West Yorkshire Britain by Bike


West Yorkshire

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60 years ago, an extraordinary man called Harold Briercliffe

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wrote a series of books about his great passion: cycling.

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Now largely forgotten, these overlooked gems were the culmination of a lifelong epic journey.

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His destination? The whole of Britain, on two wheels.

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Over half a century later, armed with one of his reliable cycle touring guides,

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I'm riding Harold's very own bicycle, a Dawes Super Galaxy.

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Hand-built in Britain, this was the ultimate touring machine of its day.

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I'll be taking it on a journey of rediscovery,

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to find the magnificent countryside Harold explored all those years ago.

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I'm going in search of Britain by Bike.

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Today, I'm in the north of England.

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Welcome to Yorkshire, and Bronte Country.

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Straddling the Yorkshire and Lancashire borders, and cut from the Pennine Hills,

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these vast stretches of craggy moorland promise tough cycling, beautiful views,

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and stories of extraordinary people.

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We'll be focusing on a number of heroines as resilient

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and varied as the landscape itself, some are more famous than others.

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They call this Bronte country.

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But for cycling author Harold Briercliffe, the attraction had little to do with literature.

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He calls this some of the best cycling in Britain,

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and he was drawn to Yorkshire not because of the celebrated sisters of Haworth parsonage,

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but because of this, the wild and windswept moorland,

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the tiny hamlets and villages cut from the rough local stone.

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And the deep and winding valleys.

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It's majestic countryside.

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My route follows Harold's 30-mile tour through the Upper Calder Valley.

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It starts and finishes in Hebden Bridge.

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First stop, Haworth, before heading west towards Wycoller.

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Then it's uphill and down dale to Blake Dean and the

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scenic Hardcastle Crags, before turning back towards Hebden Bridge.

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BRIERCLIFFE: The characteristic fell and dale country of West Yorkshire is unmistakeable.

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There is little level land, and both valley bottom and climbing hillsides

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are cut up into innumerable holdings by the stone walls,

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sometimes straight, and often wriggling, which so surprise the newcomer.

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Harold Briercliffe was quite prepared to cycle hundreds of miles,

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and did so, in his exploration of the Yorkshire Dales.

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But when he came here to Hebden Bridge,

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he thought it was a very good starting and finishing point for a smaller tour of about 30 miles.

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Harold was born in Rochdale, just 13 miles down the road from here,

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so he'd have known the area well.

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Which makes it all the more surprising how little he has to say about Hebden Bridge.

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Hebden Bridge should be left by the Keighley Road.

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Was there really nothing worth saying?

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When Harold visited, this was a struggling mill town

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where industry was in decline and money scarce.

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Yet it enjoyed a vibrant inner life quite hidden from the casual observer like Harold.

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60 years on, we can see just what he missed,

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thanks to a remarkable woman.

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Her name was Alice Longstaff. And in 1921, at the age of 13,

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she took an apprenticeship at this shop here when it was a photographer's studio.

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She would end up running the whole business,

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and taking photographs of the people of this area for over 70 years.

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Because of Alice Longstaff's dedication,

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this is one of the best-chronicled communities in Britain.

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All the events of small town life are preserved

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in a collection of pictures taken by Alice and her colleagues.

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As a result, we can see Hebden Bridge during the 1940s and early '50s,

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just as Harold was writing his Cycling Touring Guides.

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Alice Longstaff's life and work is the subject of a play written by author Angela Cairns.

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Alice Longstaff was...

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born out of the rocks of this area.

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She felt she was hewn out of the very stone.

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She was a farm girl, her parents had originally been weavers.

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And she very early developed an interest in photography.

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It was at the age 13, she saw the advertisement

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in the Westerman studio, which seemed to be made for her.

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So, unlike many parents who wouldn't encourage a girl in particular,

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doing such a radical thing, they paid £6 to the local grammar school

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to take her away so that she could begin her apprenticeship.

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Yet, the woman who chronicled the lives of others left a mystery about her own.

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There was speculation about her 57-year marriage,

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especially after her death in 1992.

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She had done a very strange thing in her will as far as her husband was concerned.

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She did. She surprised and staggered a lot of people.

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In brief, the will disinherited him.

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Why did she do that?

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It was an imbalanced marriage, where she wore the trousers, and she would say so.

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John was very much in the background.

