Today we are back walking the Liverpool & Leeds Canal - and today will be walking from Gargrave to Burnley, via Colne - and the following day we will continue on to Blackburn, before heading home.
Gargrave itself sits just below the Yorkshire Dales, and is a charming small town that sits in rural countryside.
And by this point, this is my third visit, having previously come to walk the Liverpool & Leeds Canal from Gargrave to Keighley, and the Pennine Way from Hebden Bridge to Gargrave, and from Gargrave to Horton-in-Ribblesdale.
Gargrave also sits in the centre of what is thought to be the very best of the Liverpool & Leeds Canal - the stretch between Colne and Skipton. Although I personally do also have a soft spot for the area around Bingley and Saltaire.
This suggests a good start to our day - but after heading past Colne, I'm not entirely sure what to expect as we continue on down the canal.
One of the things about canals that creates either interest or trepidation, is the fact that the route is dictated by the route of the canal, not by someone carefully curating the best path through the countryside - and so where it goes, you go.
This means that urban centres could be delightful, or they could be fairly drab and run down. But in many ways this is part of the exploration process - and it is always interesting to see the differences in how each town approaches the opportunities, or challenges, posed by a canal.
In general, the Liverpool & Leeds Canal is a fairly rural canal - but within it's 126 mile span it does have sections that are more urban.
Of these the most urban is the final run through Liverpool - but beyond this, you additionally have stretches between Shipley and Leeds, and between Colne and Blackburn.
This stretch between Colne and Blackburn will cover half of today's - and all of tomorrow's - walking, as we generally follow a ribbon of towns, and run parallel to the M65, from Colne onwards.
And so over these two days we will have a fairly mixed walk - with a very rural, and hopefully very charming, start to today - before we will have to take on could prove to be the least exciting stretch of the canal, as we work our way down between Colne and Blackburn (after Blackburn the canal takes a more rural route once again).
But we need not worry about that yet, for our primary focus right now is to make the most of the first half of the day, on our way out of Gargrave.
And so it is that we arrive at Gargrave train station, head across town too meet up with the canal - and where we previously turned right to head towards Skipton, we turn left and begin our journey towards Burnley.
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| Heading out from Gargrave |
Initially the towpath heading out from Gargrave is the absolute gold standard of towpaths (my personal award system - gold being compacted gravel, silver being otherwise solid, and bronze being a mix of rocks and mud) - but soon drops down to that bronze level of towpath.
For walking this is good enough, but for cyclists the best of the towpath probably comes to an end as you reach Gargrave (with the towpath from memory having been the gold standard all the way between Leeds and Gargrave).
But as we dip under the railway that carried us here, and continue on round to Bank Newton, we find ourselves in wonderful rural countryside, with a lovely quiet landscape to get lost in.
With the Liverpool & Leeds Canal taking a fairly flat (and meandering route) across the countryside, locks are not particularly common along the canal - but by my count eleven of the 91 locks that span the entire canal can be found around Gargrave, and we pass eight of these on this early stretch out of Gargrave today.
Of these, five locks can be found in quick succession at Bank Newton - as the canal gains a bit of height after passing over the River Aire.
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| Lock flight at Bank Newton |
Having made it up this flight, the canal then start to take on quite a winding route, as it tries to seek a flat route across this undulating countryside.
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| Heading out from Bank Newton |
Before too long we reach the village of East Marton - and here we get joined by the
Pennine Way, which we had very briefly joined up with as we headed through Gargrave - and this trail now joins us for a very short stint along the canal.
As a result, this is a section of that canal that I have walked before, when walking the
Pennine Way between
Hebden Bridge and Gargrave - and at the time it did feel like that route might have been better if it had stuck with the canal all the way into Gargrave.
And having now completed that alternate route today, I feel able to say with confidence that the Pennine Way route planners got it wrong - adding this section of canal to that route, would have added both a lovely stretch of canal walking, and a bit of contrast to that trail. And in the process, it would have introduced a new group of people to the joys of canal walking.
But as it is, the Pennine Way soon diverts off to leave us behind - doing it's best to keep to an absolute minimum the amount of time spent alongside the canal - and we are now heading in a far more direct, and less meandering, route across the countryside.
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| Heading out from East Marton |
Here we have no blue skies, but this remains a very photogenic stretch of canal, and here we settle into a quiet wander across the countryside, -passing only the odd dog walker as we head on past Thornton-in-Craven (which lies off to the side of the canal).
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| A gaggle of geese |
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| A bit of a misty day, but you can just about see the hills |
By this point we are beyond Thornton-in-Craven (we never actually see any of the town), and heading towards the more notable town of Barnoldswick - and as we close in on that town, we see a substantial improvement of the towpath - as a cycle trail comes across to join the canal.
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| A run of locks on the way to Barnoldswick |
In general Barnoldswick sits to the side of the canal - although we do pass through a small cluster of houses that centre around the canal.
From what we can see, it is a pretty little town, and it has a lovely feel to it as we walk past it - and this is one of the towns that grew up along the canal, with a focus initially on the woolen, and later on the cotton, trades.
These days you can go see some of that history, by heading over to Barncroft Mill - which retains a working engine that once powered about a thousand looms over it's working life between 1920 and 1978.
