THE
WATERSHEDS WALK
SECTION 2:- The Dog and Gun to Ponden
Section 2 is where the fun starts. Between here and the summit cairn on Nab Hill the going gets progressively rougher, and beyond it is absolutely awful! From now on we will be on the walk proper. The Watersheds Walk climbs up to the quarry delfs on Hambleton Top, where, long ago, Mesolithic hunter gatherers worked their pygmy flints in a landscape which must have been vastly different to the bleak escarpment we see today. Keep your eyes open, especially where the thick peat layer meets the bedrock; and, if you are lucky, you might find a flint arrowhead.
At Nab Hill there is a labyrinth of peat hags and quarries. Do not make for the trig. point which is clearly visible, it is hardly worth the effort. Instead, keep to the edge and head for the beautifully constructed cairn on the edge of the escarpment. This is the cairn of a professional. Apparently it was erected to line up the Oxenhope TV booster, which is visible below, with the main transmitter at Emley Moor, which is visible over the rise. It seems a reasonable explanation to me.
Beyond Nab Hill the lane leading over to the Withens Hotel and Wainstalls is encountered, near the few drystone walls which are all that remain of the once thriving farming and delving (quarrying) community of Fly. To the left can be seen Fly Flatts Reservoir (Warley Moor Reservoir on some maps), gay with yachts in summer. The Watersheds Walk ignores this, descending the road down to the stream where once stood a farm called Nab Water. Here the route takes to the moor and follows the wall and then the open moor towards the Waggon and Horses pub on the Keighley to Hebden Bridge Road. Here the going gets really rough and boggy, and if the weather is really foul you can take comfort from the following story.
During the last century one Benjamin Foster of Denholme was collecting warps from cottages around the moors. (The area around Nab Hill Quarries was once far more populous than it is today). It was winter, and on this particular afternoon the weather changed suddenly, bringing heavy clouds laden with snow. Foster, who was on his way to Fly from Cock Hill (ie walking towards us), was anxious to get home before the bad weather set in. In his haste, however, he took a wrong turning, and his horse and cart were precipitated into a peat digging on the moor. He left the horse, and headed towards Fly to get help. In the blizzard, which was by now raging, Foster soon lost his way, and soon found himself stuck in a filthy morass, from which there was no escape. Exposure followed, the snow covered him, and some days later his remains were found on the moor, his exhausted dog lying across his chest. Other versions say the dog went home, in true 'Lassie' fashion, to get help which arrived too late. A stone marks the spot where poor Foster was found.
After crossing the catchment drain, and negotiating a wall, the A6033 Keighley to Hebden Bridge Road is reached by the Waggon and Horses (the start of the Oxenhope Straw Race). This is the Cockhill Moor Road, a turnpike road built in 1814. (The older route, over the Top o' the Stairs, we will encounter further along the route). The Cockhill Moor Road was originally lined (and still is in part) with stone stoups; Whiteley Turner counted 185 of them at the turn of the century. These were whitewashed at the base and blackened at the top, so that the tops stood out in the snow, and the bases in the mist and the rain. This road was the scene of a fatal accident in 1920, when a charabanc carrying 32 knurr and spell supporters from Pecket Well to a match at Laneshaw Bridge ran out of control down the hill. After negotiating the bends at the bottom it finally crashed through a wall behind Oxenhope Church. Five were killed.
From the Waggon and Horses follow the road uphill a short distance and turn right, following the signed footpath which leads along the catchwater drain from where it passes under the road. After following the catchwater for some distance the route eventual turns left up the Stairs. This is the old road from Haworth to Heptonstall, a time-honoured route still popular with walkers. The building of the present A6033 took the traffic away from it, and today one would never realise that this rough and lonely track was a major thoroughfare in the 18th century.
Beyond the 'Top o' The Stairs' the Watersheds Walk turns right, following the boundary line along Deep Nitch. Right of way is a bit dubious here, but there is, however, a distinct path. Owl Gobs - regurgitated bits of mice and voles - were found here last time I walked this way. Strange, it seems a bit remote to find owls. Grouse, sheep, even lizards; but owls?
