Stocksmoor Trail

The tiny hamlet of Stocksmoor has a pub but no church or shops, and its biggest claim to fame is as the birthplace of church minister Ben Swift Chambers, who founded what eventually became Everton Football Club. It’s the sort of place that almost makes one wonder how it was deemed deserving of a railway station in the first place, but hikers should be glad that it was. This scenic walk includes a great deal of countryside walking, and also passes through Storthes Hall Park and the tiny hamlet of Thunder Bridge, a conservation area.

Stocksmoor Trail Google Map

Stocksmoor Railway Station opened in 1850 and like its neighbouring station retains only one working platform, although the original waiting room on the southbound platform still survives. From the station, we turn left along Station Road, then follow this to a crossroads. Turn left again along Shepley Road and follow this downhill until it crosses a bridge over Stone Wood Dike. Immediately after crossing the bridge, turn right and follow a path through Stocks Wood beside the dike, eventually reaching a small set of uneven stepping stones. Cross the dike and bear right to reach Fulstone Road. Cross this and continue straight on along a path running uphill along the edge of a field to reach Stocks Lane.

Turn left and then immediately right into Ing Head Lane. Turn right again almost immediately and follow a signed public footpath across two fields. The path turns right and runs between two walls; shortly, turn left at a stone stile and follow another footpath along the edge of two mor fields to reach Stocks Moor Road. Cross this and continue straight ahead along a path running downhill, bearing slightly left across a second field to reach a level crossing over the railway track. Cross this and enter Brown’s Knoll Wood, turning left to follow a path down to a footbridge over Town Moor Dike.

After crossing the bridge, continue to follow the path through the wood and across a field, then into Clough Wood. Follow the path over a footbridge over Clough Dike, after which it climbs uphill with a wall on the right. The path eventually bears left through trees then right across a field to end at Green Side Road. Turn right and follow this, looking out for a view of Random Tower across the fields on the left. This is perhaps a folly, although I have thus far been unable to discover anything of its history. Just after the junction with Wood Lane on the right, turn left and follow a path through the edge of a small copse of trees to reach Storthes Hall Lane.

Turn right and follow Storthes Hall Lane, shortly passing the site of Storthes Hall Hospital on the right; the surviving administration block is visible through the fence surrounding the site.

Storthes Hall Hospital administration block.

The hospital originally opened as the Fourth West Riding Pauper Lunatic Asylum in 1904, was renamed the Storthes Hall Mental Hospital in 1929, and renamed again as the West Riding Mental Hospital in 1939. It closed in 1992 and has been demolished, apart from the administrative block; the site is awaiting redevelopment. After passing the hospital site, take the next right turn to enter Storthes Hall Park, until recently home to the University of Huddersfield’s Storthes Hall Park Student Village, which was developed on land previously belonging to the hospital in the mid-nineteen nineties. Now disused, it is due to be demolished and a housing estate build on the site. Follow the road as it bends sharp left, shortly passing a former hospital building originally called the Arboretum; it is now a wedding venue and restaurant called the Venue. Continue past the Venue, and at a junction bear left to reach the reception building of the student village. Turn right directly in front of this, descend a path to a zebra crossing, turn left and walk past the bus stop, then turn right to enter Myers Wood.

Follow a rambling path through the wood, keeping close to the edge of the trees on the left, and eventually reaching a path running beside Thunder Bridge Dike. Turn right and follow the path alongside the dike through Thunder Bridge Meadow, a nature reserve maintained by the Garganey Trust. Eventually, the path ends at Grange Lane, in Thunder Bridge. Turn left and walk to a junction; to the right, the Thunder Bridge carries the road over Shepley Dike.

Thunder Bridge.

The bridge is Grade II-listed and dates from the early nineteenth century. Take a short detour over the bridge and along Thunder Bridge Lane to visit the Woodman Inn, a Grade II-listed building that was originally two houses dating from the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries; otherwise, turn right and follow Birks Lane.

Stay on Birks Lane until it reaches a fork, then bear left along Station Road to return to Stocksmoor. The Clothiers Arms public house is on the left, just after entering the hamlet. Finally, shortly after passing the pub, turn left into the railway station car park to return to the station.

From Stocksmoor we once again take a short trip further along the Penistone Line to our next destination, the village of Brockholes.