Marsden Trail

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 during the nineteenth century due to the production of woollen cloth and still retains some of the mill buildings from this period. It is perhaps best known today as the location of the East Portal of Standedge Tunnel on the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, as we shall see on the walk.

Marsden Trail Google Map

Marsden Railway Station was opened in 1849 by the London & North Western Railway; it has no surviving railway buildings and has three remaining platforms out of an original five, with each of the three having its own entrance and exit. Leave the station from platform 1 or 2 (platform 3 is seldom used) via the steps to Station Road and turn left. At the end of the road turn left again and then take another sharp left turn to gain the towpath of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal by Railway Lock No. 42E. Follow the towpath, passing under Station Road Bridge No. 60 and two sets of narrows, before passing under Tunnel End Railway Bridge No. 61. Look out for the former Huddersfield Narrow Canal Waterways Depot on the opposite side of the canal.

Continue along the towpath as it crosses to the other side of the canal via Tunnel End Footbridge No. 62; here, take a detour to the left to view the East Portal of Standedge Tunnel and the adjacent café and visitor centre, located in a pair of Grade II-listed Tunnel Keeper’s cottages. The tunnel opened in 1811 and is the longest, deepest and highest canal tunnel in the United Kingdom: after a lengthy restoration, it re-opened to canal traffic in 2001. Like Bingley Five Rise Locks on the Leeds and Liverpool Canal, which we visited on our tour of the City of Bradford, the tunnel is sometimes considered to be one of the “Seven Wonders of the Waterways”.

Standedge Tunnel and Visitor Centre.

Retrace your steps to the bridge, then turn right and walk through the car park, passing the former depot (currently home to a musical instrument and community arts centre) on the right. Bear left along a path to Ainsley Road, then turn left. When the road ends at the junction with Reddisher Road, cross straight over and follow a stepped path uphill past houses on the right to reach a track. Turn left and follow a wide track (which forms part of the Kirklees Way long distance trail) between fields, with delightful and expansive views over Marsden on the right. After some distance, the track turns left and runs gently uphill to a junction; here, turn right and continue along another track, Stone Folds Lane.

Stay on the track, which eventually makes a hairpin bend to the right and runs downhill to end at Spring Head Lane. Cross this and continue straight ahead down Plains Lane, which runs steeply downhill, crossing a bridge over the railway track, to end at Marsden Lane. Turn right and follow this, shortly crossing Smithy Holme Bridge No. 56, a road bridge over the canal, where Waterhouse Hill Lock No. 39E can be seen immediately on the right. Continue to follow the road (which is now Warehouse Hill Road, soon passing the impressive but currently derelict New Mills on the left.

On reaching the junction with Station Road and Peel Street, Marsden United Church can be seen on the right. Just past this is the former White Swan public house. Turn left along Peel Street, crossing the road bridge over the River Colne, where the outflow from Butterley Reservoir runs over a weir into the river on the right. Stay on Peel Street, passing first the Riverhead Brewery Tap on the right, then the Mechanics Institute and the Shakespeare public house, both on the left. The Grade 2-listed Mechanics Institute is one of Marsden’ most recognisable buildings and dates from 1860; it is now used as a village hall.

The Mechanics Institute.

When the road reaches a crossroads with Manchester Road, look out for the New Inn on the right, also Grade II-listed and dating from the mid-nineteenth century.

Cross Manchester Road, then bear left into Marsden Park, which contains the British Women's Temperance Association fountain, the village’s War Memorial and a monument to Marsden-born poet Samuel Laycock. Known as the Marsden poet, Laycock (1826-1893) is known for recording in verse the vernacular of the Lancashire cotton workers. After walking clockwise around the park, exit back on Peel Street and turn left to where it ends at Carrs Road. Turn left and then immediately right to follow a signed public footpath up a farm drive. On reaching the farm, follow waymarks left and then right to gain a permissive path than runs uphill. Follow this, and at a junction turn right to follow a path along the side of the valley, eventually joining the end of Binn Lane. Turn right through a gate and follow a waymarked path around the edge of another farm, then left through a wooden gate. The path runs straight downhill past a belt of trees on the right, eventually ending at Binn Lane.

Turn right and follow the lane to a junction. Continue straight ahead down a stepped public footpath that runs down the side of Butterley Dam. Butterley Reservoir was completed in 1906, and it’s distinctive long, stepped spillway is Grade II-listed. At the bottom of the steps, do not cross the bridge over the spillway from the reservoir, but instead turn right and follow a lane that eventually passes through the buildings of another currently derelict mill, Bank Bottom Mill. Originally a fulling mill, Bank Bottom Mill dates from 1824.The lane eventually ends at Binn Road; here, turn left and follow the road downhill to a roundabout.

Turn left along Mount Road, then turn right along Rock View and follow the footpath at the end uphill to reach Old Mount Road. Turn right and at the crossroads cross straight over Manchester Road and proceed along Town Gate. At the next junction turn left along Church Lane, then turn left into the churchyard of the Grade II-listed Church of St. Bartholomew, completed in 1899 on the site of a previous chapel. The tower was added in 1911. Walk past the side of the church and leave the churchyard at the far end, then turn right to reach Clough Lea. Turn right again, then left over Mellor Bridge, a Grade II*-listed packhorse bridge over the River Colne, which dates from the seventeenth or eighteenth century. Turn right along the Green and follow it back to Church Lane, then turn left and left again along Station Road. Follow this uphill, passing the Station Inn on the left, eventually returning to Marsden Railway Station.

Marsden completes our tour of the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees, but there is one more station left to visit on the Huddersfield Line before we move onto the final part of West Yorkshire. And not only is it not in Kirklees, but by modern definitions, it isn’t even in Yorkshire…