” and this is where Colin sets down his blueprint for the future.

Colin’s book is beautifully illustrated from a wide range of sources. I counted well over a hundred pictures, mostly photographs, but also reproductions of paintings and portraits. Many of the photos are informal pictures of ramblers going about their business, and I liked them just for that. There’s one very fine one of the Kinder Trespass that I don’t recall having seen before. They all look so young, and were so young. Benny Rothman was only twenty. There’s a message there perhaps. This is a book that gives a great deal of pleasure, and creates a great deal of thought. And walkers everywhere, it’s the definitive textbook of your trade!! Highly recommended.

It is published by Great Northern Books in association with the Campaign for National Parks, and costs £15.99 with a £1 from every sale going to the Campaign for National Parks. - KW

Gorbeck Road

The latest newsletter (November 2010) of the Yorkshire Dales Green Lanes Alliance has announced that there has been a re-imposition of the TRO (Traffic Regulation Order) on Gorbeck Road green lane near Settle prohibiting recreational vehicles at all times and seasons. The newsletter comments that “Gorbeck has become emblematic in the struggle to rid green lanes of the unwelcome presence of motor bikes and 4X4s. A year or so ago, we thought that recreational vehicles had been banished forever, but a case in the High Court, brought by vehicle users, led to the quashing, on a small technical point of law, of the TRO that the National Park Authority had imposed. Immediately 4x4s and motor bike users resumed their activities, making a real mess of sections of the route. Undaunted, the authority went back to square one and conducted a fresh route assessment and a fresh public consultation.” This time the authority’s efforts have been successful.

The newsletter comments that “the National Park now has a blueprint for a system that has been tested in the courts, and which therefore sets a legal precedent. We know that other authorities in England and Wales have been watching events unfold in the Dales: they now have a blueprint that they can confidently use to produce their own TROs”. Further good news reported in the latest newsletter is that the Deadman’s Hill green lane between Nidderdale and Coverdale has been closed by means of a TRO to recreational vehicles for 18 months on the grounds that the route is out of repair and dangerous to users. As it is most unlikely that NYCC will be able to find the large sum of money needed to carry out the repairs, the odds are that the TRO on the green lane will continue to be extended. Another item of good news is that Stockdale Lane near Settle is not a byway, and has been confirmed as a definitive bridleway, partly as a result of historical research which showed that the lane never had vehicular rights