Boundary Walk 11

30th June 2021. Starting from Ward Lane, Diggle, Oldham.

Today was our second ‘Contouring the Boundary’ event with walking artist Alison Lloyd. We gathered at the side of the Huddersfield Narrow Canal, where Ward Lane crosses over. As with our previous walk, we informed the group as to what we would be doing, collected 35mm camera’s and talked about the formation of the boundary and the first National Park. As we walk along the canal, we witnessed a crew arriving to take a canal boat though the Standedge Tunnel. This is where we met with artist John Hewitt (local to Diggle), who Alison had asked to join us so he could capture our walk through drawing. John agreed to meet us at another point along the boundary where he would capture our movement through the boundary landscape. Following this, we walked silently up Boat Lane to meet the Park boundary. As we had gained some height, we stopped to see the view and to work out how to identify where the boundary weaved its way through the landscape in front of us.

Finding the boundary running through a narrow (unsigned) footpath, we walked out into open fields, Alison requested that we silently walk in a line, 2m apart, along the next section of the boundary, where we met up with John again. The act of ‘beating the bounds’ centred us again to how the boundary follows contours and identifiable marks in the landscape, when at other times it does not. It was good to meet with John again and to find out more about the history of the locality. Just as with having to wait to see the 35mm prints, we had to wait for John to share his drawing a few days later. A refreshing change from the immediacy (or distraction) of digital.