Ilkley West Ramble #9: Cocking Lane
This is the 9th in a series of 28 caches which will take you on a memorable ramble through some fine, varied West Yorkshire countryside immediately west of Ilkley and south of Addingham. The southern half of the ramble traverses Addingham Moorside.
See Ilkley West Ramble #1: Intro & Start for maps, background info on the trail, and parking waypoints.
From IWR #8, continue west until you meet the farm track accessing Gate Croft, then turn right (north) along here till you meet Cocking Lane.
Turn left and head west down the lane to the location of the cache, a camo-taped preform tube, on the south side . . .
Cocking Lane runs east to west almost parallel with the A65 Ilkley-Skipton Road from Cocking End through the hamlet of Small Banks to the 4-way junction at Addingham Middle Moor with Straight Lane to the south and Turner Lane to the north.
Beyond this point heading west the name changes to Brownbank Lane which eventually descends to the northern edge of Silsden. It therefore provides a highly scenic alternative route to the busy A65/A6034 roads if travelling between Ilkley and Silsden.
Cocking is the Middle English term for the act of forming hay or straw into cones, which is the most likely source of the lane's name.