Landscape changes. The motorway has seen to that in many places. I’m especially aware already on this walk, of the number of old roadways which have been abruptly capped by the construction of the M62.
The ‘empty junction of the old redundant road’ in yesterday’s poem is a good example [see picture]. Where once the B1230 met the A63 (if that’s what it was called back then), an active junction doubtlessly once busy with farm traffic and food lorries is now an empty space, seldom visited except by lost or curious travellers like me, or those seeking a quiet place off the highway to snack, make phonecalls or snooze.
I’ve found these redundant, curtailed routes most days on my journey so far: often because the OS maps (even the Explorers) sometimes make it seem possible that the old roads may continue beneath the motorway, or offer some way around. On Saturday, one approaching North Cave where the old tarmac has given way to lush and springy grass; today a bridleway near Eastrington marked both sides of the motorway but ending in a thicket.
At this point a drain runs under the motorway, of sufficient size for a human to crawl through, but despite finding this idea appealing I’m still some way short of taking such crazed decisions. Though, continuing to follow a route running parallel with, and ten feet beneath, the motorway, I did eventually have to scramble up a brambled bank to reach the top of Rudding Lane, the narrow bridge over the motorway the physical barrier there.
Landscape changes as we move through different trends in transport. Until yesterday I’d done much of my journey on the TransPennine Trail, and quite a bit of that on abandoned railway lines. Searching the map for ideas on today’s route (Gilberdyke to Howden) I noticed that the M62 itself, north of Newport, makes use of a derelict railway line, the old Hull to Barnsley line which also now forms part of the lovely Eastrington Ponds Nature Reserve where I spent a good afternoon hour sitting and reading.
Eastrington Ponds provides further instructive reflection on this theme. For, feeding the ducks and looking out over the gentle waters of the fishing lake I was struck by the realisation that the bricks which built Hull were made here… and how different a scene, how different the sounds and smells, there would have been when Eastrington Brickworks stood here.
Landscape changes as transport trends alter – and no doubt one day the M62 carriageways will be surrendered to nature or allowed to become channels for some other, newly-popular mode of movement. Walking, perhaps…
Roll on the day when we shan’t be rushing everywhere, and the children will be playing on the motorways with skittles and footballs. Was my Dad prophetic – he used to say “Go and play on the motorway” ? (!)