Harrogate is a spa town in the West Riding of Yorkshire, which developed significantly from the sixteenth century due to the discovery of its chalybeate and sulphur-rich spring waters, which resulted in it attracting many visitors (for anyone wondering chalybeate waters are waters containing iron salts). In medieval times, it comprised the separate villages of High and Low Harrogate, although the area between these was developed during the nineteenth century. Today, the town

Hornbeam Park is a small, primarily industrial, suburb of Harrogate that was originally home to companies including Imperial Chemical Industries, who invented Crimplene in their laboratories on the site and named it after the nearby Crimple Valley. It was developed as an office park and retains many offices, but is now also home to Harrogate College (a campus of Hull University) and retail premises. A small industrial estate may not sound like an appealing place for a walk, b

Pannal is another small village, albeit a bigger one than any of the three on the previous walk. It is located south of Harrogate, of which it is effectively a suburb, albeit one that just about remains detached. Originally named Rossett, it was mentioned in the Doomsday Book of 1086 as Roset and was subsequently located within the now-vanished Forest of Knaresborough, a royal hunting forest that once covered 45 square miles. The village was renamed Pannal (which means “nook

After leaving Horsforth, the train passes through the two-mile long Bramhope Tunnel before making its next stop, and immediately the scenery outside the window becomes strikingly more rural. The first stop is at Weeton Railway Station, which isn’t actually in Weeton at all: it is in neighbouring Huby, a small but ancient village, which lacks a pub, shop or post office, although it did have the last of those until the nineteen nineties. Weeton itself is nearly a mile from the

North Yorkshire was created in 1974, and as well as including most of the North Riding (and some of the East Riding), it includes the top part of the West Riding, except for the Sedbergh Rural District, which ended up in Cumbria, and which we will be visiting later. It also includes the City of York, although York itself was never in any of the three Ridings, instead existing in isolation at their intersection. Unlike South and West Yorkshire, it doesn’t contain any Metropoli

Our final station in Calderdale serves the town of Todmorden, located on the very western edge of Yorkshire and in fact straddling the historic boundary between Yorkshire and Lancashire, which is formed at this point by Walsden Water, a tributary of the River Calder. The Local Government Act 1888 moved the official boundary, bringing the whole of the town into the West Riding of Yorkshire, and of course today is falls within the Metropolitan and Ceremonial County of West York

Hebden Bridge started life as a settlement based around the old bridge across Hebden Beck (also known as Hebden Water, or the River Hebden). The Hebden part of the town’s name comes from the Anglo-Saxon name “Heopa Denu”, which means bramble valley, whilst the bridge part is self-explanatory and we will cross the eponymous bridge on the walk. Like so many other towns in the West Riding, Hebden Bridge flourished during the Industrial Revolution, with water-powered mills built

Mytholmroyd is the only village in Calderdale with its own railway station, although a sign close to the station directs visitors towards the “town centre”! The village’s distinctive name means “ a clearing for settlement, where two rivers meet”, and the village has existed since at least the thirteenth century, when it was recorded as Mithomrode. Finds from the Bronze and Iron Ages have been found in the area, as has a hoard of Roman coins. The village was once home to a now

The town of Sowerby Bridge started life as a fording point over the River Calder, close to where it is joined by the River Ryburn. More so even than its neighbouring West Riding towns, it expanded during the Industrial Revolution, with water-powered textile mills erected around the bridge and the opening of the Rochdale Canal providing a route for transport by water over the Pennines. As such, most of its oldest buildings date from the nineteenth century rather than earlier.

The minster town of Halifax derives its name from the Old English halh-gefeaxe, meaning “area of coarse grass in the nook of land”, a name that bears little resemblance to the town today. Whilst not mentioned in the Domesday Book, it was probably in existence by the end of the eleventh century and rose to prominence during the fifteenth century as a centre of woollen manufacture. Of course, the Industrial Revolution only bolstered this further, and it became a mill town with

The name Brighouse is derived from Bridge House, a self-explanatory reference to a building close to on or a bridge, and what is now a town was originally a hamlet in the ancient parish of Halifax. Surrounded by Huddersfield to the south, Halifax to the west, Bradford to the north, and Dewsbury to the east, it marks the first stopping point on a journey along the Calder Valley Line that will become progressively more scenic as it heads into the Pennines. Not that Brighouse is

Calderdale is the second Metropolitan Borough in modern-day West Yorkshire not to contain a city, being administered from Halifax, its largest town. Like Kirklees, it was formed in 1974. Named after the River Calder, it includes six main towns – in addition to Halifax, these are Brighouse, Elland, Sowerby Bridge, Hebden Bridge, and Todmorden. All of these bar Elland have a railway station on the Calder Valley Line, which connects Leeds and Bradford with Lancashire and is the

Historically, Greenfield is a village in the West Riding of Yorkshire, close to the border with the historic county of Lancashire....

Marsden is a large village in the Colne Valley and the home of the National Trust’s Marsden Moor Estate visitor centre. It grew wealthy...

The town of Slaithwaite is located in the Colne Valley, and probably has one of most mispronounced place names in Yorkshire. The town’s...

Batley is recorded in the Domesday Book as Bateleia and is an ancient settlement, although most of its many notable buildings date from...

Dewsbury is a minster and market town on the River Calder, and is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Deusberie, which translates as...

Ravensthorpe is a suburb of Dewsbury, formerly heavily industrialised and once boasting several textile mills. It is not an ancient...

The town of Mirfield forms part of the area’s Heavy Woollen District, having been a centre of the woollen industry from the fourteenth...

Deighton was originally a hamlet known as East Bradley until the Deighton family purchased the area. It lacks an historic village core,...