HEBDEN BRIDGE WALKERS ACTION
901 BUS WALKS 11
Ripponden to Stainland
Main features of the walk
This walk takes you through many different landscapes with great views.
The walk is mainly along isolated lanes, passing some interesting
buildings and sweet streams.
Length and time
It's about 11km (approx 7 miles) and should take you about 3½ hours (plus stops).
Gradients – how strenuous?
The walk has several descents into river valleys and climbs back up.
Terrain – how uneven?
This walk is mostly on tracks and lanes, with the rest on good footpaths.
Obstacles – stiles, steps etc.
There are several stiles on the route.
Facilities on the walk
This walk has no facilities on the route but refreshments are available at both ends
What to take?
You need a pair of reasonable walking shoes with 'grippy' soles as
parts of the route will be muddy after rain.
DIRECTIONS
Detailed directions for Walk 11: Ripponden to Stainland
- Ask the bus driver to put you off at the Brig Royd – the main stop on Ripponden. Cross the road, turn right and then left down the cobbled Priest Lane. Pass the Old Bridge Inn, cross the bridge towards the church and turn up to your right and the main road.
- 2Turn left up the main road for 100 metres. Take the partially concealed footpath off to the right by Chapel Bank House. Continue on this partly paved path over the railway line and uphill (you get some great views from this section). Go past and around Quakers Paddock. After another 100 metres on this track, when you come to a T junction, turn left up the tarmac lane for 50 metres until it joins a tarmac road where you turn sharp right.
- Follow this road the road for 400 metres and take the right fork on to a single track tarmac road. Keep ahead when the tarmac ends. After about 1km, cross a ford and follow the lane up hill for 100 metres until you reach a house called The Spread Eagle. Here, take the part cobbled lane left uphill which bends to the left at Lower Hall Green. 50 metres after the farm take the public bridleway on the left marked Cockpit Lane.
- Continue to the end of the bridleway and turn left on to a tarmac lane. Cross the bridge and take the way-marked footpath going off uphill to the right through banks of heather. Keep straight ahead on this path (you can take either path at the fork) and after 300 metres you cross the main road, taking either the footpath or the road straight ahead. After 100 metres you arrive at a T junction where you turn left on to Scammonden Road.
- Walk on this minor road for 1km until you pass Withens Lane on your left and just after going under the electric pylons, turn right on the way-marked foot path and when you join the track, go straight ahead. You pass Banquet House, and at Firth House Farm take the path on the left. Follow the path alongside holly tress, coming out at a T junction by a house where you turn left. After 200 metres at a junction, turn right down a partly cobbled road. After Penny Hill Cottages on a bend, take the way-marked footpath going off to the left on a track called Crow Wood Lane.
- Follow this track high above Black Brook (going below the farmhouse) for 1km. Head down the tarmac road, passing a mill dam and as you reach the recycling plant, take the footpath going off to the left, staying above the plant. The end of the path, drops down to the road next to the offices where you turn left. Follow the road alongside the brook (watch out for trucks) for 800 metres to a crossroads just past Barkisland Mill. Turn right up this road in front of the mill (there are some pavements higher up).
- Go 800 metres up hill ignoring a footpath and bridleway going off to the left). Just after the road narrows, take the footpath on the left going up three steps to the gap in the wall, bearing off to the right towards the corner of the field. Cross into the next field, immediately going through a gap stile next to a metal gate on your left. Head towards the marker post on the horizon, where you turn right, along a wall. Ignore the path through the wall, the path becomes a track and after 300 metres head slightly right to a gap stile in the wall at the back of Fall Springs Gardens estate. Walk through the estate coming out by the old Mechanics institute on Stainland Road.
- If you want a break, you have the Duke of York down the road to your left or The Pub on your right. If you want to get the 901 bus back, pass The Pub on the right and where the road forks, bear right, to the T junction. There are bus stops by the Junior and Infant school but the 901 bus to Hebden Bridge seems to stop by the T junction not at the bus. stop. This is possibly due to a change of bus company. For the bus to Huddersfield wait on the grass verge and be prepared to flag the bus down.