Shipley Glen and Trench Meadows

After my walk up beside the Tramway, I was intending to have a ramble along the moor at the top of Shipley Glen. The paths were, however, so muddy and slippery that I thought better of it, instead threading my way gingerly down the bridleway (also muddy!) to the Coach Road.

That path skirts its way along the side of Trench Meadows nature reserve, a rare lowland meadow habitat. It's owned by Bradford Council, who had it on their 'Disposals List' until it was included in the new Bradford Pennine Gateway National Nature Reserve, which covers eight different sites in our region and protects a variety of priority habitats. Launched in 2023 to mark King Charles III's Coronation, the King's Series of National Nature Reserves (NNRs) is a 5-year initiative by Natural England to create 25 new, significant nature reserves. The project aims to boost biodiversity, connect habitats, and improve public access to nature.

I was struck by the difference in the reserve's appearance when the sun was shining (above) and when it clouded over (below). I quite liked the soft, silvery look and have processed the photo below to emphasise that. 

Just at the edge of the reserve are some of the oldest buildings in the area: Trench House and Trench Barn. Both date to the mid 1600s, with some later additions, and are now listed buildings. They originally belonged to the Hudson family, yeoman clothiers - small holders practising a little subsistence farming but whose main income came from spinning wool and weaving cloth in their own homes.

Raising funds

Shipley Glen Tramway has hauled people up and down the hillside from Saltaire to Shipley Glen and Baildon since 1895. The oldest, still working, cable hauled tramway in the UK is now run on a shoestring by dedicated volunteers, who have a tough job keeping the old rolling stock and machinery safe and in good working order. They've recently raised an appeal for £89000 to repair the trackway that has, over the years, been patched to keep it safe. Recent bad weather has eroded it further and it now needs professional attention to preserve it for the future. 

Part of the fundraising drive was a 'Dinosaur Weekend', with brave souls leaping around in inflatable suits! It was popular with families, so much so that there were long queues for the trams. I abandoned my intention to ride up and walked instead. It's not actually that long or steep a path. 

I also abandoned my intention to take photos of the cars, as there were too many children for that to be advisable. Instead I've dug out a very old collage I once made... but the tramway's appearance doesn't really change over the years, faithful to its 130 year history.  

Taking the scenic route back home

From the top of Shipley Glen, I walked down through the woods where outcrops of millstone grit stud the valley side. The views over the Aire Valley from here are far reaching. At the top of Trench Meadows a huge tree has fallen, its bare branches looking like the ribcage of some mythical giant. 

I wandered down to Crag Hebble Dam, built in 1911 across the stream called Loadpit Beck to supply water to the dye works at Salts Mill.  It's a peaceful spot though, like many of our water courses, the dry summer has led to an overgrowth of algae that rather spoils the beauty. 

Another ancient bridleway links the mill dam with the Milner Field estate, once home to Titus Salt Junior. 

The boundary of the estate here is marked by a peculiar metal 'kissing gate', erected in 1872, known locally - for obvious reasons - as 'The Birdcage'. 

Another track leads along the estate's boundary to one of the two gatehouse lodges built for the mansion at Milner Field. The mansion itself was demolished but the gatehouses remain and give an indication of the heavy Victorian Gothic style of the original building. 

Again, good views from here looking out towards Shipley. (Saltaire is hidden, to the left.) The cows belong to Milner Field farm, once the home farm for Salt's estate, which still continues as a dairy farm. 

From the gatehouse, the broad straight drive back down to Saltaire is the Coach Road, once the main carriage drive up to Milner Field House. 

 

On Shipley Glen

Shipley Glen, where urban development meets the high moors, has been a place of leisure for centuries. In Victorian times, hordes of mill workers and their families came up here to picnic and enjoy the funfair - aerial rides and toboggan runs - that once filled this area. Nowadays it's quiet in comparison but still a spot people enjoy for dog walks, jogging and BMX bike stunts on the rocks. 

I had a walk along the edge of the escarpment, mainly to see how the heather is coming along. There's not a lot here compared to some of our wilder moorland areas but enough to gauge whether it's worth a longer trek to the Haworth or Ilkley moors. Actually it's in full bloom now, but pale and dusty looking, stressed by the hot, dry weather, clearly not its best year. In full splendour it's an unforgettable spectacle, the purple haze visible for miles, but around here it is shrinking in scope for all sorts of reasons, as the moors are managed differently, human activity takes its toll and the bully bracken encroaches. 

