Heaton Park & The Farm
4th August 2016
Journey Length 20.8ml
Click Here For Route Via Strava
It had been a couple of weeks since we had our last adventure to our mate Giles farm, I was unable to write that adventure up for security reasons which hopefully will become clearer in a later blog, there are some photos of farmer Giles’s farm at the end of this blog.
I had left Graham to organize our adventure for tonight and he came up trumps, thankfully not Donald. Graham had got a route planned to to us to Heaton Park, a place that held fond memories for us both as we had taken our children there many years ago. We met up at the basin at the bottom of nob end locks, even before we started I wad covered in mud from the tow path leading to here, so when I told Graham that the path he would probably be worse he decided we should follow the path until we got to Seddon lane to avoid the very muddy and possibly dangerous tow path.
Along Ringley rod we went until at we turned right and then over Ringley bridge and down passed the sewage works to Giant Seats, from here we continued until we came to an open gate on our right hand side, so we decided to explore the area. The area is the site of the old Victorian sewage works where a number of years ago we were chased off by a man in a van, but this time the place was empty. There was a number of old buildings and structures which obviously been abandoned for a great number of years and it was very overgrown. One particular thing looked interesting, it was like a weird pipe just sticking out of the ground.
Leaving there we rode along the path through some very large and muddy puddles until we joined the Outwood Trail and we came to the motorway where we turned left up the cobbled hill Philips Park Rd eventually coming out near Sedgley Park RUFC. The road led us up to Bury Old Rd where we turned right and then it was just a short distance to Heaton park.
We entered the park through the St Margaret’s lodge entrance and followed the paths not really sure where we were going but we knew we’d end up somewhere. We soon came to the hall itself, a little worse for wear than I remember from the last time I visited the park.
The paths led us up and down and we eventually found the boating lake where people were feeding the ducks and geese. Graham suggested we ride up to the Grand Lodge which we did. On the way back down we rode around the path behind the lake and back up the hill, then Graham decided after all this he wanted to go back down another hill to reminisce and see if the old playground was still there as he remembered it, it was but a lot had changed.
Once back at the top of the hill we retraced our path and back along Bury Old Rd, but this time we continued along past Park Lane but as rode along we kept getting the smell of pizzas and fish and chips from the various take-away s we were passing, which now was making us feel very hungry indeed, shortly we turned left along Ringley Rd passing millionaires row until we came to the Hare & Hounds pub at the junction of Outwood Rd where we took part in a light refreshment, we would have normally continued to my local pub The Farmers Arms but sadly Jon has left and I don’t think it will be the same any more, but I digress.
Now down Outwood Rd at speed we went heading back along Sion St and up to the canal on our way home, as we have done previously we parted company at the Meccano bridge and agreed to text when we were home safely. Hopefully next week we will be re-visiting farmer Giles at his farm when we will be allowed to write a blog with the correct security clearance.
