A down day at last, before we pack up and head to The Smoke, and a chance to have a look at the town we’re staying in.
The walk down into Holmfirth was wonderful, along the side of one the steep valleys, in among the old, now blackened, Yorkshire Sandstone cottage. The autumnal views on clear and crisp morning were lovely. It was pleasing to note that some new builds on top of the hill were constructed with the same stone, and the same stone window casements as the much older cottages that surround them.
The final drop into the village was very steep and was the hill we’d driven up on day one. It fair makes your knees ache as you take tiny steps downward. There are some scary slopes in this town.
The town itself was pretty, all old buildings, and all in the blackened sandstone that the houses on the hill were made of. The River Holme was moving a quite a lick, unnaturally narrowed I think to help with the mills that used its water in the nineteenth century. Oddly, there were four bridal shops in this little town, and at least five barbers’ shops. People with neatly trimmed hair get married a lot here, obviously.
We sat a while in a park that overlooked the town and ate lunch. With some watery sunshine warming things up a little, it was a very, very nice place to pause. We also chatted with the owners of a sweet shop, and the vegan ice cream shop, both happy to spend the time talking with odd people like us.
The downside of Holmfirth, and so many other places like it, is the traffic. It’s never ending, and with the shops so close to the road, you feel you’re walking in the road all the time. There are very few places to park all these cars, too, so people tend to find the tiniest and often almost dangerous places to leave their cars. It’s not like there are no buses, either, because we saw plenty. But this is the age of the car, and we in our rented auto had been contributing to the problem all week. This is perhaps one of the reasons we’re not contemplating moving back to our mother country.
Having stepped carefully down the hill in the morning, it was a long slog back up in the afternoon. I’m sure if we lived in the area we’d soon become used to it, but this was hard going.
We have enjoyed our stay in Holmfirth, although this was the only time we actually visited the village. It has been a good base to strike out to Leeds, Manchester and Liverpool, and even further beyond. After a week of negotiating roads barely the width of the car, vertiginous hills and bends well beyond a right angle I will probably be quite happy to ditch the car for a week.
Stevemayne's Blog 