Part way along the Glen, Bracken Hall Countryside Centre occupies a solid 1890s farmhouse and is open at weekends and for school groups, staffed by volunteers, with exhibitions about the Glen and surrounding moorland's history, flora and wildlife.   

A local ramble

I set off for a local walk, remembering only just in time that the main footbridge across the river (into the park) is closed for much-needed repairs. (I had noticed a crack right across it for some time and it felt distinctly bouncy as you walked across!) The closure means a lengthy detour further upstream to the next footbridge, so that was the way I had to go. It's at the far end of the nature reserve by the river. From here, you can just about see the tower of Saltaire's New Mill in the far distance. 

I went straight across the Coach Road and headed up the path towards Shipley Glen. You can see the results of our long, hot spring and summer. All the grass is like straw and the trees are starting to look autumnal, leaves browning, shrivelled and beginning to fall. 

The path skirts Trench Meadows, an SSSI: Site of Special Scientific Interest. It is a lowland meadow, a nationally rare habitat, uncultivated, with species-rich grassland: lots of unusual grasses and wildflowers. It is managed by seasonal grazing by cattle, which you can just about see in the distance in my photo below. Despite this it is under threat from scrub oak invading - and human vandals, whose activities have caused the entrance gates to be padlocked to prevent access. 

The paths skirting the site are ancient bridleways, used by generations of people as thoroughfares and leisure paths. I noticed that, fairly recently, the surfaces, which were badly eroded by feet and rainwater, have been levelled and filled, making for a much safer and more pleasant walk than last time I came this way. The area is cared for by Bradford Council's countryside wardens with support from voluntary groups. 

There are acorns on the oak trees. I can never remember which species of oak is which and had to look it up again! This is a sessile oak, with leaves on stalks and acorns stalkless. The other type, pedunculate, has the opposite - stalked acorns and stalkless leaves. There are masses of rosehips everywhere and lots of blackberries too. They are a bit early, which may cause problems for our birds later on, if they can't find the food they need. 

 

The Tramway's birthday

On 18 May 1895, Sam Wilson opened the Shipley Glen Tramway, a cable-hauled narrow-gauge tramway with two cars. It connects Saltaire (at the back of Roberts Park) with what was then a fairground and various attractions on Shipley Glen. The fairground is long gone but Shipley Glen is still a lovely area to walk or picnic, and the Tramway is still there. It has been restored and is operated by volunteers. For £2.50 (adult fare) you can ride up and down all day if you so choose, but just a single ride from the bottom saves a steep walk uphill. 

On 18 May 2025, they celebrated its 130th birthday with an open day and events in Thompson Lane Field. It was lovely to see queues of people waiting for a ride (and it must have helped bring in some much needed income to keep it going. It's been very close to closing completely, many times over the years). 

I've ridden it lots of times but I still enjoy the experience and enjoy, too, the delight of other passengers, especially the children. The two cars pass each other halfway along the ride and everyone waves! Good, wholesome, simple fun in a complicated world. 

Bike repairs

We seem to have lost the good weather again. The Bank Holiday weekend was dull and cloudy, though not cold. On Bank Holiday Monday, I went for a walk up on Shipley Glen. It has long been the tradition for Bradfordians to come up here for fresh air at weekends and on bank holidays. Laden trams used to bring pleasure seekers into Saltaire, to then have a ride up on the Glen Tramway - and, in the good old days, to enjoy the many fairground rides that were once up here. The Tramway was closed on Monday and no rides remain, just scrubby moorland and rocks. You can't even see the panoramic view now that the trees on the glen side have grown taller. I sat for a while on one of the many benches, mostly memorials to people who 'loved this place' when they were alive. Not much of a view but I did have a grandstand seat to watch some youngsters trying to mend a bike. They come up here to do tricks, balancing on the rocks.  

Sunday meditation: Lone leaf

I led an outing for my camera club around Saltaire and up the Glen Tramway to Shipley Glen. It was well attended and we had lots of fun, but I was so busy chatting and making sure we didn't lose anyone that I hardly took any photos myself. Of the half dozen images I came home with, I liked this one the best: a study of a lone leaf on the mill pond in the woods.