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It was almost as if she didn't need him. And in another era,

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one might have asked questions about her sexuality, but of course, not then.

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Alice's real legacy was the Longstaff Collection,

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some 10,000 photographs dating back to the early days of the Westerman studio,

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and capturing Hebden Bridge throughout the 20th century.

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There were prints and duplicates, there were boxes and boxes and boxes of them.

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Unclaimed and unnamed thousands.

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It was extraordinary to find prints

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leafed away in the pages of Yellow Pages and other telephone books.

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Almost like a reckless, random and careless collection.

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How unusual was it to be a female photographer? There had been Julia Margaret Cameron

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some time earlier. Was this an oddity in this part of the country?

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She had her heroines, such as Julia Margaret Cameron.

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But yes, it was extremely rare.

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She was encouraged by Ada Westerman who was the Westerman daughter,

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who had taken the studio over from her father.

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So, between them, the two women felt that, although they were doing something quite rare,

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they were doing something terribly significant for the community,

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and building a reputation for women in this town.

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The Westerman studio, later Alice's own shop,

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was part of the fabric of town life.

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Alice's speciality was hand-tinted portraits of children and families.

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Although renowned for her forceful personality,

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she seemed able to put her subjects at ease, to raise a smile,

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and to capture the intimacy of the moment.

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I think she knew she had an almost unprecedented gift,

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something to offer this community.

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Everybody had their photographs done in their early days,

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before people had their own cameras.

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And a favourite local expression was, "'Ave yer seen yer photographs in t'winder?"

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These photographs not only show the people of Hebden Bridge,

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like the groups of women mill workers sitting by their machines,

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they also document the rise and fall of an industrial town,

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from the arrival of the railway to the mills' grimy decline.

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In the '60s, Alice's camera even captured the spirit of hope

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and regeneration that marked the town's change in fortunes.

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How important do you think the collection is

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as a historical record of Hebden Bridge through the decades?

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By photographing all the various groups, teams, brigades,

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everyone in the town virtually,

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it really is a documentation of an area and its life,

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its working life, and that's what Alice accidentally has done for us.

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Alice Longstaff's photos give us a privileged glimpse into the past of Hebden Bridge,

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and it's not surprising that this working town went unremarked

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by a passing cyclist like Harold Briercliffe.

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Because it's only in retrospect that an archive like Alice's can

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take on the significance that makes it more than just a local curiosity.

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Harold might not have had a lot to say about Hebden Bridge,

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nor indeed would he have known anything about Alice Longstaff.

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But she was certainly a kind of local heroine around here.

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And Hebden Bridge itself is just fabulous.

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Very liberal, very ethically aware, very bicycle friendly.

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A good place to base yourself.

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And, from here, you can get out and explore some of the wilder parts of the countryside.

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The Keighley Road immediately commences to climb out of the Calder Valley,

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and from the ledge commands a splendid prospect.

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From here, Harold's route continues through the village of Pecket Well,

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and then leaves the busy A road,

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striking out over the high moorland towards Haworth.

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Harold delighted in listing every rise and fall of the road

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until the determined cyclist eventually reaches the final climb.

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Up to the setts or cobbles of the main street at Haworth,

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to where the swinging sign of the Black Bull beckons.

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There's plenty about Haworth that wouldn't have changed at all since Harold came through.

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It's still got a real ancient charm to it,

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and was clearly always cycling-friendly.

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But the first stop for any visitor, however they choose to get here,

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is the Old Parsonage.

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Haworth is internationally renowned because this was the birthplace and the home of the three Bronte sisters

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who, in 1847, all had big novels published.

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Emily had Wuthering Heights, Charlotte, Jane Eyre, and Anne had Agnes Grey.

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And even Harold recognised how far their fame had spread.

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They weren't just local heroines, they were global.

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BRIERCLIFFE: The writing of three sisters,

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daughters of an incumbent of Irish extraction with a French name,

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together with the human weaknesses of their brother, have brought to this

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hilly Yorkshire townlet a fame that has spread, with the usual results,

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to the far corners of Hollywood.

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The Bronte legend failed to impress Harold.

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They may have been three Yorkshire girls creating works of literary genius,

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but all this business about their harsh upbringing,

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holed up in some forbidding parsonage,

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surrounded by the miserable wastes of the Yorkshire moors,

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Harold wasn't buying that at all.

