Blog

This beautiful Bronte Falls Circular walk starts at Haworth and takes you through Penistone Country Park, to give wonderful views over Lower Laithe Reservoir. The falls themselves are a great place for children to explore, and you can stop off for a drink at the Wuthering Heights pub in Stanbury on your way back. Sounds great right?

Distance: 8km

Parking: We parked in the main pay and display car park in Haworth.

Facilities: A number of cafes and pubs in Haworth and public toilets. On the route you can stop at the Wuthering Heights pub.

Accessibility: This is a carrier only route, there are some steep steps and rocky paths, particularly around the waterfall itself. This route includes stiles.

Route: We followed this route. It’s pretty well signposted, and if you have a map you’ll be fine, but if you get nervous around navigating it’s easy just to take the path there along Enfield Side Road.

Walking to Bronte Falls

We started this walk on a rather wet morning in Haworth, but happily it meant that we could grab a hot drink to get us going!

The walk starts next to the parsonage, following the path through the graveyard and along the path that runs at the back of the large car park. When you reach the lane, turn left towards Penistone Hill.

You’ll soon reach a road with a small parking area and see a number of paths that head across the moorland. Helpfully there is signpost towards Bronte Falls, and you can head in that direction.

The moorland brings many little paths that run across, my advice is try and stick straight ahead so you dont need to go over the top of the hill (then again you might want to!). We chose a rather wet misty day to walk, but hopefully you’ll choose a better one- so if you can, aim for the reservoir.

Eventually you’ll follow the path to a road (Moorside Lane) and pick up the track the passes Spring Fall and heads all the way to the Falls. I think because much of this part of the walk is on a track (lovely though it is) it actually feels a lot further than you think. Eventually the track narrows to a downhill rocky path that leads down to the falls, be careful this can get really slippy when wet!

The falls themselves are most impressive after heavy rainfall… but otherwise you can sit and enjoy the view and have a picnic whilst the children potter!

Walking from Bronte Falls to Haworth

After enjoying the view, you need to now continue over the bridge and up the short but steep path on the other side of the valley. At the top, take the path to the right, and continue over a couple of stiles until you meet another track.

This is a circular track, so if you have a reasonable sense of direction, you’ll be able to follow the track to a surfaced road that will lead you to Stanbury… and a rather good pub with some rather good views :-). Unfortunately the wet weather was just to severe for us to enjoy them this time. But happily the stop allowed the children to be re-fuelled and even , better the weather cleared up!

As we headed out of Stanbury we were finally able to see the reservoir that had remained hidden for pretty much the duration of the walk!

Immediately after the dam, take the track on your left, and continue uphill, where you’ll have glorious views over the valley. At the end of a walk with such poor visibility this really was a true treat!

Heading back into Haworth you can keep on the road all the way, or cut across the field on your right after the road junction to return to the start.

Despite our soggy feet and my TOTALLY ruined new lockdown haircut being ruined we had a great walk; thoroughly enjoyable. And finishing in the beautiful Haworth where you can have a bit of a mooch makes this a great day out.

If you enjoy Yorkshire walks around reservoirs, find other blogs here… and walks along rivers and canals here.