Shirebrook Valley ~ Medium Walk

 Distance Covered: 6 miles Time to Complete Walk 3 hours

Suitable for dog walking: Yes

Shirebrook Valley is a nature reserve with lots of spaces to explore local wildlife and a great place to walk for every season. This walk heads to marshes and then back via a railway path through woods and is a great varied walk ideal for a good decent sized walk. Situated outside Sheffield, this is a great walk if you are based in South Yorkshire or just visiting.

General Safety Tips: The woods on the return journey can get very muddy after rain, there are a few busy roads to cross, take extra care. 

The Shirebrook Valley walk

Getting There

From Middlesbrough head down the A19 to the A1M southbound. Head down the A1 to junction 35 which is the M18 turnoff. Head onto the M18 until the M1 onto the Rotherham Gateway. Turn left onto the Mesborough Parkway which is the A57 and then left down Cosley Hill. Turn right onto Stone Lane and the car park is on your right and is free of charge

Sat Nav postcode is S41 7RU

Maps of the Shirebrook Valley walk

The Walk

From the car park head left down Stone Lane.

Turn right after approx 20m and go through an A Frame and turn left onto the Trans Pennine trail

Just before the main road, turn left through an A Frame and onto a path over Stone Lane to the right

Head down the path and at a fork in the path head on the right hand fork and continue on the path ahead

Keep left at another fork and follow the path which stays close to the road on your right

Go over a small footbridge and keep ahead on the path

Turn left onto a path near a pond/lake area and head to the right of the water

This area is the Centenary Pond and head around to a green bench

Head past an information board and over a small footbridge

Head along the path over the brook and into an open space with a pylon in the middle

Head over to the other over the grass path and at a crossroads take the left path and go over a footbridge

Head in an upwards direction and through an A Frame 

Turn right and follow the path to the right and through a gate

Follow this path through another A Frame and past some cute hedgehog art

Head onto the wider path passing some horse stables/buildings

Head through a gate and follow the path passing the remains of a colliery

Keep ahead on the path to Linleybank Meadows

Follow the cycle route as the path enters a clear direction and slowly ascent- keep ahead at a crossroads

Keep ahead at another junction into Linleybank Meadows

When the path reaches a T junction turn right and head down the path

Keep left at a fork and head down to the road and an A Frame

Cross over the road and turn right immediately onto a path to Beighton Marsh

Head through an A Frame and pass the marshes to your right which have a variety of wildlife based on the season

Follow the path as it bends to the left and towards an A Frame to a path near the railway line

Turn left and follow the path beside the railway to a gate onto a road

Head down the road and then to the left and follow the road ahead again

Follow the road passing houses and then turn right when you come to a road to head for Woodhouse Station 

Head down the road near the station and to the railway footbridge

Just past the footbridge head down a path to your left and slightly right down a path that descends

Head over a small bridge and then follow the path ignoring all the paths off shoots

This path weaves its way towards a school and the main road.

Cross over the road carefully and enter the Shirtcliffe Woods on the other side

Follow this path which gets muddy keeping to the right of the brook for the duration of the walk in the woods passing all the bridges

Eventually you meet the main road and the TransPennine path just before the road

Turn left onto the path and over a road to the other side

Follow the path to another road and cross over onto Stone Lane and back to the car park

Shirebrook Valley

The Local Nature Reserve was designated in 1999 and extends over an area of approximately 100 hectares.

It is based around the former site of the Coisley Hill Sewage Works which closed in the early 1990s. The manager's office has been converted into a visitors' centre. The reserve includes Beighton Marsh, an area of reed-grass swamp situated at its eastern end, which supports birds such as reed bunting, grasshopper warbler and barn owl, as well as mammals such as the harvest mouse and water vole. The Birley Spa Bath House, a Grade II listed building, was restored with a Heritage Lottery Fund grant in 2001. Also within the reserve is Wickfield Plantation, one of the few remaining areas of lowland heath and coppiced oak woodland inside Sheffield.

