Jumble Hole Clough

Nice surprise today, Melanie said if I went to theirs after lunch we could go on a walk.  When I arrived they were already sat in the car ready for the off. We drove along the road towards Todmorden and pulled up a small road on the right.  We were going for a walk up Jumble Hole Clough.  A place where Jo runs sometimes so he led the way. 

First proper outing for my new camera – although I still have it on automatic.  I need to get to grips with the manual settings.  We set off up the road which was a really good single car track and started climbing up the hill side. 

As we went further up derelict buildings from days gone by started to appear.  As we went upwards we eventually turned off the concrete car track and took a narrow footpath running around the hillside.

We continued to climb upwards until we came to a stile through a wall which took us back on a path heading down towards the beck which was running alongside us.  At the bottom were several tumble-down buildings and a waterfall.

  At some point back in the day these had been mills and thriving small industries.  It would be interesting to see if there are any original photographs of when this was all working.  We stopped here for a look around before carrying on up the clough along by the beck.  Eventually we came to a bridge which crossed the water – pretty near the top.

At this point we stopped to take in the view before turning to go back the way we had climbed up. We followed our original path as far as climbing in out of the hollow where the derelict buildings were and then took a different track off to the right.

This was a broad grassy path with cobbles/stones hidden underneath.  You could imagine back in the day this may well have been a packhorse track serving the mills and houses up the clough up to the hill tops. 

The path eventually brought us back to where we had started – it had been a good adventure.  Mabel had been excellent on the steep steps – George had managed not to fall and Aggie had only bumped her head once when trying to see inside a hole in the hillside.  Albert had slept through a good deal of the walk in his backpack on Jo’s back.

We were all ready for a cup of tea when we got back to Heptonstall.