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The setting of the inn, graveyard,

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church and parsonage is not as gloomy as portrayed by some earlier writers.

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If Harold was disappointed by Haworth's lack of gloomy atmosphere,

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I'm sure it was more than made up for

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in the huge numbers of refreshments provided for weary cyclists.

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And, believe me, you'll have worked hard for them.

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I'm following this route, the Cycling Tour Guide

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written by a chap called Howard Briercliffe from the late '40s.

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And he says the Yorkshire Dales have some of the best cycling you can find anywhere in Britain.

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-Yes.

-Do you think that's true?

-Yes, I agree with him. It's beautiful.

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-It's hard work though.

-Yes. I feel that too.

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-I'm with you.

-You've got to be prepared to get off and push and not feel bad about it.

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Yes, exactly. It's not an area for big egos to come into, is it?

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Not at all. If you do the hard you work, you get the benefits, like today.

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The views have been stunning.

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-Where are you going on to now?

-Cycling to Keighley and catching the train back.

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But we're having coffee and cake.

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-Coffee and cake here.

-Excellent.

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Enjoy that and I hope you have good weather for the rest of the day.

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-Thanks so much indeed.

-And I hope you have a lovely trip.

-Thank you!

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One of the important things you learn about the cycling community

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is, not only are they friendly, they also tell you important things.

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For example, there is no shame in getting off and pushing,

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especially on cobbled streets which are almost impossible to ride on.

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And, do you know something else about Haworth?

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The traffic can be nose to tail.

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The next part of the route leaves Haworth

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and heads west for a mile or so to Stanbury.

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Then on to the tops, higher and higher,

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past the Ponden reservoir until we reach the border with Lancashire.

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I don't like the look of those clouds.

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Just across the border is Wycoller.

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Now cherished for its untouched character,

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this tiny hamlet was derelict for most of the 20th century.

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And Wycoller has its own Bronte connection.

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Wycoller Hall is reputed to be the original of Ferndean Manor in Jane Eyre,

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the rambling building to which Rochester retired when maimed and blinded,

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there to be comforted, in the long last, by Jane.

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It's said that the Bronte sisters were regular visitors here to Wycoller.

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They'd have walked over from Haworth.

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As you can see, most of the house is now in ruins, but one key feature still remains,

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and it's something that is mentioned specifically in Charlotte Bronte's greatest novel.

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-QUOTE FROM JANE AYRE:

-This parlour looks gloomy.

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A neglected handful of fire burnt low in the grate,

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and leaning over it, with his head supported against the high, old-fashioned mantelpiece,

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appeared the blind tenant of the room.

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This is Rochester's old-fashioned mantelpiece and it's still standing,

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although the rest of the building is in ruins.

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When Harold visited in the '40s, the house and its once magnificent fireplace were in a sorry state.

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Throughout the 19th century, the village was gradually abandoned

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as people sought work in the mill towns of Hebden Bridge and nearby Colne.

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As the towns grew, so did the demand for water,

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and plans were made to create a vast reservoir in the Wycoller Valley.

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There's certainly no lack of water today.

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Despite the rain, local historian John Bentley is here to tell me how

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Wycoller village was saved by two formidable women.

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Why was there a need for so much more water?

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Just the fact that Colne was a growing town.

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Factories were being built, and new buildings, new premises.

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And all of them, obviously, what had come along in Victorian towns?

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The water closet. And everybody needed water every hour of the day.

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And looking round in the area, where was the natural source?

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And here was the answer.

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You have a valley with two streams running in from the moors,

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a good collecting ground.

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All you needed to do was dam across the valley

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and they had enough water to provide Colne for the next 50 years.

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But there was a problem.

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The lady who owned this valley, Susannah Benson, born Hartley,

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was very keen on the valley and she looked after the building.

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She lived here in Wycoller House just across the stream,

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and she wasn't keen.

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They planned to buy land that the reservoir was going to cover.

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They didn't want to buy the extra bit of fields that were going to be under water,

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which was very unfair for the landowner,

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who would be left with half-fields and a barn here, which would have no use.

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So she did argue and file the petition against the reservoir itself.

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Susannah stood up to the Colne Waterboard, forcing them to buy her entire estate,

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including the land that wasn't needed.

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And her stubbornness had unexpected consequences.

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They found water elsewhere, and lots of it, under the ground.

