 Hello, thank you for joining me. Today we're in the industrial ruins what now form the Hedley-Dale Nature Reserve. We're going to go for a walk along by the river and up to the old railway line we're going to go and see the very impressive Hedley-Dale Viaduct. This is the river Spodham, this is the valley I've just been walking along and it's this valley that the Hedley-Dale Viaduct carried the railway line across. It's about a quarter of a mile upstream that way but what I'm going to do, I'm going to go for a walk up here, up over the hill and round to the old broadleague station and now I'm going to follow the old railway from there to Hedley-Dale Viaduct. This road here, now this is, we're going to go over the castle bridge and interestingly there's a bus turning surface here so this must be one of Manchester's most remote bus terminuses. It's right up here, right off on the hill. It just seems so, you know, it just seems hard to believe we're actually in Greater Manchester, one of the biggest urban areas of the UK and yet it's so rural and quite windy. I'm going to go down there, down the broadleague station but firstly I'm going to go up here to see the views over Manchester. So we come up here, Rockstale. I did do a video in Rockstale Town Centre so there's a link on the screen now, so have a look at that. That's Rockstale, Manchester's over there. I can see the Peak District in the far distance. Up here there's a load of farms. There's a path that goes even further up the hill which you know, I'd like to do but I think today I'm just going to head back down there to Water Broadleague Station. I've come down from the hills and I'm now on the old railway so this is the old Lancashire and Yorkshire railway and from Rockstale up to Backup. So there's a very scenic railway. It opened in 1870. It closed to passengers in 1949. It closed to goods in 1952. And here is the platform of Broadleague Station. So the station would have been here. I think as far as I'm aware there was only ever the one platform. It's quite interesting here. At first glance you think why is there a gap here in the platform? It's because the signal box would have been there and all the rods would have come out here and there'd have been a wooden platform on this section here so that's why there's a section of platform missing. About here somewhere out there that's where the station building would have been. There'd have been a set of steps just from this side of the road bridge down onto the platform as you'd have bought your ticket. You'd have travelled that way up towards Backup and you'd have travelled this way down towards Rockstale and Manchester. So as I said, this is all part of Greater Manchester. It almost makes me think I should extend the metro link up to Backup because there's quite a lot of people if they did. I will always, you know, always want to see any railway reopened whether it's a railway as a heritage line or a tramway. If it was a heritage railway, no doubt it would be very scenic but then we have got this Lancaster Railway fairly nearby so whether another heritage railway, you know, would work. But I think a railway in some form of commuter line would work because although it may feel really rural where I am now, not far from me that way, there's a lot of people living all up the valley, up towards Backup and Backup is one of those, you know, fairly large towns that no longer has a railway station. So we're just going to come down under this bridge. I'm going to continue along the track and we're going to go from one extreme of being down here in a cutting we're going to end up on the Headleydale Vibex. I'm really looking forward to going over that and showing you the views from Headleydale Vibex. I've walked along the railway line. I'm about 500 yards south of Broadley Station and the cutting is just starting to give way and in front of us will be Headleydale Vibex. So this is what carried the railway over the River Spod and it's really high. We're going to be a good 100 feet or so above the river so it's not particularly long Vibex but it's going to be very impressive Vibex. If you look there it says Headleydale Management Committee. It says you're not allowed to jump, abseil, climb, etc. Bungee jump actually it says. So yeah, no bungee jumping off here but you can enjoy the views. So here we are, the viaduct starts now. We're just coming on to the viaduct in a moment. You'll open out and you'll be able to see the views mainly of the treetops of the Headleydale Gorge. We'll look down and we'll be able to see exactly what we're passing over. So if you look now you can see. Now there's a lot of people living in the area. You can see a few houses up there. You'd be surprised there's a lot of houses dotted all along just up there but they're sort of out of sight. So if the railway ever did reopen they would be the people who would use it to commute into Manchester, Rockstall or for commuting and for pleasure and just to enjoy the scenery I know I certainly would. So you may just be able to see properly here. What we're going to do, as