Today we had to pick the boy up from his hockey tour in Leeds so decided to do some exploring on foot in Ilkley. We woke up to rain and an equally wet forecast but decided to press on regardless, fingers crossed! We packed up and head down through showers arriving in Ilkley just after noon. We parked in the main car park, a car park with its very own Fat Face no less, and readied ourselves for the off.
We began to climb up south towards the moor along the main road before following a footpath into a wooded dell in the middle of the road. It was a lovely way to avoid the main road and to start our walk. The top of the dell exited us at the cattle grid taking us onto the moorland road.
Onto the moor we picked up the way marked Millenium (a 45 mile loop around Bradford) and the Dales Highway (a 90 mile one way from Saltaire near Bradford to Appleby) routes and followed them west along the northern edge of the moor. So far so good with the weather and we enjoyed the great scenery despite the distant mists. We passed an amazing pink bush which we could see from miles around and then the panorama reservoir. It is thought that the creation of the reservoir in 1890 saw the destruction of a great example of a megalithic cup and ring stone.
We crossed Black Beck which was renamed when Ilkley became a popular late Victoria resort. Many of the place names were changed to be more romantic and Black Beck became Hebers Ghyll. This was after Reginald Heber, who had no connexion with Ilkley, but was a famour hymn writer who died in India in 1826. Shortly after crossing the beck we came across the Swastika stone, an engraved rock protected by railings. This carving design is unique in the UK but is very similar to examples in Italy so there is a theory the two are linked and that troops stationed in Ilkley during Roman occupation took on the design as part of their tribal symbolism and carved it when stationed here. I now find out that the carving I took a photo of is actually a more modern replica, the real one can be seen In the top of the photo – it was the same just more faint!
We continued on past the stone and after crossing three oddly walled fields picked up our path heading south and up onto the next level of the moor, just as the weather started to ‘come in’. We climbed up to the top and looked out across the bleakness and decided on a tweak to our route, rather than heading further onto the moor we would return along the middle edge we had reached hoping to stay below the cloud and rain.
We stopped for a quick sandwick by a couple of large boulders. It did start to drizzle and blow cold at this point so we didnt stop for long and I even donned my hat and gloves! A short distance after lunch we passed a memorial stone on the right of the path. The memorial is for the 8 young men who lost their lives in a plane crash at the point in 1944. The remains of the plane can also be seen close to the stone. More information can be found here.
From here we continued on crossing Black Beck higher in its course by means of a couple of railway sleepers and on to Neb Stone, a large sloping boulder with art (which we never noticed) and a cache (which we did find!). After the find we carried on to the intersection with Keighley Road, the unmade road between Ilkley and Keighley. This is the only legal place for MTB on the moor but looks like lots of people ignore this! We followed the road for a short distance before veering off a footpath to the right taking us back down to the Millenium / Dales Highway track.
On reaching the track we turned east and follow the path on to White Wells which I thought was just a cafe but is actually a spa / plunge baths. The baths have been here since the 1700s. The two baths on the current site were built in 1791 and according to advert in the Leeds Intelligencer of 26 April 1791 the medicinal properties of the ‘Spaw’ could heal ‘bad eyes’, ‘tumours and sores’, ‘scrophula’ and ‘all cases where the spine is affected’. Maybe right but unfortunately in 1793 a 9 year old girl did drown in the bath. Not knowing any of this we skirted round the back of the building and followed the path up above Ilkley Crags instead!
From the crag we dropped down to the infamous Cow and Calf quarry, a busy place even on a dull Sunday afternoon. We skirted round to the bottom of the quarry and began to head back west downwards towards the town. We passed The Tarn as I suspected built for the victorian visitors and refurbished in 2011 following the sale of a former rangers cottage on the moor for £375k. It was picturesque but false!
From here we reached the cattle grid and retraced our steps to the car.
The link to our 12k wander is here, amazing that we avoided the rain all day and what will my lasting memory of Ilkley Moor be – benches – there are benches EVERYWHERE!
Teesside Wanderings 