A characteristic of the Holme Valley is the extensive network of “white Roads”. Often if you’re not a local you might not know they exist and that there is public access along many of them. Although the OS are showing many more these days with little green blobs on their maps they do miss quite a few.
I always found the term “white Roads” rather poetic and mysterious but in fact the term is pretty mundane as it refers to how they are/were depicted on OS maps. A white road between two boundaries or pecked lines but with no indication as to whether it is public or private and hence the sense of mystery.
Cartworth Moor Road is one such white road which pulls up out of Holmfirth to head straight for the moors. It’s much used by locals and has many public paths and several other white roads running off it to form a wonderful network of circular walks of varying lengths.
I walked it’s length today in driving snow showers all the way to the moorland edge before escaping the wind and dropping back into the valley by little used paths to follow the River Holme back to Holmfirth.
Path Watch 