More Morton Magic #4: Morton Beck - Powerful Water!
This is the 4th of a 17-cache series which will take you on a wonderful 6km looping trail up the deep valley of Morton Beck passing historical farm and residential buildings, industrial ruins, mill ponds and weirs, rich deciduous and pine woodlands, a reservoir, waterfall, low moorland, farm fields and then back down an old track and flower-festooned path into the village.
The cache, a camo-topped metal pot, is hidden just off the footpath as it ascends from the beck across an open area up into the rich woodland covering the steep sides of the beck.
Directions: from #3, retrace your steps back through the gap in the wall and head down to the stepping stones across the beck which is only a few metres wide here and not very deep. Depending on the level of the water in the beck, there may be several, just one or possibly no options for getting across whilst still remaining dry! You certainly would not have been able to cross here - or anywhere else on 12/7/1900 - see below!
If you decide to cross, do so with care and beware of slippy and loose stones - a trusty hiking pole is very useful here for extra balance.
Once across the beck simply follow the path up, along the wall* and on to the cache location above and south of a weir which you will hear as you complete formalities.
*At the end of the wall, it is worth making a short detour to the east across the grass to climb up to the top of the higher ground for some great views. From here you will also see the line of the alternative route (see below) across from Alma Terrace to the south-east.
If unable or unwilling to cross: in the absence of any apparent convenient alternative*, you may have to leave #4 for another - drier - day.
*An as-yet uninvestigated possibility, looking at Google Earth and surveying the area from high ground to the east of the end of the wall, would be to park @ N 53 52.647 W 1 50.612 at the south end of Alma Terrace and instead of taking the footpath going northwest, head north across the fields passing through gaps in the stone wall field edges then past the rear of Providence Row to reach the junction with the footpath coming up from the stepping stones @ N 53 52.894 W 1 50.650 some 175m south of GZ.
Since you will now have had your first - hopefully not too intimate - contact with the remarkable Morton Beck, it would be appropriate to consider where it comes from and where it is going . . .
The beck has a catchment area of 10 km2 or 400ha (1,000 acres). It is formed by the unification of three named streams, Bradup Beck, Fenny Shaw Beck and Sweet Well Dike, plus numerous unnamed rivulets. All three start at an altitude of around 350m.
The multiple sources of Bradup Beck lie on the moor beyond Ilkley Road at High Bradup, below Kirk Stones [N 53 53.953 W 1 51.870]. On its descent along The Glen, as it flows into Sunnydale Reservoir, it is joined by Sweet Well Dike flowing off Morton Moor. Fenny Shaw Beck, which also descends from Morton Moor unites with Bradup Beck just above Upper Mill Row (just before the weir near GZ) to form Morton Beck.
An idea of the capacity of this catchment area can be gained from the 'Great Flood' of 12 July 1900, when 100mm rain (4in.) fell in 2 hours.
The disused Sunnydale Reservoir, which had been constructed over 60 years earlier, had a waste weir 9m wide by 1m deep. This had never before known to be full. On this day not only was it full, but also water to a depth of 20cm passed over the whole length of the embankment. This was equivalent to 17,000m3 per minute.
Upper Mill was the first to take the brunt of the water, with Upper Mill Row suffering great damage. Botany Mill was hit next then Freedom Mill, lower down, had its reservoir wrecked, and part of the mill yard was carried away. The dam at Dimples Mill then burst, damaging property to the far side of the beck, and Hebble Bridge was washed away. The flood continued down to the canal, which did not itself burst its banks. Amazingly there was apparently no loss of life. Sunnydale had also burst its banks in 1849, again with no loss of life.
From the Industrial Revolution onwards water became an important resource, and in the case of East Morton, the run-off from the moors was channelled into a sequence of dams by goits and culverts as follows:
Sweet Water Dam - Sunnydale Reservoir - Sunnydale Mill Small Dam - Sunnydale Mill Lower Dam - Morton Dam - Coffin Dam - King’s Dam - Settler Dam - Duck Pond - Holroyd Dam - Castlefields Mill Dam.
The source/s of the water may or may not be obvious. Sweet Well Dam sits high above the Glen, quite close to Sweet Well Dike, but has no obvious connection with it or other springs. Morton Moor appears to have been systematically drained with a network of dikes - whether these were constructed by mill owners or Bradford Council is currently unclear.
A large culvert leads water from an unnamed tributary that commences on White Flush, Morton Moor and ends in the beck just above Providence Row. The stone slabs that cover it appear to start (SE 10669 42955) just above the moor wall and run down the clough for some distance before the culvert seems to vanish.
There are at least two land 'drains' designed to collect water before leading it to the beck. One of these is on the east bank near Upper Mill Row, the other is just above the footpath running between Providence Row and Alma Terrace.