We are now at the heart of the Watersheds Walk. We have traversed much moorland and there is plenty more to come. Heather and crowberry are common in this landscape. The crowberry (along with its ally, the bracken), is tending to supplant the heather, as the heather is burnt off by moor fires. As a result the moors are slowly changing in character, and not for the better, as the crowberry and bracken are quite useless for sheep grazing. Also common in the moorland landscape are the peatbogs and their attendant flora, most noticeably the spiky marsh grass and the cotton grass (Eriophorum Augustifolium), whose cottony hairs have been used for candlewicks.
After a lonely moorland track with only the occasional startled grouse for company, the 'beaten track' is rejoined near Withins Height. This is the Pennine Way, on its way to Ponden after climbing out of Walshaw Dean. From now on, until we eventually say goodbye to it on Ickornshaw Moor, the Watersheds Walk keeps it company. Here, where the Pennine Way is joined, you may find some specimens of the fossil tree Stigmaria, in an eroded peat gully, which is in evidence under the peat layer, and is often exposed after heavy rain. These rather chunky fossils look very good on your hearth if you are willing to take the trouble to carry them. I never cease to marvel at the thousands of Pennine Way walkers who must pass this way and never notice the geological treasure trove beneath their feet.
And thousands of walkers do pass this way - so much so in fact that their passage has created a major problem of soil erosion. From Edale in Derbyshire all the way to Kirk Yetholm in Roxburghshire, the Pennine Way is an endless ribbon of water, an eroded, peaty morass of bootprints.
The problem doesn't end here either: The Three Peaks, the Lyke Wake Walk, and many other popular footpaths too numerous to mention suffer from the same malaise.The cause is simple - the unceasing passage of thousands of walkers churns up the path with their bootprints. In the end the whole path becomes a 'boot bog', so the rambler has to skirt it; trouble is everyone else has to do the same, so that with the passage of time the eroded part of the path gets wider and wider.
Various methods are currently being employed to deal with this problem. One method is to divert the footpath and allow the old one to 'heal up' with the assistance of heather seeding and drainage. The problem with this is that in doing so the erosion is diverted elsewhere, and also it can be very difficult to divert a public right-of-way, especially if it crosses private land. The other option is to create a suitable surface to walk on, and to channel the public onto it by fencing off the eroded areas on either side, which can then be drained, dug over and reseeded. The problem is one of how this is to be done. At the moment, combatting footpath erosion on peat moors tends to be very much at the experimental stage. Various methods have been tried, with varying degrees of success. One method is to lay down bundles of brushwood to form a 'mattress' on the peat. This can be mixed with pine brashings and sandwiched between layers of old chestnut paling fence. Another method is to construct boardwalks over the muddiest sections, and you will see both these methods in evidence on the Pennine Way between Withins and the summit of Ickornshaw Moor.
The trouble with both these methods is that neither of them can offer any long term solution to the problem. New techniques still need to be found. A new chemical has been developed, which, according to its makers, can dry out waterlogged peat without any damage to the ecology of the moors. It is, at the moment, very expensive and has yet to be fully proven. The local authority in nearby Calderdale have been trying more traditional methods, and it has been my good fortune to have been at the forefront of the venture, the results of which can be seen about half a mile down the Pennine Way in the direction of Walshaw Dean. The idea was to construct a paved 'causey' similar to those to be found on old packhorse routes in the South Pennines. If successful such a causeway would not only be permanent but also aesthetically pleasing, a new method with a 'traditional' appearance, far better than unsightly palings and planks. The flags were laid on a layer of stone 'crusher run' bedded on a 'Terram' mat, which is a plastic membrane specially developed for this sort of work. In theory the weight would be evenly distributed, thus preventing the path from sinking into the peat beneath. The main problem with this method was getting the heavy materials up the moor, which was a laborious and time consuming operation. The 'trial path' was completed in November 1987, but the idea will have to stand the test of time before it may be judged successful.(authors note: It was! Now (2006) where once was a peat morass with new flagstones laid over it, there is now a 'packhorse way' that looks as if it has been there for centuries!Well done Pennine Heritage!)
