Shibra one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Shibra here.

I walk a route from Shipley/Bradford regularly – and knew as soon as I looked at the Slow Ways map that it was out of date. I don’t do gpx, so I don’t know how to upload what I actually walk.

I do like this walk, not just for the views, but also because the route follows Bradford's ancent history and the legend of its last ravaging boar, as well as the industrail history of the area.

1.The path along Bradford Beck under the train bridge on the gpx map goes along to the A6149 – which is why people have found themselves on the road bridge.
Instead, when walking along the Beck path, keep an eye open for the path to the left that goes downhill to a bridge over the Beck (it can be a slippy path). This brings you up to the Greenway and takes you under the road bridge and can be walked all the way to Gaisby Lane, crossing Poplars Road.
2. Just before Gaisby Lane, there’s a green area to the left of the path; walk across this to the football changing rooms and onto Powell Road; turn right to main road and left up Livingstone Road.
3. Walk up this road until you come to the big stones blocking the road. Go through these, and on the left is a small stone building with steps going up behind it – this is the route. The path is very narrow and steep in places, but walkable. It soon comes out onto a big green field below the top of Bolton Woods – there are paths that take you to the top for spectacular views across Bradford and up to the Dales. The path goes forward across the green field: there may be bike scramblers using the area, and tethered horses. Walk diagonally across the green are towards trees, where a small path goes downhill to another path which leads under the trees to gates.
4. Turn right when through the gate and follow the path to the road. Go straight across and walk down Long Meadows, at the bottom of which are steps down to a small bridge across a beck. Follow the path along the beck to a tree with a tyre swing, the path goes left here up through an opening to a cul de sac.
5. Follow the road round until meeting Kings Road; cross here and up the steps opposite to a path behind trees, turn right and follow the path to the traffic lights. Cross Queens Road to a footpath sign ‘Bolton Road’. Take this path and walk along past the pylon until there is a fork in the path – take the left path. This continues past another pylon, Spinkwell, Boar’s Well and to a gate to a cobbled road (Coleman Street) that passes a garage.
6. On the right as the cobbled road turns uphill, there is a footpath to the left and steps leading down to the ring road. Cross the road and turn left along Canal Road walking towards the city centre until you reach traffic lights at the bottom of Balme Street.
7. If you are returning to Shipley by train, you need to head to Forster Square Station here by crossing the road, passing a Travelodge on the left, to the station, which you can see. If Bradford Interchange, you need to walk on to the centre. When reaching M&S building, turn right to Market Street; along this and turn left along Bridge Street from where the Interchange is signposted.

There are many places where this route does not work and is impossible to follow, mainly due to new house building blocking the mapped route.
1. The first problem is that access to the park cycle-track from the B6149 assumes you will jump off a bridge to the path it crosses over. This was mentioned by Ross. The access is slightly further along, in either direction.
2. The route across the hill side is shown as being accessed via Chestnut Grove. There is a sign here saying Private Keep Out. A local resident told me I needed to go further up the road, past the traffic-blocking stones and through Bolton Woods onto the hill, and that new housing blocked the previous route.
3. The route to leave the hill field is blocked by fencing along the back of the new housing which you can see in Ross’s third picture, and it is necessary to go some way further north east. This is also shown on the OS Aerial View I have attached. The purple line is the exact Slow Ways gpx route.
4. The next blocked access, which Ross also mentioned, is at the allotments where the gate is padlocked.
I think this is enough to fail this route completely and utterly.
I will try this route again in the opposite direction to see if there are access points that are more visible, but for the time being, I have uploaded ShiBra Two, which is what I actually walked. It wasn’t brilliant.

Great route mostly off streets!! The hill at Bolton woods is a great place to stop and view the majority of the route.

Four stars because there are two locations where the plotted route deviates from the path you will need to take. The first is at the river crossing closest to Shipley. The path actually double back on it self more that the gpx shows. However, easy to see the path from the bridge, See photo 2. The other location is the junction of Kings and queens road around 2 km from the Bradford end. The gpx directs the walker through an area of allotments but the path continues along the road through the junction. It may not be noticed if walking Bradford to Shipley. walking the other way you will end up back tracking to the cross road junction and walking around the allotments where you find the path.

Share your views about this route, give it a star rating, indicate whether it should be verified or not.

Include information that will be useful to others considering to walk or wheel it.

You can add up to 15 photos.