In my last blog I mentioned I’d started “collecting” 13 local trig points (“pillars”, strictly speaking), as one of many ways of keeping running interesting during Lockdown. Well, all 13 are now in the bag. So, I thought I should “report back” on what I’ve found. Both to give a flavour of the current condition of these iconic (but sadly redundant) landmarks, and also to reflect on whether the act of searching for them was worth all the bother.

I list the pillars below in alphabetical order. All were visited on a run from home and appear on the 2000 edition of the OS 1:25000 map of Leeds South (slightly trimmed to fit into a frame).

I live somewhere near the centre of the map and, on average, it took around an hour to run to each pillar (well within my comfort zone). Of course, physical distancing was observed at all times. More information about the pillars – location, reference number, visits by others etc – can be found on the TrigpointingUK website.

1. Barnbow Wood – Destroyed. Although I passed near the site of this one after searching for nearby Brown Moor (see below), I confess I didn’t actually go looking for it, as it was recently reported destroyed for agriculture.
2. Brown Moor – Inaccessible. The obvious route to the pillar is blocked by ongoing works at the new Thorpe Park development. Plans do suggest though that a new path will be built that passes right next to the trig.
3. Crow Nest – Good. You can’t actually touch it because it’s in school grounds, but it’s easily seen from the other side of a fence (probably best visited outside school hours then). It has the best view from these 13, perched over the city centre with the football ground prominent in the foreground.
4. Field Head – Inaccessible. It’s in the grounds of a hospital. I got to the entrance but judged it not a good time to go beyond that point just now.
5. Garforth Cliff – Good. Tucked out of sight behind a water tower. Saying that, the farmer couldn’t have ploughed any closer without damaging it.
6. Halton Moor – Destroyed. Got to where the pillar should be to find it’s just the embankment of a road serving a new business park.
7. Holywell Wood – Inaccessible. Quite a tricky one this. I had to go a little bit off-piste and after some searching saw it in thick undergrowth the other side of a barbed-wire fence. I wasn’t going any further than that.
8. Hook Moor – Toppled. The pillar is located close to the junction of the M1 and A1(M) and was “unseated” as part of the road construction a few years ago. At least the roadbuilders left it close by (and in good condition) as it reveals the full “anatomy” of a pillar – ie that it is iceberg-like, with as much below the surface as above.
9. Peter Lane – Good. Tucked into a hedge next to a quiet footpath.
10. Robin Hood Hill – Inaccessible. It’s at the top of the embankment of a main road and separated from it by killer thorn bushes. All I got for my attempted visit was a shoe-full of spikes. I’ll take my machete next time.
11. Scotthall – Good. The most visible of all the pillars, being in the central reservation of a main dual carriageway into Leeds. It’s almost possible, on a quiet day, to pull the car up alongside it, wind down the window, and touch it from the drivers’ seat (don’t ask me how I know this).
12. Tingley Hill – Good. My favourite of the 13. It was actually recently re-located a few yards as part of a housing development. Bless them, the developers made it the central feature of a circular garden, giving it the air of a stone circle or some other ancient sacred site. The only shame is that, now it’s been relocated, it no longer appears on the current OS map.
13. Thorpe – Good. Similar to Scotthall – right next to a road with distant views.

Well, the obvious sad fact is that only 6 of these 13 are in good condition and accessible. The remainder are either toppled, inaccessible or destroyed. And now that pillars no longer fulfil their original function – OS mapping has been done digitally since the 1990s – there is little that can be done, legally, to protect any under threat. Indeed nationally, there are only around 7,000 pillars left out of the original 10,000. A shame, because they have historic and educational as well as sentimental value. I guess the best suggestion is to continue logging visits on TrigpointingUK, sharing photos on social media etc, to at least keep their profile up. The COVID Trig Point Challenge! group on Facebook does this admirably.

Tingley Hall

Hook Moor

Scotthall

Garforth Cliff

On a more positive note – and while it’s of course disheartening to run several miles to visit a pillar only to find it’s disappeared under a bulldozer – the act of hunting down the trigs has been a real find under Lockdown. Mainly because, it’s made me visit places I would never otherwise have gone to. I don’t think I would have thought of going for a run around Castleford or Belle Isle, for instance, but I got to visit the birthplace of Henry Moore in the former, and the wide roadside verges of the latter were perfect for physical distancing. The abandoned golf course in Middleton Park was another good find for the same reason, plus I got to see the park’s famous carpet of bluebells. One of the more eccentric discoveries was the curved, pitch-black 100-yard tunnel by Parlington Hall, built by the rich nobs in the 19th Century to keep the hoi polloi out of sight as they passed the hall. Next time I’ll remember my head-torch!

Only problem now is – all 13 done, so what next? Lockdown looks likely to continue. Maybe Blue Plaques – there’s 171 of them in Leeds. Follow me on Strava to see my latest bright ideas.