The next port of call for the Watersheds Walk is Top Withins, better known as 'Wuthering Heights'. What can I say about Withins? As far as anyone can tell, Emily Bronte took the magificent crenellated Jacobean mansion of High Sunderland, which stood above the Shibden Valley near Halifax (Emily Bronte was a governess at Law Hill, Southowram) and by some magic of her own, mentally transported it here to this wild upland location, where it became the model for Wuthering Heights. The reason this theory is forwarded is that when the pathetic pile of stones known as Top Withens was actually a home, it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the substantial residence depicted in Emily's novel.
Top Withins in fact, was rather less substantial, being merely one of those numerous upland farmsteads that are to be found in dereliction all over the South Pennines. No 'Gentlemen Farmers' ever lived here. On the contrary, the inhabitants of these farms were often more poverty stricken than their slum dwelling neighbours in Keighley. Some of them farmed as little as three acres,a meagre living, which could only be subsidised by handloom spinning and weaving. The development of the factory system of course eventually put paid to that. The hill farmers could not eke out a living from this harsh landscape and gradually drifted to the mills and towns. Many that remained were, in more recent times, ousted by the Water Authorities to make way for reservoir catchment areas. The end result was the wholesale dereliction of hillfarms.
Here at Withins the ruins are more pathetic than most. Surrounded by the litter and debris of tourism is a pathetic huddle of concrete capped walls that bear no resemblance at all to that rather more picturesque 1950's ruin depicted in Haworth guide books. Unlike most derelict farms in the area, poor Withins has not even been allowed the luxury of a peaceful oblivion. It just hangs there in the hillside, a monument without point, a sacred cow, neither alive nor dead. Only the iron roofed bothy provided for wet and weary walkers serves any useful purpose. People come here in search of romance, but there is none; indeed, as ruined farms go, Withins is probably less romantic than most. To get any real 'atmosphere' out of the place it is best if you can get it all to yourself, but when at Withins my inclination is to move on.
From Withins the Watersheds Walk accompanying the Pennine Way, follows a quite uncomplicated route down to Ponden Reservoir. Curlews were nesting atop Scar Hill on the right back in 1980 when I was a Countryside Warden. The eggs are a yellowish olive green, with brown flecks on the shells and the curlew (Numenius Arquata) is quite unmistakeable with its tawny colouring, long, curved beak and plaintive cry; it has caught the imagination of many writers, including Burns and Yeats, the latter writing a poem in its honour. The bird is nervous and cautious in the extreme. It will circle anxiously as you approach its nest, and will try various tactics to draw you away from it. Newly hatched curlews are blackish brown with buff coloured down. They leave the nest soon after hatching, but remain near it for a day or two, closely guarded by both parents. They fly after about five weeks.
By Upper Heights Farm there are the remains of coal mines on the right of the track. These 'day holes' were used to get coal for the local farms, and not too far distant an adit runs into the South Dean Beck (if you know where to find it). A little further down the hill there is a multiplicity of waymarks, especially where the Pennine Way teams up with the Bronte Way below Lower Heights Farm. If you do not intend to continue on to Section 3, or you do not have suitable transport awaiting you at Ponden, here is a good place to bid the Watersheds Walk goodbye. This can be achieved by simply continuing onwards down to Stanbury, or turning right and following the Bronte Way down to Bronte Waterfall and eventually Haworth. The more intrepid walker however, will bear left and follow the Pennine Way down the hill to Ponden Reservoir.
At Ponden the literary associations come thick and fast. Ponden Reservoir was novelist Halliwell Sutcliffe's Sorrowful Water and the next place on our itinerary, Ponden Hall, was his Wyngates. Of much more importance to Bronte pilgrims however is Ponden Hall's reputed connection with Thrushcross Grange in 'Wuthering Heights' and the more recent assertion that a true story associated with its builders, the Heatons, provided Emily Bronte with the basic storyline for her great novel.
Ponden Hall is in fact not one hall but two. The tablet over the entrance records that:
THE
Old Houfe
(now standing) was
built by Robert Heaton
for his son Michael
Anno Domini 1634
The old porch and peat
Houfe was built by his
Grandfon Robert
Heaton A.D. 1680.
The present building
Was Rebuilt by his
Defcendant R.H. 1801.
