Addingham Environmental Group Trail #1: Town Beck, Burnside
This is the 1st of a series of 9 caches in an enjoyable 2.6 km circuit taking in some varied scenery and environments to the south of this fine historic village. See Trail Map in the Gallery for the route and points of interest - including cache locations. See here for a description of one of the numerous walks around Addingham - which includes the route of this trail. See here for a comprehensive description of a short walk covering the first 3 caches in the series, with detailed maps and illustrations.
The trail originally had 6 caches marking key points of interest as per the guided tour at the annual Environment Day held in May 2017.
Parking:you may find space near the trailhead @ N 53 56.665 W 1 53.236 or you can usually park street-side in Addingham but if neither are available try the pub car park @ N 53 56.670 W 1 53.322 a short distance west of the trailhead.
The first (new) cache, a small camo-taped preform tube, is a replacement for Pippy P Poopypant's GC76WX3 AEG Trail1 which was hidden on 7/6/17 and archived on 16/3/19 after some 32 finds. It was hidden alongside the beck just off Main Street. It has been placed in a location hopefully less likely to suffer muggle issues.
From the trailhead, cross the Town Beck footbridge - which replaced an earlier ford and crosses the beck just upstream from the old Burnside Mill with its associated manager's house and cottages. Turn left and proceed up the short lane to a path leading to a small wooden gate where the footpath enters the ancient Great Meadow at the start of the circuit.
On the right, just before the bridge, note the house with mullioned windows (71, Main St) which dates from the late 17th century but has an 18th century 'taking-in door' inserted on the first floor so that yarn and cloth could be winched in and out.
The stile is located between two old gateways through which owners of the barns on Main Street would gain access to their fields above
Original text [+ added notes]: 'Town Beck is a tributary of the River Wharfe. It is largely hidden from view through the village by extensive culverting and heavily modified by 19th century weir construction. Burnside is one of the few places in the village where the beck can be easily observed.
[It starts as Marchup Ghyll or Beck which rises on the moors south-west of the village. In the past it was valued for the energy it provided to drive water wheels which allowed Addingham to become a successful (even famous) centre for textile manufacture.]
The beck as far upstream as this point is regarded as belonging to the 'main river' and therefore the responsibility of the Environment Agency (EA) for both water quantity and water quality.
The green box houses a River Levels Recorder that provides the EA with a continuous record of river level based on measurements from a pressure sensor in the water. By knowing the height of the water and the timing of peak flow at different sites the EA can then estimate the risk of flooding downstream.
The EA also have responsibility for monitoring water quality. In the past the main problem will have been organic pollution from household and agricultural waste. Organic pollution events still take place from time to time. When they occur they should be reported immediately to the EA, but the main problem now is from nutrient pollution (mainly nitrogen and phosphorus compounds) which comes from agricultural fertilisers and surface runoff from impermeable surfaces in the built-up area of the village.
Water quality has a major impact on the kinds of organisms that can live in the beck, especially the composition of algae growing on stones and the invertebrate animals that feed on algae. These organisms can in turn be used as indicators of water quality.
Good water quality is essential to support our native brown trout. Although not of the highest quality Town Beck water is capable of supporting trout and indeed trout have been seen at Burnside by local residents quite frequently. The main problem for trout, however, is the presence of weirs and culverts making it difficult for fish to move between the beck and the Wharfe or progress further upstream.
The bankside vegetation is also poorly developed as the beck within the village flows mainly within an artificial stone channel.
A new village 4 Becks Project [which covers Town Beck/Marchup Ghyll, Back Beck/Heathness Ghyll, which both flow through the village, Wine Beck & Lumb Ghyll Beck which both have rural catchments] is designed to address these issues attempting to combine the need to control flood risk and the need to improve habitat for wildlife.'