soon as we've gone over it we're going to have to go down under it. So we'll go down and we'll go up to the viaduct. We're going to have a look at the river and then I'll sort of be back to where I started about half a mile, quarter mile around the corner down there so it's been a very interesting walk. Let's just get over the viaduct and then I'll show you what I mean. We're going to go down and under the viaduct. At the end of the viaduct now you can see we're no longer on a stone bridge not on a metal bridge. That's what carries the road beneath us. If we look ahead here you can see the railway line it carries on in that direction down towards Rockstall. We're going to go down here so there's the viaducts I'm going to take you down these steps onto the road and from here what I'm hoping is we can get a bit of the view of the viaduct and then go right down into the gorge where we should get a better view of the viaduct. The one thing about this viaduct is it's not so easy to see because it's so surrounded by greenery. So here we are, this is the girded section that runs underneath now and down onto this road and walk up here a little bit and we should be able to see the viaduct. Have a look there and I appreciate you all looking through the trees but you can see the arches and down there I can hear the river down below so what we're going to do I'm going to go down to that path there and down again and I'm going to go right down I'm going to take you right underneath the viaduct. I've come down from the viaduct it's just behind me up there we will go and have another look at the viaduct from below in a moment but I thought I'd show you this rather interesting section here of the river here was an old mill built in the 16th century now to support the mill over the river what appears to be a bridge is actually part of a whole tunnel that would have supported the whole building over the river itself so it's not actually what looks to be a rather exciting fairy-tale like bridge it's part of a long tunnel to about there but here I assume from what I'm looking at this is probably where the water from the mill would have flown through and out there I'm not entirely sure whether there was a big water wheel once going around here if you know, comment and tell me and then just beyond here I'm not going to climb up there it's a bit precarious looking but there we have a rather spectacular cascading waterfall I'm going to make my way back up to the path another bit up there I want to show you and then what we'll do we'll walk back down here and we'll try and find a way this is as far upstream as I intend to come I don't know if you can see there are people down there swimming in the river believe it or not now you can probably hear the water is quite loud well there is quite a spectacular series of waterfalls down there it looks a bit dodgy to walk along to the first one so I'll show you the second but more impressive waterfall it's known as the ferris chapel so it's like the valley of the ferris I don't know if you know why it's called ferris chapel do comment and tell me I'm going to let you see that view now I'm now going to head back down to the viaduct we've looked down from the viaduct so it's time to go back and look up at the viaduct I am now standing in the middle of the river I've got to pick my way back across the stones to get back onto the path but there above us looking rather overexposed at the moment apologies for that is the headly delviaduct so what I'm going to do I've stepped on a wobbly stone I've got to pick my way across the river it has been quite if there is such a thing an adventurous Henry's adventures today all starting off in holes looking across unofficial stepping stones and walking over and under impressive viaduct soon as I get off here I'm going to take you under the viaduct and then that will pretty much conclude this video so there we are look at it it's huge I'm sorry the sun keeps overexposing like that onto the video but it's hard to convey just how tall and impressive it is there's a mills loose here so I shall show you that so this is the mills loose so we've got one section of water going along here we're going to go across here get a view of the spectacular where and where I am now so you've got one section of water flowing on here with the main river down there you can now possibly see just how big the piers of the viaduct are look at that looking up like that 100 feet above us once trains steam locomotives would have rumbled across there probably not that many diesels because as it last ran in 1952 I'm not saying diesels never went up there but probably very few and get another view of the viaduct here I appreciate there's a lot of branches in the way so it's less overexposed I'm going to carry on along the river mill stream on this side I'm going to carry on walking back to where I started so I hope you enjoyed this video and from down deep in the Hedleydale gorge thank you very much for watching please do feel free to like, subscribe, comment, tell your friends thank you very much, goodbye