The 'Old Houfe' is, in fact, the ruin behind you. Ponden Hall is such a magnificent House that you don't notice its ruinous, but infinitely more venerable predecessor, the ancestral seat of earlier generations of Heatons. Much has been written about Ponden Hall, and I have little to add. The house offers bed and breakfast facilities, and there is a bunkhouse and refreshments for Pennine Way walkers. Here endeth section 2.
Copyright Jim Jarratt.
2006 First Published by Smith Settle 1989
At Nab Hill there is a labyrinth of peat hags and quarries. Do not make for the trig. point which is clearly visible, it is hardly worth the effort. Instead, keep to the edge and head for the beautifully constructed cairn on the edge of the escarpment. This is the cairn of a professional. Apparently it was erected to line up the Oxenhope TV booster, which is visible below, with the main transmitter at Emley Moor, which is visible over the rise. It seems a reasonable explanation to me.
Beyond Nab Hill the lane leading over to the Withens Hotel and Wainstalls is encountered, near the few drystone walls which are all that remain of the once thriving farming and delving (quarrying) community of Fly. To the left can be seen Fly Flatts Reservoir (Warley Moor Reservoir on some maps), gay with yachts in summer. The Watersheds Walk ignores this, descending the road down to the stream where once stood a farm called Nab Water. Here the route takes to the moor and follows the wall and then the open moor towards the Waggon and Horses pub on the Keighley to Hebden Bridge Road. Here the going gets really rough and boggy, and if the weather is really foul you can take comfort from the following story.
During the last century one Benjamin Foster of Denholme was collecting warps from cottages around the moors. (The area around Nab Hill Quarries was once far more populous than it is today). It was winter, and on this particular afternoon the weather changed suddenly, bringing heavy clouds laden with snow. Foster, who was on his way to Fly from Cock Hill (ie walking towards us), was anxious to get home before the bad weather set in. In his haste, however, he took a wrong turning, and his horse and cart were precipitated into a peat digging on the moor. He left the horse, and headed towards Fly to get help. In the blizzard, which was by now raging, Foster soon lost his way, and soon found himself stuck in a filthy morass, from which there was no escape. Exposure followed, the snow covered him, and some days later his remains were found on the moor, his exhausted dog lying across his chest. Other versions say the dog went home, in true 'Lassie' fashion, to get help which arrived too late. A stone marks the spot where poor Foster was found.
After crossing the catchment drain, and negotiating a wall, the A6033 Keighley to Hebden Bridge Road is reached by the Waggon and Horses (the start of the Oxenhope Straw Race). This is the Cockhill Moor Road, a turnpike road built in 1814. (The older route, over the Top o' the Stairs, we will encounter further along the route). The Cockhill Moor Road was originally lined (and still is in part) with stone stoups; Whiteley Turner counted 185 of them at the turn of the century. These were whitewashed at the base and blackened at the top, so that the tops stood out in the snow, and the bases in the mist and the rain. This road was the scene of a fatal accident in 1920, when a charabanc carrying 32 knurr and spell supporters from Pecket Well to a match at Laneshaw Bridge ran out of control down the hill. After negotiating the bends at the bottom it finally crashed through a wall behind Oxenhope Church. Five were killed.
From the Waggon and Horses follow the road uphill a short distance and turn right, following the signed footpath which leads along the catchwater drain from where it passes under the road. After following the catchwater for some distance the route eventual turns left up the Stairs. This is the old road from Haworth to Heptonstall, a time-honoured route still popular with walkers. The building of the present A6033 took the traffic away from it, and today one would never realise that this rough and lonely track was a major thoroughfare in the 18th century.
Beyond the 'Top o' The Stairs' the Watersheds Walk turns right, following the boundary line along Deep Nitch. Right of way is a bit dubious here, but there is, however, a distinct path. Owl Gobs - regurgitated bits of mice and voles - were found here last time I walked this way. Strange, it seems a bit remote to find owls. Grouse, sheep, even lizards; but owls?
We are now at the heart of the Watersheds Walk. We have traversed much moorland and there is plenty more to come. Heather and crowberry are common in this landscape. The crowberry (along with its ally, the bracken), is tending to supplant the heather, as the heather is burnt off by moor fires. As a result the moors are slowly changing in character, and not for the better, as the crowberry and bracken are quite useless for sheep grazing. Also common in the moorland landscape are the peatbogs and their attendant flora, most noticeably the spiky marsh grass and the cotton grass (Eriophorum Augustifolium), whose cottony hairs have been used for candlewicks.
