Keighley & Worth Valley Railway

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With the end of their holiday drawing nigh Janet and Jill have been running their food stocks down so we had to go out for breakfast this morning. What a hardship?! We’ve been having fruit, Shreddies and toast since we arrived so this morning I splurged on the pancakes with berry compote and Greek yogurt while Bernie went the full English breakfast ... without the mushrooms. Yum!

Because the weather forecast for today was a bit ordinary (cloudy with showers) we decided to stay local and ride the Keighley & Worth Valley Railway which is running steam locomotives all weekend. It turns out we probably didn’t need to worry about photographing the steam train yesterday as there were to be plenty of opportunities today.

The K&WVR is a five mile branch line that runs from Keighley to Oxenhope. The line was established in 1867 and ran as a working railway until 1962. When the line was closed a group of rail enthusiasts came together to save the line and run it as a heritage railway. The group runs trains on the line on over 200 days each year and this year celebrates 50 years of running the K&WVR as a heritage railway.

We walked down to Haworth Station and purchased a Rover Ticket each. This £18.00 ticket entitled us to hop on and off the trains all day and visit the Rail Story Museums at Ingrow for free. We caught the next train heading north and rode it all the way to Keighley ... about four miles away!

We alighted on the platform at Keighley and took photos of the station and photos of the steam locomotive and watched as the locomotive was topped up with water and moved from one end of the train to the other for the return journey to Oxenhope. Rather than wait for the next train we decided to catch this train back to Ingrow where we stopped off to check out the Rail Story Museums.

The Rail Story Museums tell the story of how rail travel used to be. There are two museums - The Carriage Works which is home to one of the finest collections of vintage carriages in the country. Many of the carriages have movie and/or television credits. One of the best known films is ‘The Railway Children’ from 1970 and, more recently, ‘The Testament of Youth’ in 2015. The Engine Shed houses the locomotives that are being repaired and tells the story of steam locomotives, how they were built and by whom, how they function and the people who operated them.

After we had finished at the museums we re-boarded the train southbound and rode all the way to the end of the line at Oxenhope, We ate lunch in the cafe which is housed in an old rail carriage. We had been led to believe that if we walked back to Haworth from Oxenhope that we would be able to to find a vantage point overlooking the railway line from which we should be able to take a picturesque photograph of the steam train(s). Always keen for a good photo op we set off on the public footpath heading towards Haworth.

Well, we tramped through the fields and found a pretty, stone bridge that crossed the stream beside the railway line ... and that was about the most photogenic thing we found! Unfortunately we didn’t find a spot that provided us with a fabulous vantage point to photograph the train! Ah well, we have actually taken plenty (too many?) photos of the trains already.

Back in Haworth we made our way to the top of Main Street to The Kings Arms where Janet and Jill were lunching with their family. We were introduced to a collection of cousins, second cousins and aunties who had all come to Haworth for one last catch up with Janet and Jill before they head back to Australia. Located adjacent to the Bronte Parsonage Museum, the pub features a range of ‘Bronte Beers’ named for Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte and their brother, Branwell. Being partial to an IPA, Bernie sampled the Charlotte.

It was around 4.00pm by the time we arrived at the pub so the rellos started to talk about heading home. Before long it was just the four of us left so we made our back to Cobble Cottage. Bernie backed up our photos for the day and I wrote a little bit in my travel diary. With 7.00pm approaching we thought we should head out to find something to eat. After a big lunch Janet and Jill had decided they weren’t going to worry about dinner.

We tried The Fleece just a few doors along from Cobble Cottage first, but their Sunday roast was sold out. Yearning for roast dinner with Yorkshire pudding while in yorkshire we decided to head up to the Stream Brewing Company which had roast dinner with all the trimmings on its menu when we went past earlier today only to find that it was all closed up by dinner time. Obviously they only do Sunday lunch!? Oh well, let’s try the Old White Lion. We walked into an all but empty dining room only to be told that there was no table available until 8.00pm. What?! That was nearly an hour away so we left feeling certain that we could find somewhere else to eat.

Back down the hill to The Fleece to see what else was on offer apart from Sunday roast. We went in, found a table and Bernie went to the bar to buy some drinks. Half way there he returned to tell me they had Rekorderlig on tap, did I want a cider? OK, I said. AFTER Bernie ordered our drinks, the manager told him that they couldn’t do any more food tonight for walk-ups. Yeah, thanks for that, tell us AFTER we’ve already spent money at the bar!!

So Bernie brought our drinks back to the table and my cider was pink ... because it was bloody strawberry flavoured cider. Why, why, why do they have to take a drink that is perfectly acceptable in its original form and corrupt it with other fruits?? Yuk! I literally could not drink the cider because as soon as I got it anywhere near my mouth the sickly sweet smell was overpowering and very unappetising. As soon as Bernie finished his IPA we walked back up the hill again, still in search of some dinner.

Ah well, let’s go back to The Kings Arms. Yes, they had a table, yes, they still had roast dinner on - as long as you didn’t want chicken. I ordered the roast pork with roast potatoes, Yorkshire pudding and seasonal vegetables. Bernie decided on the beef and ale pie. The food was OK, as pub food goes. In the end I think we were just grateful to be fed on a Sunday night in Haworth when the eating options were rather limited.



Steps: 13,665 (10.27kms - all that traipsing over the moors and up and down and back up and down Main Street helped!)

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Photos

Luggage at Carriage Works
No it isn't more suitcases to store Tracey's material stash.

Comments

[Wade& Valerie]

Haworth
Loving your photos, these are nice photos Bernie and Tracey, love this type of country. Glad you got your train ride, you may remember our train at Romey Dymchurch came off the track, so we really didn't have more than 5 minutes