Unfortunately though, that mill does lie on the far side of town - and so any trip over will add about two miles of additional walking - one mile out, and another mile back.
As it is, we simply head on through - crossing over the route of the Pennine Bridleway on our way out of town (with that trail passing between Settle and the area around Colne on it's way past us)
Here we are heading almost directly towards Colne - although we will later turn to head west, before actually that town.
And as we continue on towards Salterforth, we pass both a Marina, and evidence of the former railway line into Barnoldswick.
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| The old route of the railway line into Barnoldswick |
This has to have been one of the shortest branch lines to have ever existed, at not much more than 1 mile long - and this short branch used to connect to a now removed 12 mile stretch of track (it closed in the early 1970s), that used to run between Colne and Skipton.
And that 12 mile missing stretch of track is fairly remarkable in terms of the impact it now has on train journey lengths across this stretch of countryside.
As a result of the closure, if two people were to arrive at Colne train station and just miss the prior train - one could head off on foot to Skipton along the back roads, and arrive pretty much at the same time as the other who opted to wait for the next train (with it being just over 3 hours by train, and just over 4 hours on foot, with an hourly service).
And even if they were to arrive exactly on time for the next train, the length of a train journey from Colne to Leeds is in excess of two hours, whilst a train journey from Skipton to Leeds can be done in under thirty-five minutes (on the fastest train).
Eventually this missing stretch of track will get restored - the impact upon towns in the area is too great to ignore the benefits of such an easy project. But for now, we continue across railway deprived countryside, passing over the former route of that Colne-Skipton line as we turn to head west at Foulridge.
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| The view to the side on the run towards Foulridge |
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| View forward with a bridge |
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| Forward view without a bridge |
At Foulridge, the canal heads on through Foulridge Tunnel - but this is a tunnel without a towpath, and so whilst the boats go under, we must go over.
Here it is not entirely clear which is the best route to take - but after heading up the hill with the intention of following the B6251 round to a smaller road that general tracks the route of the tunnel, we soon come across markers which tell us to turn off, and head through the houses.
This waymarked route takes me down to Foulridge Lower Reservoir, which we follow round, before dropping down on a permissive path - to reach the furthest end of the tunnel.
But here we are not alone, and as we join that permissive path, we find ourselves in the middle of the pack of a U3A walking group - and with their pace being pretty comparable to ours, it takes a bit of effort to move up through the group, and out the front to return to some quieter walking.
And on the way through, we have a few nice chats about the canal and about the wildlife that can be found along the canal.
But having made it through to the front, photos can once again resume without turning a walking group into accidental celebrities - and by this point we are heading towards Barrowford Reservoir - after which we will start to head into, and then through, Nelson.
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| On the run down towards Barrowford Reservoir |
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| Locks just before Barrowford Reservoir |
Upon reaching the reservoir, we curve around it, and then head under the M65, and over the top of Colne Water - before winding down along the outer edge of Nelson.
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| Just outside of Nelson now |
Once we get further towards Nelson, it proves to be a slightly scruffy town, with a decent smattering of litter - but whilst the town does feel a bit scruffy, it doesn't feel like a particular bad place - just one that is in dire need of a tidy up.
And whilst this doesn't make for terrible walking, it doesn't make for particularly great walking either - and this stretch until we get out beyond Brierfield is more obligation than enjoyment.
But after pulling level with Brierfield, we do enter a little slice of countryside - which just about remains in between the motorway and houses - with some nice older buildings along the canal.
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| A chimney stack near Brierfield |
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| A nicely restored mill |
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| On the run down to the Marina |
Once past the Marina, we do however, return to a heavily littered section of the canal, on our way into Burnley - with the industrial sites bordering the canal in particular letting cascades of trash and litter flow down to reach the canal.
Once it gets down to the canal edge, it looks like the litter is effectively getting cleaned out of the canal, but they should probably name the boat that they used to clear up the litter Sisyphus, in honor of the Greek chap who used to push the bolder up the hill each day.
But this is not the longest stretch of canal, before we draw level with Thompson Park, and here I have opted to stay at the Premier Inn, which sits very close to the side of the canal - making it a very convenient hotel option for this walk.
After staying over, we will held on tomorrow, and see what we will find on the next phase of the canal, before heading on down towards Blackburn.
Total Distance: 20.1 miles (19.4 miles on the canal)
Total Ascent: 770 feet (741 feet on the canal)
Enjoyment Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ ★ / 5
This walk is definitely a walk of two halves - with the first section round until Barrowford Reservoir being an excellent stretch of walking - and for those only interested in doing a highlights tour of the canal, your best bet would be to cut down to finish at Colne train station.
From here you have a less interesting, and often fairly scruffy walk, with our national litter crisis coming to the fore - but that early stretch is long enough and good enough to make the walk in full worthwhile.
Doing it again as a day walk, I would start at Colne and then walk round to Gargrave from there. The fractured nature of the trains does mean that this will involve at least one slow leg of a train journey.
Disclaimer: This writeup provides a narrative of what to expect rather than a route guide to follow. The route is covered by the 103 OS Landranger map (links redirect to Amazon). The route is in general easy to follow with the one challenge being the Foulridge tunnel, but I came across signs pointing me in the right direction once I started out on what I hoped was the right route
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