Last year, the women at the Tourist Information Center gave us a map of a circular hike from Holmbridge that went around some reservoirs. But we didn't have time to try it, so we planned to do it this time. And I bought the Ordinance Survey book of hikes for the area. It has a circular hike from Holmfirth to Holmbridge. Then a couple with rescue lurchers told us they'd just returned from a wonderful pub in Holme, The Fleece, and had a lovely walk after a lovely meal.
That settled it; we spent a lot of time in the upper Holme Valley. We did bits of lots of walks, and, on May 2, we did the two circular walks combined. Not too bad for two senior citizens.
Although we did our walks on several days, and walked around Digley Reservoir enough times to lay claim to it, I'm going to show you the valley in a big circle. It's my Web page; so there.
Somehow, going anti-closkwise (I can so speak English, not just American.) seems the right way to do this. From Holmfirth, you head to Upperthong and find the footpath through the fields, heading above the River Holme, towards Holme Moss.
Chuck, in Upperthong. It's right after breakfast, so he still had his anorak and hat on. Thisis how we usally started our walk. Well, it's also how we usually walked before breakfast. But we were in short sleeves rather soon. I lucked out, having a pair of slacks with zipper that turned them into shorts. |
Cattle along the path out of Upperthong. |
The footpath from Upperthong goes along the fields behind the houses in Liphill Bank.
Me, making friends with another local. I'm surprised at how friendly the horses and cattle are. Notice, I'm already in short sleeves. |
Well, a young Swaledale has to practice her climbing somewhere. |
Then you cross the Greenfield Road and follow a lane down to Booth Houses, then back up to lots more fields.
| This is the kind of views we see all around us in Holme Valley. Below Holmfirth, it's more settled. But, as you head up, it's all this lush green country. And, although it may look gentle, there are some good grades to climb. And we feel so tough, until a little old lady with carrier bags passes us. |  |
Instead of going all the way down into Holmbridge, which we'd already wandered around on a drive to check out The Fleece, we turned onto the Holme Valley Circular Walk. This took us over to Digley Reservoir. We start at the dam and follow the path along the side of the reservoir.
 |
Which, naturally goes up. Chuck is above Digley Reservoir, at the intersection of two paths. |
On the circular walk, you take the dirt path down to the left, in front of the bench. It goes over the dam between the Digley and Bilberry reservoirs. On our first walk up here, we followed the wider lane, to the left, to go around Bilberry Reservoir and beyond, to come back over Good Bent and Scopes Moor.
Bilberry Reservoir may look small, but it devastated Holmfirth when it flooded, before Digley was built. |
 |
We walked along, way above Bilberry Reservoir, through beautiful moorland farms. We could see occasional cars and lorries up to the right on the Greenfield road.
 |
And we saw lots of cattle, luckily on the other side of stone walls. |
And, as usual, armed with maps and personal directions, we missed a turn. But we were enjoying ourselves too much to notice. Until we met a group of lads hiking the Kirklees Way, who got us turned around and headed back. Without them, we'd have ended up taking the Pennine Way over Black Hill and reaching Torside Reservoir by nightfall! We didn't even try to find the proper turn; we went back the way we'd come. And got a different angle on the views.
Digley and Bilberry Reservoirs from the top of the Holme Valley. |
Yorkshire ingenuity. See how the back of the barn is sort of cracking off. And held up by ever another brace. |
If you cross between the reservoirs and take the Kirklees way south, you cross through gentle farmland and reach Holme. If you take the best turn, you pass the Junior and Infant School. Don't you wish your children could attend here? Just the right size, fantastic views, and you could say they were Holme schooled.
 |
 |
Holme is a cute little village, with a fantastic pub, The Fleece. It's about as close to the top of the valley as you can get. All the reservoirs start even with it. Beyond, you go right up onto Holme Moss and the moors of the Peak District. The Kirklees Way and the Holme Valley Circular Walk come through, and there are lots of other footpaths. And a few farms.
 . |
We have no idea why the ewe is dressed this way. |
From Holme, we once went up over Netherly, down to Yatesholme Reservoir, around Ramsden Reservoir and across its dam, and back up through a wood to Holme.
Me at one of the streams that feed the reservoirs. |
Looking down at Brownhill Reservoir. |
On the circular walk, we went up through a picnic area and onto a moor. And got royally (appropriate for England?) lost. There were no markers for the footpaths, and trails went off everywhere. We think sheep made most of them. We could even see where we wanted to be, Homebridge, but not a way there. One foray took us into a farm, with a fence across our egress. So back up and along the ridge way above the River Holme. As long as we could see it and follow it, we were heading in the proper direction.
Looking down at the unatainable Holmebridge. |
Me with an adorable lamb, above Hinchliffe Mill, well before we found our way down. |
We finally came to a road, and took it down into Hinchliffe Mill, at a mill. And found the River Walk into Holmfirth. It was shady and cool. We saw a man fishing at a mill pond, and Chuck got blasted, and startled, by a steam pipe behind one of the mills.
| And we passed this lovely waterfall. |  |
The path comes out from the river onto the Woodend Road, just on the edge of Holmfirth.
We were proud of ourselves the day we did the combined loops. It's 9 miles. But each of the bits is also beautiful. And we did a bunch of them on their own as well as on the big walk. That's one of the great things about Yorkshire. You don't have to drive somewhere and do an official trail. You just find a footpath and take it as far as you want. And you can always get a bus back.
Back to the Holmfirth Page
Back to Nancy's Home Page
Back to the Ciaffone Family Home Page