Lanes

Richard Bell's Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Tuesday, 15th January, 2008

wallTHERE’S ANOTHER WORLD beyond the end of our lane. Our local camping store, GOoutdoors (formerly Mitchell's) has a suitably rural setting with lanes and hedges that remind me of walks I've done in the Yorkshire Dales. Smithy Brook is brim full this afternoon but it's showing no signs of flowing in the back door of the camping store and out the front, as it did last June.

The drystone wall supporting the banking alongside New Road, which, despite the name, dates from 1841, has a mossy patina which reminds me of the Pennine dales.

holeSmithy BrookEven negotiating the pavement becomes a bit of an adventure when we cross New Road, which is the main Wakefield to Huddersfield road, and walk along Hostingley Lane on a narrow strip of tarmac with traffic on one side and a chasm on the other. There were some emergency repairs following the floods six months ago this week but they still haven't got back to finish the job and the safety fence is now lying in the hole.

An alluvial fan of debris in the adjacent field at the foot of the bank is a reminder that the swollen brook flowed across the road as if it was a dam wall or weir.