Alone Beneath The Sky: Wakefield to South Elmsall 15/08/15

15.9 miles, via Belle Vue, Heath Common, Sharlston, Foulby, Nostell Colliery, Fitzwilliam, Brackenhill, Hemsworth & South Kirkby Colliery.

Having gotten 75 miles of the Wakefield Way under my feet, I start to feel like I have seen most of what that that district has to offer, but a look at the map will show things up very differently, lots of blank spaces that would have me thinking 'I will go there!', a la Joseph Conrad, and so a trail to the southeast is planned from the city to the remotest corner, which experience shows isn't that remote at all. Hop off the train at Wakefield Westgate at 9.25am, and make steps down Mulberry Way, the station having retreated from its namesake road, and the last time I wandered up Westgate was in 1999 on a works leaving do, and it hasn't changed much since then, a once proud mix of banks and mid-sized department stores that is now entirely made up of clubs and bars, the lack of revellers does render it prettier of course. Find a fresh route down to the Calder by detouring through the Ridings shopping centre, finding that the pedestrian way does not shadow the old rout of Southgate, and emerge to continue south on George Street and Thornhill Street through a district that seems like it slipped through time to meet Ings Lane and pass under the railway bridges before crossing the Calder on the Doncaster Road bridge, passing the Hepworth and the Waterfront developments, to continue along the A638 through the terraces of Belle Vue, a district best known as the home of Wakefield Trinity Wildcats, the Rugby League team so good they nick-named them twice. Pass under the Wakey - Ponte line, and across the old course of the Barnsley Canal, to finding our path into the relatively unknown, joining the A655 as it rises over Heath Common, the extensive patch of wild ground that has endured so close to the city, offering some good views back as it rises, before breaking off by the pub and farmsteads at the top of Hell Lane (really), and along stretch of road walking follows. The immediate point of interest is the bridge over the North Midland mainline, the section completely withdrawn from use in the 1980a and over grown with trees in less than 30 years, and the continuing lane does not live up to its name either, giving us cool and shady sections to enjoy with minimal interruptions from traffic as it rises to the fields outside New Sharlston, once home to Sharlston Main colliery, only recently wiped from the map, and now home to a group of terrace just a bit too far removed from Sharlston common, with half a winding wheel displayed by the roadside to illustrate the passage of heavy industry from this landscape.

Sharlston Common lies a half mile away, down Cow Lane, with the Wakey -Ponte line being crossed as we go, and here's another extensive village that still seems to be coming to terms with the loss of the coal industry, but it's looking good on a day like this, with the local sports club busy, and there's actual common land here too, wildly overgrown at the eastern edge, somehow having survived during 100 years of mining. The track south leads over the green to the corner of the village that clearly predated the colliery, where Sharlston Hall is an entertainingly ancient half-timbered farmhouse, and onward we go, south on Lidget Lane, a rough form track which attracts cyclists and offers views over to the Nostell Priory estate to the east, as well as many, many haystacks, and sight of the Yorkshire Air Ambulance station at Foulby, which isn't something I'd expected to find here. Pass through this hamlet, home of clockmaker John Harrison, over the A638 again and do my best to find the cycleway across the site of the Nostell Opencast colliery, a task made difficult by still using a completely out of date E278, and the fact that dense tree growth over the site gives little indication of the correct path, rendering the sun as the most useful navigation tool. Thankfully a good study of Google maps before I set out means I pick the right tracks, and the one signpost on the site directs me to the way out, past the brickworks and onto Swine Lane. Away from the claypits via the footways, leading to Garmil Head Lane, a steady rise in the direction of Fitzwilliam, providing a bench at its top for a much needed lunch stop, and a look over the hedges offers nothing at all in the landscape to latch onto, indeed this might be the most anonymous corner of the whole county. The lane leads over the very edge of Fitzwilliam, as I watch the trains come and go on the Wakey - Donny Line, but I slip away from the village as quickly as I arrived heading up Second Avenue to find the field walk, whilst one of the locals of the council estates recognises me as the man he saw walking whilst he was out motor-biking near Wakefield in the morning, it makes me feel so infamous! Follow the track and field boundary down to a beck crossing and the up through the fields of wheat, getting good views of the old Hemsworth Colliery site as I go, to meet the A638 Doncaster Road for the last time, my faintly crazy route bringing me to Brackenhill, one of the many villages that account for the larger settlement of Ackworth, but before I've had much chance to get acquainted with it or to get too close to Moor Top, the main body of the settlement, Dicky Sykes lane takes me away again.

The lane proceeds to the perimeter of the colliery site, not all that near Hemsworth, actually, and a future trip will surely have me exploring the country park, but the track becomes Rose Lane as it tracks between the poultry farms which are perhaps the most famous association which anybody has with nearby Hemsworth. I can't imagine living the houses which tend them could be a lot of fun, and a prevailing wind in the wrong direction does indeed fill the air with the smell of bird poo, and having had that experience it's time to strike on to Hemsworth itself, passing under the railway on a well concealed footpath, and skirting the edge of the local water park before hitting the path through a field of stubble before arriving among the bungalows on Springvale Rise. For a sizeable settlement it's one I have no impression of at all, and even traversing through the town along the length of Wakefield Road and Kirkby Road, I take only the mildest of reactions away with me, guessing it must be a colliery town grown around a smaller village, maybe I was distracted by the wedding party gathered at St Helen's church or spotting the trio of pubs at the town's crossroads. Anyway, after far too many miles, we finally get to a bit of railway walking, arriving by the Wakefield Way route once again to confirm that Bridge House was indeed once Hemsworth station on the Hull & Barnsley railway, as platform levels can be seen at the bottom of the cutting, but the ongoing line is obliterated by the A628, and my path leads me on above the cutting containing the A6201. As this road has arrived since my map was printed so finding the correct path into the site of South Kirkby colliery proves challenging, and I choose poorly, but find a space between two of the recently developed units of the new Business Park to pass across rough scrubland to meet the perimeter track which follows the railway down as far as the sculpted spoil tip, and my path slips under the bridge to the rougher ground between it and the 'Dearne Valley' line, and finding the path under that features a wrong turn and some very sticky going as E278 proves itself useless once again. I'm only going this way to walk the South Elmsall North Curve, one of the pair of linking chords that passed out of use in 1928, whilst its southern companion continues to endure, and this leads to Minsthorpe Lane and to the playing fields beyond, odd that such a useful link has never been revived. Building work forces me onto a detour the long way round to get to the residential street Northcroft and an annoyingly roundabout last half mile to get to High Street, and the final footfalls down to South Elmsall station, all done before 3.30pm, and that six hour burn felt pretty good, but I'm pretty sure that the pair of painful insect bites on my left hand are sure to make next week's work somewhat testing.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 1852 miles
2015 Cumulative Total: 449.8 miles
Up Country Total: 1692.3 miles
Solo Total: 1640 miles

Westgate, Wakefield. Has any town's main street been as ill served as this one,
aside from the ones demolished by misguided town planners? Like Kirkgate?