Burley In Wharfdale to Otley

Starting Point - Burley In Wharfdale Station. Finishing Point - Site of Otley Station. Distance 3.5 Miles

One of the towns in Yorkshire that ought to have one of the strongest cases for reinstating its railway is Otley. Otley is a sizeable town that could have remained connected to the railway network with a just a short branch off the line to Ilkley. The line through Otley was once a through route from Arthington on the North Eastern Railway's Leeds to Harrogate line. West of Otley the route was operated as the Otley & Ilkley Joint Railway, a joint operation between the North Eastern Railway and the Midland Railway that continued west of Ilkley to Skipton and built a connection to the joint line from its Aire Valley route to the south. More about the route can be found on the Lost Railways West Yorkshire page.

Rail Map Online view

Open Street Map

1935 Map

The joint line connected to the Aire Valley route via a triangular junction between the surviving Menston and Burley in Wharfdale stations. South of Guiseley lines headed east towards Leeds via Apperley Junction and west via Shipley. 

Burley in Wharfdale

The South / East chord of the triangular junction from the Menston direction is on private land and is not accessible, however there is a footpath along the former railway on the North / East side of the junction from the Burley in Wharfdale direction.

The station car park and houses on The Robins now occupy the site of the goods yard east of the station. The site of the track on the west side of the station can still be seen behind the northbound platform. This was a siding rather than another passenger platform as the above map shows it required a reversing move to access it off the main line.

The path along the railway is accessed from Heather Rise, climbing the embankment at the site of Burley Junction. The path follows the trackbed until Menston Old Lane where due to a missing bridge over the road the path descends to road level and is rejoined across the road. The abutments of the railway bridge survive.

The next bridge has also been removed, over the more substantial Bradford Road. There were two bridges here as the road was crossed by the north and south sides of the triangle on separate bridges.

Below - Looking north along Bradford Road (Burley), nearest the camera is the former bridge for the line from the Menston direction and behind it is the former bridge for the line from Burley in Wharfdale I have been following.

Just behind me in the above photo is the cemetery on the right hand side (east) of the road. The old map above shows a footpath running alongside the railway from the cemetery and this path survives. 

1935 Map

Switching the Rail Map Online view to use Open Street Maps shows the footpath now joining the trackbed at the site of Milner Wood Junction, meeting the footpath north across the golf course. My visit was in Autumn 2020 and at the time it was hard to see where the well trodden paths were but it was clear I was following the former railway trackbed.

Below - Looking along the former railway line east of the site of Milner Wood Junction.

Below - The steep cutting sides shown towards the bottom of the old map.

1935 Map (top of map)

Below - Another missing bridge where the line crossed Bradford Road (Menston), again the path descends the embankment to road level.

Just east of the site of the bridge over Bradford Road (Menston) a footpath returns to the course of the railway (behind the bus stop). This is the footpath shown on the old map that went to (and still goes to) West Chevin Road.

Below - The bridge carrying the footpath to West Cheving Road over the former railway.

1935 Map

Otley

Through the site of Otley station the trackbed is now occupied by the Otley Bypass (A660). The footpath along the trackbed emerges on to the roundabout connecting the Bypass to Bradford Road north of the former railway. Where West Chevin Road crossed the railway on a bridge it now crosses the Bypass on a more modern bridge.

1935 Map

The footpath from Station Road to Birdcage Walk survives, crossing the Bypass on a modern bridge.

East Chevin Road also crosses the Bypass on a modern bridge just as it had crossed the railway on an earlier bridge before. The former station approach road survives in commercial use. A former weighbridge remains in situ.

It would almost certainly be possible to replace the missing bridges and squeeze in a single track branch line and platform alongside the bypass allowing trains to run between Leeds and Otley again one day, though sadly such schemes never get beyond talk in this area.

Some bits of the railway east of Otley are now footpaths I will look at doing, though the site of the next station to the east at Pool has been built on.

From Otley I returned to Burley in Wharfdale the way I came.

Also in the area I have walked along the former High Royds Hospital Railway at Menston.