Stanza Stones Walk: Stage Three

Stanza Stones Walk 3 = 20.6mi/32.44Km

Haworth to Ilkley Leg One
Leave the little square in front of Haworth Parish church (St Michael and All Angels), walk up Main Street turning right before Haworth Visitors Centre, carry on along Changegate until the junction with North Street. Turn left along North Street and in fifty yards turn right into a narrow lane with a finger post reading “Public Footpath Private Road”. Keep straight ahead through the yard and you soon enter a green track which continues on behind a cemetery and leads through four fields to Lower Oldfield Farm. Skirt around the farm on a narrow ginnel and, after crossing the yard at the rear, look for a concealed ladder stile in the corner behind an oil tank and some bushes.
Descend the field keeping a depression and the fence on your right, and after passing through a step stile you come to a very striking pack horse bridge (Longbridge) crossing the River Worth.
Go across the bridge and turn to the right. Don’t go into the field on the left; follow the River Worth downstream for a short distance and cross the stile beneath the trees into the next pasture. As the river bends to the North West your path goes north following a stream uphill. Follow the path uphill bypassing a farm on the right and passing through a small copse, until you reach Lower Scholes Farm and enter the yard via a narrow ginnel. Turn left into the yard and then right before the gap in the houses and walk forward to a large metal gate blocking your way on. The way on goes through this gate and bears slightly left towards a large tree on an overgrown path. Pass the tree on the left and keep right at a fence and a boundary stone hidden in the long grass.

The path now passes through a number of stone wall stiles and enters Covey Wood. Once in the wood take the broad path on the left that rises slightly uphill past a memorial seat and crosses a stile on the far side of the wood. Walk across the broad field beyond the stile and another wall stile leaves you standing on a bend in a track leading to Green Well Farm. Turn left up this farm track and as it begins to turn left again look for a stile in the wall on the right hand side of the track.
Walk along the wall on your right and pass through a gap into the yard at Near Hob Cote Farm. Turn left out of the farmyard and once past the wall on your right, look for a gap in the wall with two stone steps in front of it leading onto a parallel drive. At the second drive turn right along it for 20 yards and pick up a path striking off to the left that takes you into the bottom left corner of the field. This stile is in a bad condition at the time of writing and I am attempting to have it repaired. Carry on with the wall on your right as you negotiate this field and pass over a stile to reach a stony track leading off in front of you. Take this track to the next lane junction in front of Denby Hill Farm. Turning left along this lane brings you shortly to a junction with Hob Cote Lane, onto which you turn right for approx. 20 yards before taking the public bridleway on the left (Irish Lane). After the initial left hand bend this lane heads straight as an arrow to a junction with Turnshaw Road. Turn right onto Turnshaw Road and almost immediately after the road bends to the right take the stone stile on the left into a field and follow the path into Griff Wood. On emerging from the wood the path continues until you reach a metalled road at Slack Lane.
Turn left and then right to cross the rough ground which forms a triangle of road junctions and walk down Gill Lane into the hamlet of Newsholme. Once past the Chapel, go round the sharp right hand bend and then turn left between the two houses to enter a grassy track. The track makes a sharp left turn but you go forward through the gap descending the steep hill, through the wood at the bottom and reach the site of a pack horse bridge and clapper bridge in attractive Newsholme Dean.
Take time to look at the bridges in this pleasant spot which was a popular picnic and bathing place for locals during the 1940s and 1950s. Walk across the bridge turn right and pass through a gate at the side of a farm building. The path turns immediately left and goes through the adjoining gate and then turns right. Keep straight ahead then turn right following the garden wall through the trees to a junction with a more prominent track. Don’t take this track, stand with your back to the track that you came on and look up to the top of the grassy bank before you, and you will see a walkers’ gate set in the wall along the top.
Continued Leg Two