I had a first foray of the autumn into some local woodland to see how the colours are coming along before making a longer walk along the Nidd Gorge later in the month. The first stop was Mackintosh Park, which makes a short but pretty loop walk off the Beryl Burton Cycleway by the River Nidd in Knaresborough.

It’s called Mackintosh park as the land, just over the River Nidd from Conyngham Hall was acquired by the toffee magnate Mackintosh family of Quality Street fame, when they leased the hall. Presumably there was once a pond above the weir, but it’s mostly silted up now (with a good crop of wild rhubarb in spring) so it’s only after a fair bit of rain that there’s enough water in the stream to make use of any reflections (see featured image, top).

Across the footbridges there are steps leading up to the cycleway again, where I doubled back to the river and into Foolish Wood..

I know how Mackintosh Park got its name but I’m not sure where Foolish Wood comes from, so if anyone knows then let me know! The trees along the path by the Nidd were starting to look quite colourful anyway…

The path continues from Foolish Wood to Horseshoe Field, a meadow in a meander of the River Nidd – mainly scruffy long grass at this time of the year, but there are some nice overhanging trees along the riverbank.

I finished off back over the river near Conyngham Hall where there are some lovely colourful trees along the bank by the picnic area. This old beech with exposed roots and fallen leaves looked great – in fact I was back there yesterday getting a few more shots, so there’ll be more of those on the website next week.

In the meantime, you can see all of the images from this shoot in the North Yorkshire gallery on the site.