After a lonely moorland track with only the occasional startled grouse for company, the 'beaten track' is rejoined near Withins Height. This is the Pennine Way, on its way to Ponden after climbing out of Walshaw Dean. From now on, until we eventually say goodbye to it on Ickornshaw Moor, the Watersheds Walk keeps it company. Here, where the Pennine Way is joined, you may find some specimens of the fossil tree Stigmaria, in an eroded peat gully, which is in evidence under the peat layer, and is often exposed after heavy rain. These rather chunky fossils look very good on your hearth if you are willing to take the trouble to carry them. I never cease to marvel at the thousands of Pennine Way walkers who must pass this way and never notice the geological treasure trove beneath their feet.
And thousands of walkers do pass this way - so much so in fact that their passage has created a major problem of soil erosion. From Edale in Derbyshire all the way to Kirk Yetholm in Roxburghshire, the Pennine Way is an endless ribbon of water, an eroded, peaty morass of bootprints.
The problem doesn't end here either: The Three Peaks, the Lyke Wake Walk, and many other popular footpaths too numerous to mention suffer from the same malaise.The cause is simple - the unceasing passage of thousands of walkers churns up the path with their bootprints. In the end the whole path becomes a 'boot bog', so the rambler has to skirt it; trouble is everyone else has to do the same, so that with the passage of time the eroded part of the path gets wider and wider.
Various methods are currently being employed to deal with this problem. One method is to divert the footpath and allow the old one to 'heal up' with the assistance of heather seeding and drainage. The problem with this is that in doing so the erosion is diverted elsewhere, and also it can be very difficult to divert a public right-of-way, especially if it crosses private land. The other option is to create a suitable surface to walk on, and to channel the public onto it by fencing off the eroded areas on either side, which can then be drained, dug over and reseeded. The problem is one of how this is to be done. At the moment, combatting footpath erosion on peat moors tends to be very much at the experimental stage. Various methods have been tried, with varying degrees of success. One method is to lay down bundles of brushwood to form a 'mattress' on the peat. This can be mixed with pine brashings and sandwiched between layers of old chestnut paling fence. Another method is to construct boardwalks over the muddiest sections, and you will see both these methods in evidence on the Pennine Way between Withins and the summit of Ickornshaw Moor.
The trouble with both these methods is that neither of them can offer any long term solution to the problem. New techniques still need to be found. A new chemical has been developed, which, according to its makers, can dry out waterlogged peat without any damage to the ecology of the moors. It is, at the moment, very expensive and has yet to be fully proven. The local authority in nearby Calderdale have been trying more traditional methods, and it has been my good fortune to have been at the forefront of the venture, the results of which can be seen about half a mile down the Pennine Way in the direction of Walshaw Dean. The idea was to construct a paved 'causey' similar to those to be found on old packhorse routes in the South Pennines. If successful such a causeway would not only be permanent but also aesthetically pleasing, a new method with a 'traditional' appearance, far better than unsightly palings and planks. The flags were laid on a layer of stone 'crusher run' bedded on a 'Terram' mat, which is a plastic membrane specially developed for this sort of work. In theory the weight would be evenly distributed, thus preventing the path from sinking into the peat beneath. The main problem with this method was getting the heavy materials up the moor, which was a laborious and time consuming operation. The 'trial path' was completed in November 1987, but the idea will have to stand the test of time before it may be judged successful.(authors note: It was! Now (2006) where once was a peat morass with new flagstones laid over it, there is now a 'packhorse way' that looks as if it has been there for centuries!Well done Pennine Heritage!)
The next port of call for the Watersheds Walk is Top Withins, better known as 'Wuthering Heights'. What can I say about Withins? As far as anyone can tell, Emily Bronte took the magificent crenellated Jacobean mansion of High Sunderland, which stood above the Shibden Valley near Halifax (Emily Bronte was a governess at Law Hill, Southowram) and by some magic of her own, mentally transported it here to this wild upland location, where it became the model for Wuthering Heights. The reason this theory is forwarded is that when the pathetic pile of stones known as Top Withens was actually a home, it bore no resemblance whatsoever to the substantial residence depicted in Emily's novel.
