Bingley St Ives circular - return

Back in the country park, the path crosses the golf course and then skirts the edge of Harden Moor. There is some heather out, though it all looks a bit half-hearted this year, with really tiny flowers. It's been far too dry for it to thrive.  

Things are starting to look prematurely autumnal. The bilberry leaves (above) have turned to a deep russet, (not unattractive), the bracken is dying back and some of the young trees, especially the birches, are already yellowing and losing their leaves. 

I passed the landmark of Lady Blantyre's Rock, said to be where, in mid-Victorian times, the lady of the mansion would come to sit and read, and gaze out over the valley. Most of the times I've been here, the view over the valley was obscured by tall trees that had grown in the intervening period. Since disease attacked some of the trees and they had to be felled, the view has been restored. It still takes me by surprise!

There used to be a wooden sculpture of Lady Blantyre here. Someone recently saw it on an old blog post of mine and wanted to know why it they couldn't find it.  The answer is that my photo of it HERE was taken 16 years ago, so the wooden statue, already decaying in my picture, has since rotted away. Only the (even older) memorial stone remains. 

I was a bit surprised to see Ragwort growing. It is highly toxic to animals, especially horses, so I'd have thought they'd be trying to eradicate it on the estate, given the number of horses living there. It is, however, a bright burst of yellow quite cheerful in our hedgerows. 

Partway down the return route I passed the Coppice Pond, a man-made lake dating back to the 1330s.  Once apparently a mill pond and providing a plentiful supply of fish, it was later landscaped by the Ferrand family as a decorative garden feature. 

My path took me back through the lower woods, down to the car park. The cattle looked a bit bored... not much green grass for them to chew.