Hetton and Winterburn

Sunday, 6th June

7.14 Miles

Map : OL10 - Yorkshire Dales - Southern Area.




Our first really wet walk of the season, which shows how dry it has been during this spring and which was evidenced by the low levels in Winterburn Reservoir, although this reservoir is not supplying drinking water but is used to maintain levels in the Leeds-Liverpool Canal.
This walk came from the superb walkingworld.com. This was suggested to me by a friend and, with a little help from one of my work colleagues who supplied me with maps for Memory Map I'm now set up to try some of the 5,000 + walks that walkingworld offers. The subscription is only £17.45 per. year, so well worth it if, like me, you try and get out walking each weekend. I may even try and devise some of my own routes!

The walk starts in the small village of Hetton (GR 963589). There is no official car park but roadside parking is available, if you get there before the Angel Inn opens ! The walk is relatively straightforward. From Hetton take Moor Lane - a broad track which leads out of the village and sets a dead straight route for the top end of the reservoir. Whilst uphill all the way it is a gradual rise eventually culminating at the convergence of five paths (GR 951608).


The way ahead is very clear and the path drops you to the head of the reservoir. A well signposted path then leads round the northern end of the reservoir and down the western side before meeting a sharp gully which forces you up and onto a farm track. A few metres down is the only tricky bit of the walk (although, again it is well signposted). This leads you across a field onto a separate farm track which you follow down into the hamlet of Winterburn.

Here we were distracted with the call of a peacock. Try as we might we could not locate it until Gill suddenly pointed to the roof of a farmhouse. Sure enough, next to the chimney, right on the apex of the roof was the offending bird ! Shortly after we encountered one of those wonders of the Dales countryside - a field full of yellow buttercups and purple clover.

The final stretch of the walk leads across another green lane - Cross Lane - which eventually meets up with Moor Lane and back into Hetton.

Perhaps not as spectacular as last week's walk and, thankfully, the heavy rain held off but, again, it was a delight to escape Guiseley and spend a few hours in the country.

Photographs are available here (including the peacock on top of the roof!).