290 Saturday 1 November 2025 Calder and Hebble Canal : Brighouse to Mirfield

 This  wasn't the most enjoyable trip of the year but we did make a bit of progress.

We drove to Todmorden and caught the train to Brighouse.

Simon was hungry so  we  went into a  pub , The Calder , for something to eat. I had a bacon and sausage sandwich. Simon had a bowl of chips.

We  then found our  way to Brighouse Basin

The canal  then joins the river Calder  for  a  stretch.

Then our problems began. The  towpath had come to a dead end at  this  point. I prepared to look at my phone  but  Simon asked a lady who was just emerging from her canalside home and  she  said  we  could  regain the path from a side strret  a  few  hundered yards  ahead, This seemed sound advice as we got  onto  a  path  along  the  riverbank with industrial units to our  left. Misgivings  grew  as  we  hit  a  rough patch in the middle  of  which was  a  wire  fence  which had  clearly been cut  through. Once  we  emerged onto  eaiser ground  it  wasn't  long  before  a  high iron fence definitively blocked our  way  forward, We  sought to escape to the  road  across  a  car park but it  was  closed off  at  the  far  end  by  a  gate we couldn't squeeze under. We had to retrace our  steps, back through the rough patch as  far  as   a  bridge which finally  allowed us  back to the road. This  then turned out  to be also a dead end so after more  retracing of steps we climbed to the  main road towards Desbury  and followed it up to the M62  roundabout. After  carefully  negotiating  the slip roads and picking an apple from an overhanging tree we came to a closed cafe and the promise of a riverside path but  it soon returned us to the road. 

We then had an unpleasant road walk with not much  of  a  pavement. Aggravatingly, after passing a pub we could see the  canal with walkers on a towpath on the far side  but  no way to get  to it.

   Eventually we  got  down  to  Cooper Bridge and finally touched down with the canal again where we  had a snack stop on a bench. 

The original plan was to walk down the Huddersfield Broad canal  and have tea at the Wimpy but  Simon wanted to carry on to Mirfield and call it a day there instead. Just  beyond  Cooper Bridge . the canal gave way to the river again .

This  time  there  was  a  reliable  path which led us  under  the  railway  viaduct

The  river  and  canal soon  separated  again and  we  crossed  a  bridge  to  the  latter.

The  stretch to Mirfield was longer than expected but very pleasant and peaceful.

We  passed  Battyeford Marina

Here  the  canal became  the  river again  but  a  fair path  continued  and  passed the  remains  of  Newgate  Old Bridge  which  alllowed  horses  to cross  from river to canal and vice  versa

We  had  to  leave  the  riverbank  as  it  approached  the  centre  of  Mirfield  but we  were  able  to  rejoin the canal for a  short  streych  into the town centre.

We had tea at a nice bar in Mirfield then went  to  Mirfield's  rather  bleak station for  the  train back to Todmorden. Then we drove home.