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Calderdale Woodlands
Hebden Bridge

A fine walk taking in woodland and contouring paths that afford superb views of the Calder Valley. Approx. 6 miles.

Directions to walk: On arriving in Hebden Bridge, head for the Tourist Information Office in the centre of the town. At the traffic lights, cross the main road into Holme Street and follow it to the end. Turn left, over the canal bridge, then right alongside the canal. Son the path bears left away from the canal and up a flight of stairs. Turn right at the top and follow the cobbled ginnel to the main road. Turn left, cross the railway bridge and follow the road. Take the first lane on the right. After a few yards the lane curves to the left. Take the next lane to the right towards the woods.

1. Go through a wicket gate and continue upwards. Where another walled lane comes up the hillside from the right, go through another small gate, through another, and walk past the front of a house where you will meet a track a track on a bend.
2. Take the left fork up the hill. On a sharp left-hand bend, take the stile in the wall on the right. Cross it, turn a sharp right following the wall to your right. The wall becomes a fence where there is another stile. Follow the path through the bracken, which leads to a narrow enclosed path. You will then come upon a gate that takes you to a bench and a road.
3. Turn left up the road. After about 100 yards besides a telegraph pole take the signposted path on the right. Continue into the woods. Presently the path drops gently to cross a beck by a set of gigantic stepping-stones. Continue up the other side, through a wicket gate, and continue climbing through the woods. Presently the path begins to descend and joins a track at a cattle grid. Over the grid walk down the track (part of the Pennine Way), cross the canal bridge, turn right and follow the towpath under the bridge that you just crossed. Go past the cullis lock and under the next bridge where you will take an immediate right over the bridge you just went under. Follow the road up the left. Where the tarmac ends turn a sharp right up a grassy track with a wall to your left. Circumvent the barbed wire fence at the stile on the right.
4. Continue up the track. Where the double walled lane makes a right-angled turn to the left, go through the pair gateposts straight ahead, keeping to the path that contours round with the wall a few yards to the left.
5. At the end of the first field, you are channelled into a path with a fence on the right and a wall on the left. Just before the wall at the end, you come across a few stones that form a stile across the barbed wire fence on the right. Continue for a few yards towards the brow of the hill where you will cross another stile on the left. Continue in the same direction where you will have a wall to your left.
6. The path then bears left. With the wall to your left, and in the direction of Stoodley Pike, you reach a track on a bend. Take the left hand, ascending branch of the track. Ignore a track forking left. Pass through a gateway to a track with a wall on the left and a fence on the right. Where the track turns a sharp left, keep straight ahead through a small gate. The path is now parallel to the beck on your right through the bracken.
7. This path eventually ascends very slightly to a gap stile in a broken down wall. Bear slightly to your left across the rough pasture, climbing to reach a grassy track. Turn right along it. Soon it divides. Take the right hand branch that descends to a walled lane and head towards a pair of old gateposts and a barn on the other side of the beck. Take the left-hand branch that climbs along the edge of the wood.
8. About 50 yards before the wall on your right bends right and descends, you will see a gap stile. Opposite it, climb half-left up the hillside on a path through scattered hawthorn bushes. This passes under electricity cables and leads to where a fence and a wall join. At this join cross the wall and keep straight ahead across the rough pasture towards the second pylon. As you cross the brow of the hill you come upon a small gate in the wall marked with PW where you rejoin the Pennine Way.
9. Through the gate follow the wall on the left to a farm. Pass to the left of the farm and down the farm road. About 50 yards before the wall on the right ends cross a stepped gap stile and follow the wall on the right to a gate at the end of the field. You have once again left the Pennine Way.
10. Through the small gate beside the field gate, turn left down the walled lane. Immediately after a belt of trees on the left, pass through the wicket gate and stile on the left. Cross the beck and descend, with the beck on your left. Towards the bottom the field narrows. Continue down between the beck on the left and the wall on the right. Cross the stile by the gate and continue with the beck on the left. Pass through a gap in a broken wall and keep following the beck on the left. Eventually the path leads away from the beck and through a gap stile besides a gate and into a walled lane. Soon you will have a wall to your right and a wood and steep drop to the left.
11. When you reach the cobbled access road to Horsehold Farm, turn left down it. This turns into a tarmac surface. Follow the road down to the canal; turn left for a few yards when you meet a t-junction. After crossing the canal bridge, turn right along the towpath into Hebden Bridge.