Our preceding Friday evening was spent drinking after work, to celebrate the imminent retirement of an absolute stalwart of the LTH MRL department, manager LT, which was my first works occasion out since Christmas 2019, and my forst episode of getting boozed up before aiming myself at a walking weekend in possibly a decade, so it'll be immediately interesting to see how my aged self gets on with exercising off my hangover, as the August Bank Holiday can't lose its allocated day, as my Mum is coming to visit for the remainder, and we've got a Late Season slate to get started, tying together all these lose ends across South Yorkshire that we've been dropping since May. So we start in the east, with a whole bunch of routes plotted to the west, starting our first at Adwick at 8.55am, in an already much warmer and brighter climate than I was anticipating, rising from the station to the B1220 and immediately splitting from it as Church Lane enters the village of Adwick le Street, taking us around the parish church of St Laurence, and then on a bit of a circuit along Village Street and Fern Bank, past the Forester's Arms and the Methodist chapel to get us onto our clear trajectory along Tenter Balk Lane, out of the old village and into the suburbia of greater Doncaster beyond. Past the village park and Northridge Community School, we come up to the A638 Great North Road, where the dual carriageway is negotiated to take Ridge Balk Lane as it passes between the two vintage halves of the woodlands estates, the older and more aesthetically interesting one sitting to the south, as we already knew as the Roman Ridge road crosses beyond it, passing over our Doncaster route and starting the inflation of the field of walking experience before we carry on beyond the burgeoning suburbia at Skylarks Grange, and on along Long Lands Lane between the Red House depots and the Brodsworth Community Woodlands, before we meet the Markham Grange nurseries complex and our proper entry into the countryside across the A1(M). Red House Lane angles across the infilled cutting of the H&BR South Yorkshire Junction branch, and among the fields of the poorly named Green Hills, heading in towards Pickburn and Brodsworth, and its parklands, but before we get there we're shifting off onto the bridleway that has a concrete cast of a trig pillar abandoned at its entrance, before it aims uphill into the fields mown and dry below and beyond Chapel Plantation, and onto a rising track that places us south of the Hampole windfarm, and gradually rises to elevate All Saints church's spire and the Brodsworth Colliery tip onto the local horizon, and sneaks that of the downstream Don beyond it.
Monday, 29 August 2022
Adwick to Barnsley 27/08/22
Sunday, 21 August 2022
Hemsworth to Bretton Park 20/08/22
The last two rounds of train strikes thankfully didn't effect our walking plans as Northern Trains weren't involved on either of them, leaving us to come and go as we had intended but for this day we have a general stoppage which means we are going to have to delay our planned late season residency in South Yorkshire and instead pull something off the end of season list instead, feeling fortunate that we do have full bus services available across Wakefield district thanks to the end of the beef at Arriva, ensuring that we can take a couple of rides south on the #427 and #496 to give us than chance to go for a Summer afternoon walk in the park in the late stretch of the day's passage. It's to Hemsworth we ride, to alight at the bus stand that could be easily mistaken for part of the Tesco superstore at 9.10am, just a few steps away from the library and the tangle of the roads in the middle of town at Cross Hill, where we pick the fifth and final of them for our westbound path, joining the Barnsley Road as it pushes out via the urban borough of West End, with its pair of Working Men's clubs giving the sort you'd anticipate as we pass the midway point on the old turnpike between Pontefract and Barnsley, and depart the suburban ribbon of the town as we elevate out past the Vissitt Cottage bar and hotel. The fields around Vissitt Manor give us the looks east towrds the fall toward the Don, but we are upper Dearne bound from here on in as we join Robin Lane, passing the suburban ribbon as we have the Enley Moor masts landing on our horizon, following west to meet the Holgate Almshouses, which are a fine bit of late Gothickery that you really can't get a good angle on from the road, which gives better sight toward distant Barnsley as we progress, shadowing the fall of Frickley Beck and the H&BR mainline beyond Brierly tunnel as we are drawn into the village enclave above Hiendley Common, distinct with its estate house and terraces from its near neighbour to the north, but apparently unnamed.
