Golden Acre Park ~ Easy Walk

Distance Covered:  6 miles Time to Complete Walk: 2.5 hours

Suitable for dog walking: Yes

Just outside Leeds, Golden Acre Park is a popular green space from the city and the setting for this walk. Ideal for walking your four legged friends, the walk starts at the park and meanders past farms and through fields before returning to the park via Pauls Pond. Check out the cafe in the park and grab a coffee to go before the walk!.

Virus Awareness: Take a mask if visiting the cafe. The rest of the walk is open and there is plenty of space on the route.

General Safety Tips: Take extreme care crossing the roads and walk facing the oncoming traffic. Wrap up well as parts of the walk are exposed to the elements.

The Golden Acre Park walk

Getting There

From Middlesbrough follow the A19 to the M1 southbound. Leave the motorway at Junction 47 signed to Harrogate and the Leeds/Bradford airport which is the A59.

Keep ahead at the roundabout in which the road becomes the A658. Keep on the A658 and take a left turn on a roundabout to follow the A61 to another roundabout which then becomes the A659. Folllow this road passing Arthington Park. Just before Arthington turn left onto Black Hill Road. Shortly after look out for the carpark at Golden Acre on your right. Parking is free and has plenty of spaces.

Maps of the Golden Acre Park walk

The Walk

In the car park look for a signpost and information board. Head towards the underpass which takes you into the park.

From the underpass, turn right and follow the park path which will take you to a lake. If wanting to grab a coffee at the cafe before the walk, turn left and up some steps for the cafe.

Arriving at the lake,  follow the path ahead on your right.

Ignore the bridge and instead join a path to your right which takes you out of the boundaries of the park.

Turn left and follow the tree lined path ahead until you come to a road.

Take care on this road and cross it to join the road ahead - walk on the grass verge.

Soon you come to another road junction. Take care and ensure you follow the road which is the 2nd left at the junction and called Eccup Moor Road.

Follow this road facing the oncoming traffic until you come to an outbuilding just before Bank Top Farm.

Turn left onto the bridleway and follow the path and look for a stile in the fence to your left before the path bends to the right.

Go over the stile and through the field to a stile in the wall.

Follow the path to another stile which leads to a road.

Turn left onto the road and after about 20 yards go over a stile on your right.

Ignore the path on your right and instead join the farm track to your left and follow this ahead.

Go over a stile in a gate and keep on the track ahead.

Bear right towards a stile in a wall.

Follow the grassy path with an Activity Centre to your right in the distance. Go through a kissing gate.

Go through another kissing gate and turn right onto a road and a junction.

Just before the Donkey Sanctuary go through a gate in the fence to your left.

Go through another gate and follow the enclosed grassy path.

Go through another gate and keep to the left in the next field.

Head through two consecutive stiles.

Head over another step stile onto a road. Turn right and follow the road.

Follow the road for 150 yards and look out for a public footpath to your left. Follow this and go through a small gate.

Go through another kissing gate and follow the grassy track.

Go through another gate and head towards an Oak tree in the left hand side of the field.

Beyond the Oak tree go over a ladder stile into the next field.

In this field you need to head to a stile in the far right corner. At this point you are heading to the roundabout which leads into Bramhope.

Follow the field edge towards the houses.

Look for a diagonal path in the grass. You need to head for a stile in the fence to the left of some houses and just before the roundabout.

Crossing the road carefully head straight ahead onto Sycamore Way and pass a rugby club on your left.

Look for a gate on your left which heads onto a field path.

 

Go over a stile and keep to the field edge.

Go over another stile and keep on the path beside some woods.

Look for a track at the ends of the path and turn left following the track.

Follow the track as it heads through a farmhouse and yard via two gates.

Follow the path which heads to some woods.

If you have time you can turn right to complete a circuit of Pauls Pond.

Either way,to head back to the carpark, turn left and head through the woods and follow the path with a fence to your left.

In the woods look for a small marker indicating the way back to the car park via a footbridge.

Golden Acre Park

Golden Acre Park is a public park in Bramhope, Leeds, West Yorkshire, England (grid reference SE267417), administered by Leeds City Council. It is on the A660 Otley Road and covers an area of 137 acres (55 ha).

It opened as a privately run amusement park in 1932 with a miniature railway, swimming pool and boating lake, but closed during the Second World War and was taken over by the Council in 1945. The lake was formed by damming Adel Beck and was larger than at present.

The park is on the east side of the A660 road. On the west side is a car park and Breary Marsh nature reserve, with a pedestrian tunnel under the road joining them to the main park. The Leeds Country Way passes through the park, and the Meanwood Valley Trail links the park to Woodhouse Moor.

The park has a lake with wildfowl, informal gardens, demonstration gardens, a special collection of heathers, and woodland and open spaces. The gardens contain the National Plant Collections of Lilac, Deutzia, Hosta and Hemerocallis.

Facilities include a cafe (with indoor and outdoor seating), a number of benches, a bird feeding shelter and numerous picnic benches. The park is usually well kept all year round.

The Adel Dam nature reserve, owned by the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, is adjacent to the eastern side of the park.