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They drilled, they found all the water they needed,

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and all the Colne Corporation needed was a quarter acre of land to build a pump house,

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and they'd landed themselves with 370 acres which

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they then had to manage because they'd compulsory-purchased it.

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The Waterboard abandoned the reservoir plans, but they wanted to keep Wycoller just in case.

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The Hall and the village remained untouched, unprotected, but also undeveloped.

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The ruins and abandoned cottages were a favourite spot for tourists and locals.

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People often came here to enjoy this sense of a deserted village.

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And many said it should remain a deserted village.

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It was an attraction because of it.

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But how long could it have remained?

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One generation or two at most would have enjoyed it.

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Then it would have been rubble.

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The Waterboard wanted to demolish the Wycoller buildings,

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but they faced fierce opposition from another feisty Yorkshirewoman.

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Local librarian Evelyn Jowett was determined to save the ruins,

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and she set up the Friends of Wycoller

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to preserve this precious site.

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There was an active group of builders and men who were able to come down,

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put time and work in.

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Stones were used to build up the bank, which would have collapsed and looked bad.

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The walls would stop being undermined and this fireplace was preserved.

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Evelyn Jowett, the librarian at Colne, was a driving force behind this.

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And I don't think she came down here with pick and shovel,

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but she was instrumental in getting others to do

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and influencing local bodies in Colne to get behind the scheme.

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And one of the things she used as the librarian,

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which was so good, was publicity.

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And she got articles in magazines throughout Lancashire,

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and even throughout the country, so that people were...

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Their interests were aroused, more visitors came and more donation came into the Friends of Wycoller.

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Evelyn and the Friends of Wycoller successfully arrested the village's decay

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and thanks to their intervention,

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and the stubbornness of Susannah Benson 50 years earlier,

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Wycoller was eventually made a conservation area.

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Unlike some visitors, Harold Briercliffe took a practical approach to the village's charms,

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showing off his expert eye by listing Wycoller's famous bridges

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and comparing them to a catalogue of others he'd seen on his cycling travels.

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BRIERCLIFFE: A clear stream flows down the dell to enter the village

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close to a 13th-century pack-horse bridge of double arches.

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There is another bridge, too, consisting of three large slabs

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on boulders, akin to the clapper bridge at Tarr Steps, in Somerset.

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While not far away, a single-slab bridge recalls the bridges of Dartmoor.

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And that single slab is known as The Clam Bridge.

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Possibly more than 1,000 years old, it narrowly escaped being swept away twice in recent years.

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No wonder, look at this.

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Gee whizz! Have a look at that.

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I cannot believe how much the river's risen just in the time I'm sitting in there with John.

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I mean, it's been raining quite hard but most of that is made up from

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all of the rain water coming down from off the top of the moors.

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I mean, this is a flash flood, and I tell you what.

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I'm getting out of here, otherwise I might be stuck here for longer than I want.

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Evelyn Jowett and Susannah Benson's achievements were impressive,

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especially for a time when women struggled for recognition.

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When Harold wrote his books, even the world of cycling suffered from sex discrimination.

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Harold's wife Maimie, pictured here, won success as a racer,

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winning numerous time trial events.

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But women who were simply enthusiastic club cyclists fared less well.

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Amongst them, Rene Stacey, now 92 years old, and the oldest surviving

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founder member of the Hitchin Nomads, Harold's cycling club.

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When there was races, it was very, very rarely a woman's race.

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Women were in the very minority.

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But when men were racing, they needed a lot of marshals, didn't they?

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And feeders. The thing is, before the war, we weren't allowed what they call "road racing", mass start.

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It all had to be time-trial at minute intervals.

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So if there was 60 riders you were an hour getting the starters off.

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You start at 6am and finish at 6pm. No stops.

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So you had to run along beside them with food and all that sort of thing.

0:20:230:20:28

Women came in handy so we were encouraged.

0:20:280:20:31

It wasn't always because we wanted to go running after boys.

0:20:310:20:35

The boys needed us for working!

0:20:350:20:38

Leaving Wycoller, the route once again climbs out of the valley and up to the moors.

0:20:450:20:50

Park your ego at home, and push.

0:20:500:20:53

Once on the tops, the road dips up and down before crossing from Lancashire and back into Yorkshire

0:20:560:21:01

for the return leg of the journey.

