Marsden – 06/05/2026 – Leader Stephen D

12 walkers gathered on a bright and sunny, if rather chilly morning, at the car park for my walk from Marsden in the South Pennines.  A path through some trees nearby led us on to the towpath of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal which we followed to Tunnel End. Crossing the canal here we reached this well-known viewpoint and the northern portal of the Standedge Canal Tunnel – the longest, deepest and highest canal tunnel in Britain.  

A recently constructed path through a small nature reserve was an option to walking on the road.  This path eventually led out on to the road which we continued to walk along passing a small waterfall on the way.  A path down to our left that ran parallel to the river took us to a picturesque packhorse bridge (Close Gate Bridge) which we crossed and turned right.  

Climbing steeply out of the valley, we followed an old packhorse route across the moor –eagle-eyed observers will have spotted some stone posts with P.H. on them.  This was a stone flagged path with the views really opening out in all directions, but we were very surprised to see the extent of the damage caused by some recent moorland fires, the landscape all around being black with a burnt smell in the air. This path brought us eventually to Haigh Gutter and the main A640 road.  

Turning sharp left here, we followed a section of The Pennine Way, across moorland to reach the millstone grit crags of Standedge giving good views to Castleshaw Reservoirs down to our right.  These crags were followed south-east to reach the trig point at Millstone Edge (1,497ft).  We decided to have an early lunch here as there were some big rocks to shelter behind from the cold wind, it was really quite pleasant with the sun shining.  Continuing on the rocky path brought us down to the main (A62) road with Brun Clough Reservoir opposite. The Standedge Tunnels pass right underneath this reservoir.  

Crossing the road into the car park we climbed some steps onto the open moor, now following The Standedge Trail. Redbrook Reservoir began to emerge to our left and across it – the splendid shape of ‘Pule Hill’ (a short Sunday Walk I shall be leading in the summer – a plug!).  Continuing across the moor on a fairly level path we eventually dropped down to a stream on our left and crossed it to reach Mount Road.  Taking a track up to our left the views really began to open out towards Butterley Reservoir in the Wessenden Valley and the town of Marsden in the distance. We dropped downhill slightly to reach Old Mount Road which we walked alongobserving the large derelict Bank Bottom Mill to our right which closed in 2003 with the loss of 275 jobs.  Bank Bottom Mill – Wikipedia We followed the road back to Marsden passing St Bartholomew’s church and crossed Mellor Bridge, an old packhorse bridge over the River Colne back to the cars.  

9 miles – total ascent 1300ft.  

 Write up by Stephen – Many thanks to Paul for taking the pics and to David C.  for his excellent back marking. 

‘If you wish to see a static view of the pics all in one go, then click here.’

Continuously running slideshow below – you can see it full screen by clicking in top left of picture