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Date: 18 Jun 2025
Start: Smithy Bridge / Finish: Mytholmroyd.
Maps: Explorer 021 South Pennines.
| Day 1 | Hollingworth Lake, Cowberry Hill & the Warland reservoirs | 8.4 miles / 1225 feet (13.6km / 373m) |
| Day 2 | Stoodley Pike & Erringden Moor | 5.8 miles / 340 feet (9.4km / 104m) |
Squeezed between clinic appointments, this is another short two-day route centred around the Warland group of reservoirs: Blackstone, White Holme, Light Hazzles and Warland.
The outward line from Smithy Bridge station follows the southern shore of Hollingworth Lake and ascends to join the Pennine Bridleway (PBW) around the flanks of Stormer Hill, leaving it to climb via a new approach up the slopes of Cowberry Hill to Blackstone Reservoir and the Pennine Way (PW) track around the reservoirs.
The return line continues the PW as far as Stoodley Pike and follows the Dick's Lane route to cross Erringden Moor for the final descent to Mytholmroyd station.
This route was designed to use the same excellent Stony Edge camp as on our Warland & Ramsden trip to this area, a most unlikely pitch spot amid the large gritstone boulders and rough heather. Once again we carried all our water from the start.
A short walk eastwards on the road from Smithy Bridge station is the entrance to Hollingworth Lake country park, a very popular location with many people out and about on the accessible surfaced track around its southern shore, a pleasant enough walk. We included the path around the small wooded promontory at the north end of Turnough Hill.
We turned left onto the lane that runs alongside the eastern shore, a single track road with no verge that has a car park at the northern end and a campsite at the southern. A constant stream of people, including families with prams and buggies, were coming along the road and often squeezed against the hedgerow as cars and motorhomes gingerly passed.
A footpath sign signals welcome relief and the route leaves the road to ascend via a track around the flanks of Hollingworth Hill and up to Sheep Bank where construction work was in progress - not an obstruction to the path.
The path reaches Whittaker Lane golf club and ascends via the lane to join the PBW to Lydgate and around Stormer Hill to the A58. A short walk up the road opposite Bar House is a very good track that ascends Cowberry Hill to rejoin the road near its summit at the White House pub. The track passes a deep pool, presumably from a former quarry.
We followed the familiar PW track along Blackstone Edge and Light Hazzles reservoirs. There is an information board about the conservation work here in the Turley Holes area around Blake Moor by the MoorLIFE project and the species that occur, we were pleased to see and hear a pair of Curlews.
Arriving at Warland reservoir, looking really low after the warm dry Spring, this time we took the path around the eastern side to reach our pitch on Stony Edge.
After a surprisingly chilly dawn, the early light on the drought stricken Warland reservoir made an appealing pattern as we broke camp and walked to the northern tip to join the PW path along Warland Drain and down to Withens Gate. East Scout and High Stones presented an attractive view back to Coldwell Hill and Langfield Edge while Stoodley Pike commanded the view over the valley ahead.
We initially followed the PW eastwards and left it to continue to the forest and join the Dick' Lane path along its edge. At SD986247 there is a four-way fingerpost with five public footpaths: we continued hugging the left of the boundary fence a short way where the only visible path onwards is well to the right of the mapped footpath line and descends to the rim of the wooded basin of Broadhead Clough Nature Reserve. From here there is a very good footpath NNE to Broad Head.
A good footpath heads ENE towards Daisy Bank, skirting the woodland and descending to the lane just outside Mytholmroyd.