0:21:010:21:03

On the descent, before a sharp hairpin, there is a small chapel on the left,

0:21:060:21:11

famous as the haunt of the "Henpecked Husbands", a Yorkshire society,

0:21:110:21:15

members of which come here once a year to escape the attentions of their wives.

0:21:150:21:20

'The society Harold describes is so secret no-one really knows of its origins,

0:21:240:21:29

'but I've come to Blake Dean to meet Nick Wilding,

0:21:290:21:32

'who I hope can tell me more about these wife-fearing Yorkshiremen.'

0:21:320:21:37

-Hey, Nick, hello.

-Hello, hello.

0:21:370:21:38

-Nice to meet you, Clare.

-And you. Are you all right?

0:21:380:21:41

Yes. Now, you've come to talk about Blake Dean Baptist Chapel.

0:21:410:21:45

Yes. I hear there was some sort of secret society that was based here.

0:21:450:21:49

Ah, you mean the Henpecked Husband Society, don't you?

0:21:490:21:52

Now, that was very secret indeed, because, of course, everybody wondered who these people were.

0:21:520:21:58

Who were the henpecked husbands?

0:21:580:22:00

Because they were... It wasn't like being a mason, where at least your wife knows you're a mason.

0:22:000:22:05

They might not know what you did. But with the henpecked society man,

0:22:050:22:09

you didn't even know he was in there.

0:22:090:22:11

What were these husbands having to do that meant that they qualified as being henpecked?

0:22:110:22:16

I understand that there were mock trials,

0:22:160:22:18

and they had to admit to what they'd had to do for their wives,

0:22:180:22:23

and if it was a bit too serious, they would then be wheeled around either in a handcart,

0:22:230:22:28

or if in, for more serious things, it was a wheelbarrow.

0:22:280:22:32

There was a funny little book written in 1927 by a man who wanted to stay anonymous,

0:22:320:22:38

for best reasons known to himself,

0:22:380:22:40

who actually, tells us a little bit about the inner secrets of the hen-pecked club.

0:22:400:22:44

And it says, "Many old and grey men meet every Easter Monday for a humerous picnic to some quiet spot

0:22:440:22:51

"for a meeting without their other halves, to whose matrimonial strings they may be tied".

0:22:510:22:56

"For one day they privileged to imagine they are untied and at liberty.

0:22:560:23:00

"The antics they perform and their hullabaloos are really remarkable,

0:23:000:23:03

"and new members are subjected to searching questions and medical inspection", Clare.

0:23:030:23:09

I mean, fancy that!

0:23:090:23:10

What were they inspecting for?

0:23:100:23:12

I don't know but I don't think I really would have wanted to be a member of the Henpecked Society

0:23:120:23:17

if I was going to have a medical inspection by some strange person.

0:23:170:23:20

When did the last meeting take place, or is this something that's still going on?

0:23:210:23:26

Well, 1974 was the time when a picture was taken of them

0:23:260:23:30

and they were in the middle of Heptonstall High Street,

0:23:300:23:33

and that was the last known meeting of the Henpecked Society.

0:23:330:23:37

So do we think now that henpecked husbands just don't exist?

0:23:370:23:41

Oh, I'm sure they don't exist today, Clare!

0:23:410:23:44

And when Harold Briercliffe was coming down here with his hands on his brakes,

0:23:460:23:51

what would he have seen?

0:23:510:23:52

He'd have seen a wonderful architectural gem, actually.

0:23:520:23:56

Something most unusual.

0:23:560:23:58

When you were upstairs in the chapel, apparently you could virtually touch the preacher,

0:23:580:24:02

but I suppose if he was breathing fire and brimstone,

0:24:020:24:06

you wouldn't have wanted to touch him, would you?

0:24:060:24:08

So when did it sort of fall into a ruinous state?

0:24:080:24:11

Oh, that was in the 1960s and it was all very, very sad.

0:24:110:24:14

It got seriously vandalised inside,

0:24:140:24:18

and in the end, it was sold to a demolition man.

0:24:180:24:22

BRIERCLIFFE: As the valley of the Hebden Water deepens on the left

0:24:230:24:27

and becomes Hardcastle Crags, the road hangs above it in an aerial fashion,

0:24:270:24:31

giving revealing glimpses of the dark woods that hang below.

0:24:310:24:37

Whoo!

0:24:390:24:41

This weather goes from one extreme to the other.

