Part 5 - Kirklees

Of the five metropolitan boroughs that comprise the metropolitan and ceremonial county of West Yorkshire, Kirklees is the first of two we are visiting that does not contain a city. Instead, it consists of ten towns, of which only five still have railway stations, although the others (Birstall, Cleckheaton, Heckmondwike, Holmfirth, and Meltham) all had stations in the past. Kirklees was formed in 1974, and is named after Kirklees Priory, which ironically is actually in the Metropolitan Borough of Calderdale. Kirklees contains more rural areas than the Cites of Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield, and includes some of the most scenic walks we have done thus far. In addition to the five towns we shall be visiting (including Huddersfield, the administrative centre of the Metropolitan Borough of Kirklees), we shall be visiting several villages and a few suburbs. There are a total of fifteen extant railway stations in total in Kirklees, and each has its own walk. And there is a sixteenth railway station and walk also included in this section, although as we shall see, not only is it not in Kirklees, but by modern definitions of county boundaries, it isn’t even in Yorkshire anymore.

We shall follow parts of the towpaths of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, the Huddersfield Broad Canal, and the Calder and Hebble Navigation, and will visit another of the Seven Wonders of the Waterways. There are no cathedrals, but there is a minster and a castle, or at least the remains of one. And there is also a giant pie dish, as we start near the border with South Yorkshire, for the next railway station along the Penistone Line from Penistone, which is at Denby Dale…