Cliffe Castle, Keighley

So here's a pleasant walk around an attractive park, with an educational visit at the start of it and the prospect of a playground, café, aviary and modest zoo at the end.

Cliffe Castle at Keighley is rather more than merely the museum, created by Bradford Council in a former mansion and free of charge. Although that in itself is a good enough reason for going there, there's the bonus of acres of parkland and woodland served by a network of good footpaths.

But first, getting there. Easiest way is by car, parking in the museum's free car park off Spring Gardens Lane, which is in turn off North Street. However, if you use public transport you could face a bit of a route march before you get there, particularly if you travel by train.

It's a fair old walk for little legs from the station then up Cavendish Street and along North Street, with the steep pull up Spring Garden Lane at the end.

Rather better to travel by bus to Keighley Bus Station at the top of Cavendish Street, which will give you a good start. You can get even closer (though it's only one stop) by taking a Skipton bus from there to the bottom of Spring Garden Lane. Personally, I'd prefer to walk.

So what do you find when you get there? Well first of all there's Cliffe Castle itself, the delights of which are described elsewhere on this page.

It's a splendid place to look at from the outside and its interior is packed with attractions - including a small souvenir shop which it's perhaps best not to mention to the children until they've explored the rest of the museum, or you'll never get them to move on. There are toilets in there as well.

Although a lot of the stuff on show is new, or at least specific to Cliffe Castle, for parents and grandparents who used to frequent Cartwright Hall in years gone by, before it became exclusively Bradford's art gallery, there will be plenty of familiar sights.

There they are, those stuffed birds and animals in their glass cases that we used to gaze at during Saturday afternoon visits. And there, too, are the bees coming and going from their hive. All our yesterdays, eh?

Now the walk. When you emerge from Cliffe Castle, turn left and walk down the steps to a terrace where you turn right, soon going left at a corner with a sign on a post and walking down the path to meet another crossing path at the bottom.

Turn left on this, but soon take the left-hand fork as it snakes around between stately trees and past a couple of redundant fountains, with pleasant views of the museum up the hill. Stick with it until it soon rejoins the main lower path and continue along this.

As well as attractive, strategically-placed flower beds, there are some wonderful trees in this well-kept park - glorious, mature ones lining the paths and dotted around the grassland. It often strikes me that the people whose money helped to create areas like this, when they had their houses built, would have been long gone before the trees they put in were large enough to have been able to make a major contribution to the landscape. They'd be mere saplings.

Still, as a consolation the distant views would have been more accessible.

Continue along the lower path, ignoring a wide grassy track on the right heading down to the road, and keep on to a point where the main path swings right towards a gate. Go sharp left here, into the trees, following the track until it, too, swings right towards a fence with a field beyond.

Don't go that way. Instead go left on a rough, steeply-climbing path which ends at a fork marked by a tall, solitary tree. Head past this on the right-hand side and walk across the grass. To the right is the playground, to the left enclosures containing hens.

There's plenty of open space near here to picnic, but if instead you fancy something to eat or drink in the café, leave the playground by the far end and go through the tunnel beneath the building opposite.

You will emerge into an attractive formal garden with the café immediately behind you, a conservatory filled with heat-loving plants, pens of rabbits and guinea pigs and, just before you return to the car park, an aviary.

It's a nice place, Cliffe Castle Park. But if, after visiting it, you fancy exploring a bit more, venture through the gates of Devonshire Park at the bottom of Spring Gardens Lane.

This is a park on a hillside, with winding paths and seats and shrubberies, given to Keighley in 1887 to mark Victoria's Jubilee by the 7th Duke of Devonshire, who was at the time the Lord of the Manor.

Past and present

The first house on the site was called Cliffe Hall and was built in Tudor style by Christopher Netherwood from 1828 to 1833. In 1848 the property was bought by the Butterfield family who had made their money in the textile industry, owning three mills in Keighley. Henry Isaac Butterfield (1819-1910) inherited the house in 1874, and began to transform it, renaming it Cliffe Castle in 1878.

His son Frederick (1858-1943 and Mayor of Keighley 1916-1918) inherited Cliffe Castle in 1910. He took a less extravagant approach to the building than his father and by the 1940s it was falling into decay. In 1950 Sir Bracewell Smith bought the property and presented it to Keighley as a new public museum.

The museum houses extensive educational displays of local fossils and geology; crystals and minerals; natural history; local bygones, stained glass and pottery. There are furnished Victorian rooms and temporary exhibitions.

The many cases of stuffed animals in the museum are largely a legacy from the Victorian era when protection of wildlife was not an issue. Any recent additions are the result of roadkill.

The museum's archaeological displays look at the resources in the local area such as coal, sandstone and peat. There are displays of local crafts and the objects that were made locally, such as chimney pots and cast-iron work.

You can find out about minerals and how they grow and about their chemical elements. The stained-glass windows in a room in the upper gallery came from the Temple Street Methodist Chapel in Keighley, which was dedicated in 1921. They were made by Morris and Company of London.

And lastly, but far from least, there's a toilet in Cliffe Castle, which is open Tuesday - Saturday 10am - 5pm, Sunday noon - 5pm, and closed Mondays (except Bank Holidays), Good Friday, Christmas Day and Boxing Day.