Most people have heard of Haworth, home of the Brontes, tourist honeypot etc but not so many have heard of Newsholme Dean, a magical little valley a couple of miles to the north. Unless you are a professional racing cyclist and get a closed road (e.g Tour de France 2014, Tour de Yorkshire 2017) Haworth itself is not a very good place to ride a bike, as you have to slalom around wildly unpredictable pedestrians.
Newsholme Dean is a total contrast. It appears in just about every MTB guide to this area as part of a short (12 mile) ride and MTB authors rave about it. But RSF have never to my knowledge visited, so when asked to lead a NPSP Wednesday ride, this was a natural choice as it sits squarely in OL 21.
Haworth is notorious as a parking ripoff, so we parked up about half a mile away at Cemetery Road (GR 022 371). The off road stuff started a mile away in Oakworth which meant a horrid slog up Tim Lane beforehand. No pain, no gain.
At the start of the off road bit (Grey Scar Road) we did actually encounter a large group of pedestrians – they were from the Environment Agency and were looking for water catchment areas, but we saw hardly anyone after that as we made our way to Newsholme Dean via some pleasant tracks across the moors emerging at Broad Head Lane.
After warnings of the need to take care on the Newsholme Dean descent (headbangers only, difficulty of access for Air Ambulance) we descended into the valley and spent a good ten minutes posing for photos at the pack horse bridge / clapper bridge crossing the brook. Time well spent, because we needed a breather before making the ascent out of the valley to Todley Hall Road.
We then made a return visit to Newsholme Dean anticlockwise along the north side of the valley; this is almost all rideable apart from a bit where the possibility of a 10 foot drop onto rocks gets most folk off the bike. But we were soon back in the saddle retracing our earlier route back to the main road. The MTB guides all show a bridleway down into the nearby village, the quaintly named Goose Eye, but I had never found it. Fortunately local Steve was on the ride and he knew exactly where it was; a fantastic little grin inducing section of single track, with the added bonus of emerging right beside the Turkey Inn.
By this time we had ridden for a couple of hours and tummies were rumbling. John was deputed as restaurant critic for the day to enquire as to the availability of food (my original plan was to eat back in Haworth). The Turkey was originally better known as the outlet for the locally brewed Goose Eye bitter, but now it is a foodie destination. And how. A wonderful old country pub, snugs, real log fires, a raft (or should I say draught) of real ales, and, more importantly, a selection of sandwiches served with chips and salad. After the ride I looked it up on Tripadvisor and it gets consistently great reviews.
We eventually had to leave to make our way back to Haworth. There is a short on road route of 3 miles, but we took an off road alternative along a track to Newsholme village, and retraced our outward route via White Lane and Turnshaw Road back to Oakworth.
From there it was a quick descent over the Keighley and Worth Valley railway level crossing featured in The Railway Children and a less quick but a lot more pleasant off road ride up Mytholmes Lane, another new one for me (thanks again, Steve).
9 out today including first timer Dermot – hope you enjoyed it. Bit damp in the afternoon but otherwise dry. Thanks to all who came out.
Reid Anderson
Some more of Rob's photos on Flickr here:
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