The reserve contains Carr Forge Dam which is fed by a stream from Birley Spa and is a location for wildlife. New ponds were created in the same area to mark the centenary of the City of Sheffield. The Centenary Ponds were opened by Clive Betts on 18 June 1993. Further ponds were created in 2016 to encourage amphibians. Also added to the eastern side of the reserve is a landscaped former landfill site, called Linley Bank Meadow, now home to skylarks and a likely location for soaring buzzards

The reserve is popular with cyclists and walkers, having a network of paths and the Transpennine Trail running through is used by a running club, for orienteering events, geocaching, company team-building days, school visits etc. The reserve has a car-park accessed from Stone Lane.

Fishing is banned on the site as most access points involve walking under pylons which has resulted in fishing rods conducting electricity and burning anglers. After one bad accident in 2004, the council took the unusual step of removing all the fish from the site to deter anglers. This decision was criticised by the Countryside Alliance.

The Chevin ~ Easy Walk

Distance Covered: 1.5 miles Time to Complete Walk 1.5 hours

Suitable for dog walking: Yes

This is an amazing short walk which packs so much in for under 1.5 miles. Ideal for a dog walk or if youre visiting the nearby town of Otley, this walk follows the Sculpture trail and then passes a jaw dropping rock formation, cascading waterfalls and an Iron Age settlement. All in under 1 and a half hours!. Parking is either at the Lower End or Higher End car park and you need to pay using the Park & Go app and is £2.70 for 4 hours.

General Safety Tips: Wear boots as the tracks can get muddy. Take when exploring the rocks. There is a short climb back to the car park.

The Chevin Walk 

Getting There

From Middlesbrough follow the A19 to the M1 southbound. Leave the M1 on the Leeds Airport turn off which is the A59. Just before Pool in Wharfdale, turn right and head along Pool Road. Head into Otley and turn left onto Walkergate and left onto Charles Street. Take Gay Lane and climb up E Chevin Road. The car park is on your left. 

Maps of The Chevin walk

The Walk

From the car park head to the right on the path to the Sculpture trail.

There are lots of information boards along the way, keep right along the Sculpture trail.

Look out for the Sculptures along the trail.

Keep ahead at a fork in the path

Keep ahead passing some more sculptures.

Passing another sculpture head left down the path.

Turn left on the return path and take the lower path when the path forks.

Approach the amazing rock formations, worth climbing to explore further!

Continue on the path arriving at some lovely waterfalls.

Continue on the path soon arriving at the remains of an Iron Age settlement.

Head into the trees and look for a path that climbs on your left.

Climb up the path and at the top follow the path round back to the car park.

The Chevin

The name is Brythonic in origin, the earliest attestation of the name in English is an eleventh-century copy of a charter from 972 which gives the spelling as Scefinc, with another charter of around 1030 records it as on Scefinge. These early spellings suggest that an originally Celtic term (related to the Modern Welsh "is y cefn", meaning below the ridge) was borrowed into English, as the initial s- likely indicates the name was preceded by a word unfamiliar to speakers of Old English.

As such, the word Chevin simply means "back", "ridge" or "ridge of high land", and shares its etymology with many other hills across western Europe, such as The Cheviot in Northumberland, Cefn Cribwr and Cefn Bryn in Glamorgan and the Cévennes in France. One of the steep hillsides of the Chevin is called the Great Dib, first attested in 1290 as Dibe. Since dib is a Middle English word for 'pool', this name probably originally referred to a pool at the foot of the slope.

The Chevin is largely covered in attractive old woodland and heathland. It is a part of the Carboniferous Millstone Grit group. A Roman road ran along the top of the Chevin, part of the road that linked Eboracum (York), Calcaria (Tadcaster) and Olicana (Ilkley), perhaps on the same route as the modern road, Yorkgate, or perhaps about 800 metres (2,600 ft) to the south.

The highest point of the Chevin is often thought to be Surprise View, however it is in fact Beacon Hill next to Yorkgate quarry which reaches 283 metres (928 ft) at grid reference SE199441 and used to be the site of a trig point. Surprise View is the more visited summit of the Chevin and offers extensive views of Otley and Wharfedale, and has an adjacent car park. It is the site of a cross erected every Easter since 1969.

Parts of the Chevin, known as the Danefield Estate, belonged to landowner Walter Fawkes and his descendants. After World War II these areas were donated to Otley Urban District Council as a memorial to those from the Wharfe Valley who had lost their lives during the war.