Over 70 walkers joined local author Colin Speakman at the weekend on a six-mile walk on the Dales Way.
The walk (from the start of the Dales Way in Ilkley to Bolton Abbey in the Yorkshire Dales National Park) celebrated the original public walk organised over fifty years ago to inaugurate the 81-mile-long Dales Way. It is now one of England’s most popular long-distance walks, connecting the towns and cities of West Yorkshire with the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake District.
A special feature of the celebrations was a courtesy bus service using use two of the exact type of local West Yorkshire Road Car buses that carried walkers to and from the Yorkshire Dales in 1969.
Provided by the Keighley Bus Museum, in conjunction with the Friends of DalesBus, these superbly preserved vehicles took walkers of 2019 on a time journey using the identical form of transport used by walkers 50 years ago.
On their return to Ilkley, walkers joined Sir Rodney Brooke, President of the Ilkley Manor House Trust and Ilkley & Keighley MP John Grogan to officially open a special exhibition dedicated to the story of the Dales Way which is at Ilkley’s historic Manor House throughout August.
The Dales Way 50th exhibition is open at the Ilkley Manor House (near the Parish Church) every Saturday and Sunday 11am-4pm, until 1 September. Entrance is free. See ilkleymanorhouse.org for more.
Photo: Friends of DalesBus
