Walking in the South Pennines

There are over 128 walks described in this guidebook to the South Pennines, the moorland areas between the Yorkshire Dales and the Peak District. An area of remarkably varied and contrasting landscapes of hills and mills. Covers Ilkley and Airedale, Pendle, Calderdale, Rossendale, Saddleworth and the area between Huddersfield and Holmfirth. For both experienced and novice walkers.

Introducing the South Pennines

The words South Pennines were used as long ago as 1947 in the Hobhouse Committee Report which examined the merits of a number of areas being considered for designation as National Parks. Although this area was regarded as possessing outstanding landscape beauty, certain valleys and large areas of moorland being as attractive as parts of the Yorkshire Dales or Peak District National Parks, it just failed to make the grade.

In the 1970’s the former West Riding County Council took the initiative and tried to establish the South Pennines as a Regional Recreation Area. The area was defined by the county boundary in the west and took a vague line skirting Halifax, Bradford and Huddersfield in the east. To the north and south it was limited by the Yorkshire Dales and Peak District National Parks respectively, and in all it was a much smaller area than that covered by the South Pennines today. An interim report was published in 1974 but its proposals were never implemented. However in the August of that year there arose, phoenix-like from the ashes, a new body - the Standing Conference of South Pennine Authorities, (SCOSPA). It recognised that close historic ties (as well as a modern communications network) link both sides of the Pennines and so enlarged the area to include the Local Authorities of Bradford, Burnley, Calderdale, Kirklees, Pendle, Rochdale and Rossendale, the North-West Water Authority and the Pennine Parks Association, although the boundaries were not closely defined.

SCOSPA then took a wider, deeper look at the problems of the South Pennines; an area suffering from economic decline and loss of population as well as deterioration of the uplands. It realised that the area had a wealth of architectural and industrial archeological interest as well as some outstanding landscapes, and that there was a growing interest in conserving our industrial and cultural heritage. (The day visitors who came to enjoy these things were increasing in number but not as yet contributing a great deal to the economy.) It therefore set out proposals to promote tourism and provide better facilities for leisure, whilst at the same time protecting the interests of the local people and preserving the character of the area.

Quite the most important thing SCOSPA has accomplished so far is to give the South Pennines a positive identity and a logo. Of their many projects, helping Local Authorities with footpath schemes, aiding conservation of the natural environment, funding research programmes and interpretation at Visitors Centres are of particular value to the walker. Of indirect value but considerable interest is the South Pennine Visitor, a bi-monthly newspaper costing but a few pence.

The South Pennine landscape is one of hills and mills, sometimes more mills than hills. Both are interwoven in a mesh that is the very essence of this landscape, unique in the British Isles. Its strength lies in the contrast between the mill towns (though no longer satanic and under a pall of smoke), and their surrounding green valleys where many an ancient hamlet lies, seamed by deep-cut wooded cloughs and topped by the ever-present moors. Its lack of stately homes and parklands is off-set by the many fine yeoman farmers’ and clothiers’ houses, and often enough by the very mills themselves. Some of them are old enough to seem picturesque and many have real architectural merit. This fascinating landscape, fashioned more by the hand of Man than Nature, has evolved over the last seven or eight centuries from the hunting forest of the Norman barons, the rise and fall of the textile industry just set the final stamp upon it. It offers a vast amount of varied and interesting walking to the moderate walker.