Tuesday May 2 Arrival at Hebden Bridge
Its a wet and cold day in a cemetary, what a way to
start a walk, but my search for David Hartley, the
famous “coiner”, was successful. I am standing over
his grave in the Heptonstall churchyard cemetery
where he is buried along with five family members
all under one gravestone. I suppose they are tucked
in together to save money. My other quest here, the
grave of poet Sylvia Plath, is locked away within
the church. Oh well, another time!
I had flown from San Francisco, arrived in
Manchester early in the morning and took the train
from Victoria Station for the two hour trip to
Hebden Bridge where I had chosen to jump onto the
Pennine Way. I’ll be walking the middle section of
the PW, 150 miles north to Alston, approaching
Hadrian’s Wall. For the ten days of the walk, the
average ascent and descent is 2200 feet through
quite a bit of uninhabited country. I’m carrying 14
pounds in my backpack, everything I’ll need since
I’m staying at B&Bs or hostels every night and
eating in the pubs. I took some wonderful photos
with a new digital camera, but sadly, all were lost.
More on that later.
It was a steep, steep climb up to Heptonstall, a
small village on meadow land high above Hebden
Bridge. The nice lady at the TI in Hebden Bridge had
turned me onto the story of Hartley who scraped by
in the 19th century by scraping gold off coin edges
until he was caught. After my grave hunting, I
stopped in the village pub for a pint of Timothy
Taylor Landlords ale, then off down the road to find
the PW path which would lead to my B&B for the
night. There was no sign of the path, so I asked a
fellow who pointed me through the fields on the
route his kids took to Colden Water. After a
non-intuitive jig and jog through the fields, down
steep stone steps to Colden Clough and crossing the
beck on an old packhorse bridge, I climbed up Pry
Hill fighting a fierce wind with rain and finally
arrived at Badgerfield Farm.
Miriam had been looking out for me and greeted me
with press coffee and chocolate cake in the lounge.
After this, all I wanted was a hot shower and a long
sleep to get my body over jet lag. I can hardly keep
my eyes open writing in my journal as the windy
storm pounds against the window