Top Withins in fact, was rather less substantial, being merely one of those numerous upland farmsteads that are to be found in dereliction all over the South Pennines. No 'Gentlemen Farmers' ever lived here. On the contrary, the inhabitants of these farms were often more poverty stricken than their slum dwelling neighbours in Keighley. Some of them farmed as little as three acres,a meagre living, which could only be subsidised by handloom spinning and weaving. The development of the factory system of course eventually put paid to that. The hill farmers could not eke out a living from this harsh landscape and gradually drifted to the mills and towns. Many that remained were, in more recent times, ousted by the Water Authorities to make way for reservoir catchment areas. The end result was the wholesale dereliction of hillfarms.
Here at Withins the ruins are more pathetic than most. Surrounded by the litter and debris of tourism is a pathetic huddle of concrete capped walls that bear no resemblance at all to that rather more picturesque 1950's ruin depicted in Haworth guide books. Unlike most derelict farms in the area, poor Withins has not even been allowed the luxury of a peaceful oblivion. It just hangs there in the hillside, a monument without point, a sacred cow, neither alive nor dead. Only the iron roofed bothy provided for wet and weary walkers serves any useful purpose. People come here in search of romance, but there is none; indeed, as ruined farms go, Withins is probably less romantic than most. To get any real 'atmosphere' out of the place it is best if you can get it all to yourself, but when at Withins my inclination is to move on.
From Withins the Watersheds Walk accompanying the Pennine Way, follows a quite uncomplicated route down to Ponden Reservoir. Curlews were nesting atop Scar Hill on the right back in 1980 when I was a Countryside Warden. The eggs are a yellowish olive green, with brown flecks on the shells and the curlew (Numenius Arquata) is quite unmistakeable with its tawny colouring, long, curved beak and plaintive cry; it has caught the imagination of many writers, including Burns and Yeats, the latter writing a poem in its honour. The bird is nervous and cautious in the extreme. It will circle anxiously as you approach its nest, and will try various tactics to draw you away from it. Newly hatched curlews are blackish brown with buff coloured down. They leave the nest soon after hatching, but remain near it for a day or two, closely guarded by both parents. They fly after about five weeks.
By Upper Heights Farm there are the remains of coal mines on the right of the track. These 'day holes' were used to get coal for the local farms, and not too far distant an adit runs into the South Dean Beck (if you know where to find it). A little further down the hill there is a multiplicity of waymarks, especially where the Pennine Way teams up with the Bronte Way below Lower Heights Farm. If you do not intend to continue on to Section 3, or you do not have suitable transport awaiting you at Ponden, here is a good place to bid the Watersheds Walk goodbye. This can be achieved by simply continuing onwards down to Stanbury, or turning right and following the Bronte Way down to Bronte Waterfall and eventually Haworth. The more intrepid walker however, will bear left and follow the Pennine Way down the hill to Ponden Reservoir.
At Ponden the literary associations come thick and fast. Ponden Reservoir was novelist Halliwell Sutcliffe's Sorrowful Water and the next place on our itinerary, Ponden Hall, was his Wyngates. Of much more importance to Bronte pilgrims however is Ponden Hall's reputed connection with Thrushcross Grange in 'Wuthering Heights' and the more recent assertion that a true story associated with its builders, the Heatons, provided Emily Bronte with the basic storyline for her great novel.
Ponden Hall is in fact not one hall but two. The tablet over the entrance records that:
THE
Old Houfe
(now standing) was
built by Robert Heaton
for his son Michael
Anno Domini 1634
The old porch and peat
Houfe was built by his
Grandfon Robert
Heaton A.D. 1680.
The present building
Was Rebuilt by his
Defcendant R.H. 1801.
The 'Old Houfe' is, in fact, the ruin behind you. Ponden Hall is such a magnificent House that you don't notice its ruinous, but infinitely more venerable predecessor, the ancestral seat of earlier generations of Heatons. Much has been written about Ponden Hall, and I have little to add. The house offers bed and breakfast facilities, and there is a bunkhouse and refreshments for Pennine Way walkers. Here endeth section 2.