PENNINE WAY

 Billie, Ginny, Rich and Stella have put up 42 new Pennine Way waymarks from The White House to Walshaw.

Still several new posts to put in and some other improvements. 

Four of the new waymarks

Work funded by Natural England and Calderdale Council Highways

TODMORDEN - Inchfield Pasture and Ragby Bridge

Today's team of Catherine and Kasher paid a return visit to the delights of Inchfield Pasture to complete the painting of bridleway marker posts. These posts were reinstated a few weeks ago but some of the older posts missed out on their new blue paint and waymarks.

A well-used scratching post.

Blue-topped bridleway marker posts.

The random-trial experiment with the itchy cattle proved that standard (1.5 m) posts get used as back-scratchers whereas the shorter (1.0 m) posts do not........however, the shorter ones are a delight for sheep! 

Catherine, causey path and cattle.

Raising the next generation of moorland cattle.

As we repacked and secured a number of the standard posts the image of painting the Forth Road Bridge came to mind - we will revisit the posts next Spring for another round of replacing or painting.

We then moved on to clear out the turn-bys on the route down to Ragby Bridge. 

And lo ... the turn-by appears.

A repaired turn-by near Ragby Bridge.

We will return to Inchfield soon to repaint the older yellow-topped posts that mark the route from Gorpley Dam to Foul Clough Road. We will also need to clear the turn-bys on the other side of Ragby Bridge.

Today's work was funded by Todmorden Town Council. Many thanks.

TODMORDEN - Langfield Common

What a great day for walking from Shepherds Rest up to Gaddings Dam (along Todmorden 157 and 168). The Spring sunshine brought out many walkers along this footpath and up toward the Pike. Unfortunately for RJ, Fred and Kasher this enjoyable walk also entailed carrying mattocks, bars, spades, azards and lashings of bright yellow paint!

Previously cleared drainage channel now unblocked.

Turn-byes cleared

We chose a fantastic days for clearing of turn-byes, sorting out drainage issues, finding and repositioning marker posts and finally repainting all of the marker posts along the route.

As there were a number of marker posts missing we will need to return to this path at a later date to reinstall them.

Marker posts found, re-erected and then painted.


Today's work was funded by Todmorden Town Council. Many thanks.

MIDGLEY

 Midgley: Beyond Chapel Lane

With main man Ian S being indisposed, a revised team of Ray, Nick, Jan and Frank H worked on a section of the path, beyond Chapel Lane, that leads towards Churn Milk Joan.

1. General state of the path!

This picture shows the problem:

*Parts of the path have collapsed down the banking.

*The remaining path is very narrow.

*Some sections have remnants of old revetment loosely in place.

*Other sections have no revetment.

*In places, heather and other foliage have encroached across the path forcing walkers nearer and nearer to the steep edge.

The overall plan was to cut back the path so it would be much wider and then renew or recycle sections of revetment. It was one of those sessions that involved lots of carrying (the vehicles were on Chapel Lane!) and an heroic amount of digging before the task of construction could even begin!

The following pictures show typical outcomes:  

2. Same area as middle
section of picture 1.

         

3. Further up the path.

There is still lots to do! The time-consuming hard labour of cutting back, alignment, digging, scraping, levelling, and pounding is merely a long prelude to the more noticeable work of construction.

Another energetic session will take place in a week or so . . . . provided we have recovered!!

Today's task was funded by Little Box Consulting. Many thanks.

WHEAT INGS ABOVE CRIMSWORTH

The weather was appropriate for Mo and Ginny to try and reduce the bog surrounding the causey stones running across the field beyond Wheat Ings below the Old Haworth Road.  A few weeks ago, we received many thanks on Facebook for working on the path that dips down to the stream (It looks much much better now), so we thought we should finish the job!

On our way there, we stopped on Sandy Gate to replace a fallen marker post on the permissive path down to the Birchcliffe Centre.  It's a bit shorter now! . . . but still useful.

                                                Back in the bog, the picture shows the problem.

We needed to dig channels beside the stones and down from the path to take the water away.

A few hours later, after a lot of hard, backbreaking work there's a big improvement!

Funded by donations to CROWS.