'A few stray leaves are floating along the surface, and I like how peaceful they look, 

not going under the water, and not blowing away either. 

Just floating, weightless and effortless.'   Carian Cole

'Anyone can love a rose, but it takes a lot to love a leaf. It’s ordinary to love the beautiful, 
but it’s beautiful to love the ordinary.'   MJ Korvan 

'Nature will bear the closest inspection. She invites us to lay our eye level with her smallest leaf, 
and take an insect view of its plain.'  Henry David Thoreau

Nature (and fitness!) notes

It's a tad unnerving how a few weeks of inactivity, having been unwell, has impacted my strength and fitness. Muscles seem to atrophy at an alarming rate! I'm now determined to build back to where I was but it is easy at first to overdo things. 

Take yesterday for example...  It was a lovely sunny start to the day so I decided I'd go out for a walk, which I hadn't really planned. (Though by the time I'd had breakfast and changed my clothes for something more suited to mud (!) the sun had more or less disappeared.) I opted to go across to the little mill dam at the bottom of Shipley Glen. It's a round trip of roughly three miles, so I don't think of it as 'far'... but I was cream-crackered by the time I got home! I was puzzled, since I thought I'd walked much further a few days previously without any problem. When I checked my phone health tracker I found I'd walked almost as far in about half the time, so maybe it was the pace that did me in. It just shows how one's perceptions aren't always accurate. I'd have sworn that the earlier walk was a lot further but, on checking the distance, it was only half a mile more. It just took me a lot longer, with stops to take photos and a sit down whilst I had a packed lunch. Luckily, I wasn't planning on doing anything else energetic when I got home so I was able to rest. I'll be fine. I just need some patience. 

The mill dam walk wasn't especially scenic. We're at that time of year where most places look a bit scrappy, mucky, muddy and dull. Some over-excited dogs running around near the dam ruined any chance I might have had of seeing the kingfisher that is sometimes there. There were a few mallards on the pond, looking beautiful in their breeding plumage. 

On the canal there was a swan, one of last year's young by the look of its mottled feathers.  I reassured it that it wasn't just an ugly duckling. I don't know if it understood me. 

Up the track by Trench Meadows nature reserve, a length of holly hedge has been newly 'laid'. Hedgelaying is a historic method of caring for our old hedgerows. You cut through the hedge stems almost completely, then lay them at an angle to the ground. Laying the branches (‘pleaches’) down like this invigorates growth where they’ve been cut, so gaps in the hedge fill up and the hedge looks younger and fresher. Some of the cuts looked fairly drastic, so I will have to check in a few months and see how and if it is regenerating. 

 

Local heather

I didn't really get chance to go searching for heather this year but, on the Bank Holiday weekend, I did have a walk up to Shipley Glen. There is a small area up there where a few heather plants grow, although it often doesn't bloom at exactly the same time as the heather on the higher and more open moors. It was already fading. I do, however, quite like the colour as it fades from mauve and purple to a more pinkish brown hue. I'm sure there's a proper name for it. Dusty rose, perhaps? 

Fallen

A newly fallen birch tree was lying across the small mill dam in Trench Wood, adding another layer of interest to the familiar scene. It had not been able to penetrate a large rock in the ground so its roots had taken purchase only on one side, meaning that it must have been unstable for a while. As it grew, its weight (and perhaps a strong wind, although it's fairly sheltered in this bit of the wood) must have been sufficient to topple it. It must have come down with a mighty roar, and has comprehensively trashed the iron railings around the dam.  

When a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

Such philosophical questions rapidly gave way to joy at the impressionistic possibilities of the silvery trunk and delicate leaves, just turning from green to gold, all reflected a million times over in the water in which they lay.  

I'm not sure these photos are the final edits... I may go back and play with them some more. 

Trench Wood

Here are a few more photos from my walk through Trench Wood, Shipley Glen. A birch sapling provided a bright splash of yellow and a gnarled, fallen tree trunk has been left to provide a site for a colony of fungi.

Where Lode Pit Beck leaves the little mill dam, a tiny waterfall at the end of the concrete spillway adds interest to this part of the stream, while fallen leaves are starting to dapple the rocks.