Review: Day Walks in the South Pennines by Paul Besley published by Vertebrate Publishing

A FEW weeks ago I reviewed another of Paul Besley’s guides; Walking in the Peak District – East. His latest guidebook, this time published by Vertebrate Publishing, takes the reader north of this into the Southern Pennines with walks in an area from Greenfield in the South to Ilkley in the North, Goodshaw (near Accrington) in the West to Holmfirth in the East. The book is divided into a Southern Section and a Northern Section with 10 walks in each and distances ranging from 4.8 miles (Barley to Pendle Hill) to 17.8 miles (Hebden Bridge to Marsden). Quite a number of these walks are known to me; the Southern Section ones through having had a number of relatives who lived in the Holmfirth/Marsden/Meltham areas who I visited as a youth and went walking with them in their localities and the Northern Section through competing in events such as the Haworth Hobble which includes parts of three of the walks and also three of the walks around Haworth, Burley & Ilkley are included in my Yorkshire Walks – 6 Dales – 30 Walks book that was published back in 2015.

Each walk contains a map on the scale of 1:25000, a step by step route description and a number of full coloured photographs of views and places encountered during the walk. In addition, at the start of the guide, there are useful sections on Walk Times, Navigation, GPS and Mobile Usage, Footpaths and Rights of Way, Comfort, Safety, Rescue, Emergency Services and The Countryside Code.

The appendix at the end of the book includes Further Reading, Visitor Information Centres, Food and Drink, Pubs, Weather, Transport and Accommodation, Websites and Other Publications. Paul Besley has again, with his many years of walking experience, produced a quality guide to walks in these areas of West Yorkshire and Eastern Lancashire and it is one I would recommend to others to use in order to get out there and get walking!

by John Burland