0:24:410:24:44

I got so cold and wet, Nick said, "just get some cover".

0:24:440:24:48

But he did say, "When it stops raining, you've got to make sure you go and Hardcastle Crags."

0:24:480:24:52

And it's something that Harold mentions in the book as well.

0:24:520:24:55

So, I'm going to leave the bike and have a walk down.

0:24:550:25:02

Now owned by the National Trust, Hardcastle Crags has long been popular with visitors.

0:25:020:25:07

But this deep, wooded valley has a forgotten industrial past,

0:25:070:25:11

one that's led me to the story of another unusual woman.

0:25:110:25:15

You can see why this is a favourite spot for picnics.

0:25:150:25:18

It's so peaceful down here and so it's odd to think

0:25:180:25:21

that between 1903 and 1907,

0:25:210:25:23

this place would have been buzzing with activity.

0:25:230:25:28

To look at the Walshaw Dean reservoirs today, you'd never know

0:25:280:25:32

it took hundreds of Irish navvies four years to build them.

0:25:320:25:36

In contrast, it only took a few weeks to construct a place for them and their families to live.

0:25:360:25:41

Known as Dawson City, after the gold rush settlement in Canada,

0:25:410:25:44

it was home to almost 600 men, women and children.

0:25:440:25:49

With all those mouths to feed, the camp needed a formidable cook,

0:25:490:25:53

and local woman Thursa Adams was fit for the task.

0:25:530:25:57

She was quite a feisty female.

0:25:570:26:00

She smoked a clay pipe, wore a cloth cap, she insisted on using the gents' loos.

0:26:000:26:05

She played cards with the men as well,

0:26:050:26:07

and was very much one of the boys.

0:26:070:26:09

By 1908, the reservoirs were officially opened and the navvies had moved on to find work elsewhere

0:26:090:26:15

so Dawson City became something of a ghost town and this place was left to the picnickers.

0:26:150:26:20

There are 400 acres of rich and unspoilt woodland to choose from here,

0:26:200:26:24

but Harold says you should walk at least as far as the stepping stones that cross Hebden Water.

0:26:240:26:31

Oh, I've picked the wrong path!

0:26:320:26:34

The river scenery is of a very high order, the brown pebbly brook and the abundant trees

0:26:390:26:44

making a delightful picture at any time of the year.

0:26:440:26:47

Having explored the valley on foot, Harold's route continues along

0:26:490:26:53

the top of Hardcastle Crags, through Slack

0:26:530:26:55

and skirting the village of Heptonstall.

0:26:550:26:58

'I'm almost at the end of my journey.

0:26:590:27:03

'From here, the road forks to the left and Harold describes the route

0:27:030:27:06

'as it swings away and clings spectacularly above Hebden Water,

0:27:060:27:10

'before heading back down into Hebden Bridge.

0:27:100:27:13

'I've been told to "feather" my brakes so as not to wear them out too much for the final descent.'

0:27:130:27:20

Well, I've survived it, and survived the weather.

0:27:200:27:23

Coming back now into Hebden Bridge, I can just see it in the distance, downhill from now on.

0:27:230:27:28

'I've met some real challenges on my journey through the Yorkshire moors

0:27:280:27:32

'and drawn strength not only from this sturdy landscape,

0:27:320:27:35

'but also from the stories of ground-breaking women I've encountered along the way.'

0:27:350:27:40

As so as the sun begins to set, I've come full circle.

0:27:400:27:44

It's only about 30 miles to do the whole route, but even Harold admits that it feels like longer.

0:27:440:27:49

Those big climbs rewarded with incredible views right across the moorland. I've really enjoyed it.

0:27:490:27:56

And behind me, the lights of Hebden Bridge,

0:27:560:27:58

you can just make out the dark chimneys of the old mills.

0:27:580:28:01

We've chosen to focus on some of the local heroines of this area.

0:28:010:28:05

Some of them unsung heroines, like Alice Longstaff, the photographer.

0:28:050:28:09

Others much more famous, like the Bronte sisters.

0:28:090:28:12

And despite the rain, I had time to give a thought to those rare Yorkshiremen,

0:28:120:28:17

the Henpecked Husbands.

0:28:170:28:19

There seems to be no shortage of strong women around here.

0:28:190:28:22

Who knows, maybe there was something in the water?

0:28:220:28:26

It's been quite a journey.

0:28:260:28:28

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