Skip to navigation


Hebden Bridge to Lothersdale

Gibson Mill in Hardcastle Crags
Gibson Mill in Hardcastle Crags

Ugh, what a horrible day. This time I can't blame the scenery because I could hardly see it; after the glorious weather of the last few days the Pennine Way suddenly switched to the cold, rainy disaster zone I remember so well from 2000, and along with the rain, memories flooded back of why I hated the bloody thing so much back then.

Hardcastle Crags

Hardcastle Crags
Hardcastle Crags

Luckily the moors aren't made up entirely of bleak high ground, because where there's lots of water there's lots of rivers, and rivers make valleys. Most of these valleys are home to beautiful villages, pretty little copses or modern reservoirs, and walking off a rain-driven moor down into a picturesque dale is one of the more pleasant aspects of trekking through this part of the world. Unfortunately, in inclement weather it's pretty much the only pleasant aspect.

Grouse Butts

The Savile Estate
The Savile Estate

The difference between blindly following something like the Pennine Way and making up your own route boils down to making good judgement calls. As I climbed out of Hardcastle Crags, I came across such a call; I had to choose between a direct route over the top of a lonely moor, or a more roundabout, low-level track that went round the moor and remained at the same height. I looked at the options and I had no idea which to choose; sometimes you just have to gamble.

The Savile Estate
Heather on the Savile Estate, no doubt home to plenty of grouse

The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described, but the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting of the Heights.

Like all good myths, the facts don't have to stand up to close scrutiny, and not only does the Pennine Way take in this lonely concrete farmhouse, but so does the Brontë Way, whose way-marker signs are tellingly in both English and Japanese.

Top Withens
A rather gloomy Top Withens
A signpost in English and Japanese
The signposts around Top Withens are in English and Japanese

More Moor

A sign explaining the connection between Top Withens and Wuthering Heights
The sign at Top Withens

Walking in lashing rain is one thing, but having to climb steep-sided valleys in lashing rain is another. From Top Withens the Pennine Way embarks on a series of steep descents and arduous climbs that aren't difficult in themselves, but which are a right bloody palaver in shitty weather. By the time I descended to Ponden Reservoir and climbed back up the other side, I was hardly in the mood for yet more miles of desolate heather and cotton grass, but that's what was on offer. Thankfully the Pennine pavement crew have also been busy on this section, and if you ignore the danger of slipping on the wet limestone paving stones then it's easy going... or it is if you can ignore the cold, wet, windy and thoroughly miserable weather.

Ponden Reservoir
Ponden Reservoir
Mark giving the thumbs down on Ickornshaw Moor
What I thought of Ickornshaw Moor

Between the Moors

Ickornshaw
Ickornshaw

Thankfully the people round here are so wonderful that I'm managing to kick my phobia of the North into touch. I might think the moors suck, but the villages and the inhabitants are great and to me that's the most important thing. For example, as I wound down into Ickornshaw, one valley over from my destination of Lothersdale, a bloke who was packing his car by the side of the road looked at me and launched into a conversation, just like that.

Lothersdale
Lothersdale