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Campaigning for good beer in good pubs in north Lancashire and the Ingleborough area

CAMRA Lunesdale

SALTAIRE HIKE & PINT Saturday 20th August 2016 by Lawrence Bland

Junction, Baildon

Three hikers caught the 1049 train to Shipley, then returning back to Saltaire, meeting seven members of the Keighley & Craven Branch. The weather forecast wasn’t good, windy with heavy showers and the possibility of thunder, although it was a grey day with occasional spots of rain, it was pleasant for walking. Heading north we passed the Salts Mill and 1853 Gallery on the right with the impressive United Reformed Church on the left, crossing over the canal and the River Aire, through Roberts Park to the bottom station of the Shipley Glen Tramway. Paid our £1 fare for a ride on Britain’s oldest working cable tramway. Martin’s plan had been to follow the route in the Yorkshire Pubs Walks book and continue up the glen and go over Baildon Hill, but time was limited, so we followed a narrow path through Walker’s and Midgeley Woods and along Baildon Bank, up to Westgate in Baildon and our first stop, the Bull’s Head, with a Saltaire Blonde. The party split and took several routes down to the Junction, sampling the Junction Blonde in this brewpub and a stronger Seven Dials from nearby Bingley Brewery. We took a narrow path over to the Saltaire Brewery Tap, four beers were available, we tried the South Island, voted the beer of the day. We walked along the Leeds & Liverpool Canal to Briggate in Shipley and visited the Fox, an extremely busy pub, and tried their ‘Slightly Fox Howling Fox’. As time was running short we caught the train for the two minute journey back to Saltaire, and we just had time to visit the Hop, an Ossett brewery pub built in an old tram shed, and an Ossett Silver King. Nice pub this, with a Wetherspoons look about it and specializing in pizzas. We had wanted to visit the new micro pub the ‘Cap & Collar’ and also ‘Fanny’s Ale & Cider House’, but the last train was calling, the 1640 to Keighley, changing for the 1710 to Lancaster.