Cycling to a Long Lost Pennine Village – Local Bridleways and History

The weather continues to be rubbish for outdoor cycling here in the UK but Spring is right around the corner, so hopefully the longer rides will be back soon enough.

Something a bit different on this ride, taking inspiration from a conversation I overheard in the local barber shop.

Any excuse for a bike ride really! Happy cycling folks!

I could sit in this chair for Thousand Years and watch the woods consume the neighborhood watch the Ambitions come and go surround me and ENG go me we could ditch the TV and spend a little more time reading books and singing songs on the porch sit here watching the daylight Wayne leaving little

Chase and even less memory I just want to be still I just want to be still sometimes I wonder if I’ll ever be free of these things that are weighing heavy on me they keep me from doing going on know when sun comes up I go back to

Sleep in our soall liberation of self will you only bound the shackles more tightly free up your mind and start thinking and good oh hey folks welcome to another little video hope you’re really well and uh this might be a nice little spot to just introduce today’s ride so uh I’ll

Just get the other side of this gate and uh I’ll show you where we’re going today it’s off that way this is a nice little vantage point I think to kind of check out the direction of today’s ride and this is uh My Little Neck of the

Woods I suppose my little corner of the penines and what I’ll often do on the mountain bike is uh just hop over and down to my local Lake which is straight in front of us here and then you’ve got the hole of cdale snaking off to the

Right all the way down to uh well up to Summit and then down through wallon and toon and hebden Bridge and into West Yorkshire ultimately down to uh to Halifax and across to I guess Bradford way and um what I’ll often do on the mountain mik is really make my way uh

Either down the valley floor perhaps on the canal toath or we’ll go up over the tops and there’s just so many Fantastic trails and bridleways and and routes over in that direction and all the way up to Blackstone Edge which is uh just hidden at the home behind that

Uh uh that uh collection of uh bushes but yeah just up right on the top on the horizon I can see black Sun Edge pretty windy up there today I can assure you um what I haven’t done though over many years knocking around this area has

Really explored the other side of uh the valley and you know to do that you have to go down onto the Valley Road and there’s a little bit of I suppose Urban type cycling to get up onto the other side um I’ll quite often zip through Rochdale and out towards bakeup and

Rotten saw and Blackburn and way over that way on the road bike and there’s some absolutely fantastic roads over in that direction but I’ve never really explored this uh little area this little sort of rural area off to the left side of the valley and that’s the uh the

Destion for today’s ride and there’s a particular reason there’s a particular sort of spot that I’m interested in uh getting to and exploring and um the origin of this ride is actually of all things uh getting a haircut about 18 months ago and uh maybe I’ll get into

That as we uh as we get more into the ride but yeah this is where we are been the penines and uh we’re just about to drop down now lovely little sort of bridleway track down around the lake and then we’ll drop right down to uh the

Valley floor I’m not sure how much I’ll film down there cuz there might be a little bit of traffic Etc but once we get out on the other side I’m going get a little bit closer to today’s destination we’ll get the camera back on and uh I’ll check back in with you but

Uh yeah come on for The Ripe pun intended uh it’s a new new route today new destination my hat’s going to blow off and uh let’s see where we get to okay let’s jump back on the bike and get going free your mind and be still free your mind and be

Still and be still time has brought us up to this point it will carry us far beyond it until we are nothing sometimes I feel like we’re just words on a page close your eyes and be still close your eyes and be still close your eyes and be still and be

Still so the destination for today’s ride is a bit of a strange one and I’m sting my local barber shop down in the village getting my haircut and listening to these two old guys talk about when during a heat wave a particular Reservoir dries up it reveals this uh sunken Village that

Uh is otherwise completely covered and completely submerged by the reservoir and I was kind of sitting sitting listening to this thinking oh my God have we got some kind of Atlantis in cuerdale what is this and where is it which Reservoir if you know the penins and the

C of Valley it’s absolutely teeming with different reservoirs so I thought oh I’m I’m going to find out which one that is and that sounds like a great excuse for a bike ride so fast forward a year or so and I’m on my way to what’s called water Grove

Reservoir and what used to be till the 1930s waterg Village oh it’s a great little spot to come expl on a bike I’ll tell you anyway see if we can see the res well shortly go oh folks welcome to what 90 odd years ago was waterg

Village it was built in uh 18 the 1840s population of about 300 at its peak had three Mills houses Methodist Church and the pub and uh back in the 1930s watchale had a serious issue with water supply I was having to buying water from surrounding areas bakeup and alen places like that and

The local water company I guess would have been the burough Council or how it be uh forced compulsory land purchase on water gr Village which used to be right here in but you can still see here the old cobbled road coming out of the village going up north and then just disappearing down

Into the reservoir but uh yeah work started I think in the the 1930s and uh there was opposition there was also a lot of support so I think unemployment was really high in the area at the time and uh you know constructing this created a lot of jobs but

Uh yeah the village was demolished some of it was uh blown up with dynamite apparently um a lot of the mill Machinery was moved to other locations kind of Salvage and uh then the whole area was submerged for the creation of this Reservoir which I think is still one of

The main feeder reservoirs for the rale area but uh yeah March of progress in this particular case involved uh completely burying a uh a thriving local Village and um they even got rid of a lot of the surrounding farms in the area which I think dated back

To very very early uh 18th century or late 17th century so uh quite the change and I think dotted around somewhere I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find them because I don’t know the area are some uh date stones from some of the original buildings um and some of the old

Uh like warp or we drying stones from uh the cages and and the mills in the area so I’m going to have a little uh zip around the reservoir to if I can find anything of interest if I can I’ll uh show you but uh yeah any excus for a bike ride

Really cool little spot though and uh great little route over the tops from uh from littleb right let’s go well folks not too far from home now and another great little local ride in the bag I didn’t film too much around the reservoir cuz it’s just too busy being a Sunday

Afternoon but a great little spot and uh what a wild and remote and Windswept little village that water Grove would have been in back in the day lovely little spot nestled up in the hills and uh yeah pretty cool to go and check it out learn a little bit more local

History and uh have another little location to add to the options list anyway thanks so much for watching and follow along to the end if you’ve made it this far in the little video and please consider liking and subscribing if you’d be so kind it really helps me

Out and I really appreciate it otherwise as we all cyclist in the UK at the moment we’re just Bing our time till the weather improves and get a break in the work a chance to get out and do some longer rides they are coming soon and uh this is the first

Ride this year where I’ve been able to take the gloves off spring is definitely on the way and uh I for one can’t wait so yeah stay safe take care and happy cycling I’ll see you on the next one bye for now