Sunday, 14 August 2022
Pontefract to Doncaster 13/08/22
If there were ever a day that needed an 8am start it was this one, as Saturday has us settling into the fifth day of the mid-August heatwave, but such options aren't available to get us to the start line before the day's heat has started to kick in, as there's no early services to be had via Castleford thanks to engineering works (rather than strikes that Northern aren't being affected by), and bus services are no alternative when the need is to get going in a hurry, and thus the first ride to take us directly out to Tanshelf is two hours later than I'd have liked, returning us to Pontefract's other station nearly six months after I laid it down as one of this season's jump off points. Alight at 10.05 am, dressed in the summer get-up of light shirt and floppy hat, carrying much more liquid than food, and hoping that the day's trek, to the 12th and final new destination for the year will prove as unchallenging as I'd project as we rise to the side of the A639 Park, which will be our companion for a while as it leads us south past the western edge of Pontefract Town centre, uphill past the former Queen Hotel, and the Haribo factory, which looms large over its store at the end of Cornmarket and following Jubilee Way as it crests over the town's hilltop to descend down by the end of Ropergate and the Central Methodist church before we get into a tangle with the A645 Southgate, at the west end of Friar Wood gardens. Away from the Wakefield Road, we rise with Mill Hill, passing through a shaded groove in the landscape, concealing what appears to be caves in the rock faces amidst the landscape of villas as we pass south ito the suburban reach of the town beyond the Carleton Road crossing, and keeping on as we meet the division of the A628 Barnsley Road, hanging left as we meet the wide boulevard of the Hardwick Road as it pushes out of town, along the supposed alignment of the Roman Ermine Street, passing under the upper half of the Swinton & Knottingley railway line and into the fields beyond, into the Little Went Valley. The footway keeps us secure along the straight and quiet passage of the A639 as it passes among the fields, across the fall f the streams as we pass Haverlands farm, looking east to the rise of Went Hill and heading up the modest rise among the parched and recently harvested wheat fields in the full glare of the sun as we head along towards East Hardwick, the sole village of note along this stretch of the lane, which is probably why the traffic is so light, coming up the rise to pass the cottages and pump at the west end of Darrington Road, before we lose our pavement and have to brave the metalled road surface beyond, across the east end of Ackworth's Station Road and over the Wakefield Way route.
Sunday, 7 August 2022
Knottingley to Bentley 06/08/22
After returning to work for a week of cross-site activity between the hospitals, and suffering a horrible bout with an upset stomach along the way, we return to the trail come the weekend, hopeful that we have better luck with the trains and weather than we had last weekend, and that a rapid turn on the ground might be had after a month of dawdling, and despite there being half the number of services passing through Morley today, the extended trip to the northeastern corner of the 2022 walking field can let us have a half-hour turn-around at Castleford to see how the station's redevelopment works are progressing. Thence we can alight at Knottingley after 9.30am, as we set a course to the south and east, rising to the Station Hotel and the A645 to remind ourselves that there's a lot more to this town than is recalled, with most of it lying to the east of the station, as we work a way with Headlands Road and Spawd Bone Lane around two sides of the railway triangle with the former motive power depot in its middle, also passing below the chimneys of the Ardagh glass works and noting the adjacent Reiki practitioner and Guns & Pawn store as being the strangest of neighbours before making our fifth railway transit via the England Lane level crossing. This returns us to the Weeland Road by the Stoelze Flacconage glass works and the CT Transport depot before we start our southbound turn by joining the Womersley Road, taking us over the Askern branch again by the Winston inn, for our sixth passage of the local railway lines before heading on out past the town cemetery with its obvious pair of mortuary chapels, and through the suburban enclave that grew on the quarried pits that must have brought the glass industry to the area, where one aggregate supplier still operates, ahead of the turn by Park Balk farm, where we shift into the countryside. We are initially shadowing the southerly track of the railway, and then the eastwards push of the M62 as we pace among the fields and find ourselves on the low bluff of King's Standard Hill, revealing the vast flatlands between the lower Aire and Don in the east, tracing the any pylons across the fields towards Drax Power Station, while noting that the last remains of Eggborough have now vanished completely, demolished two weeks ago, with the massive spoil tip, or landfill, on Gale Common rising unnaturally ahead as we come around to pass over the motorway.
Sunday, 31 July 2022
Fitzwilliam to Adwick 30/07/22
My July NIW week does not feature any walking, despite being Down Country with a plan in my pocket, as getting on with some deferred housework and clearout tasks at My Mum's house demand the attention while we have all the members of the extended family visiting, having scheduled my trip in the same window as My Sister and her family's and thusly some necessary garden work and DIY can get blasted through while many hands, both young and old, are available to take them on, and thus not really providing a period for relaxation before we get back into the walking and the second phase of my Summer plans, which should lead us deeper into the southeast of the old West Riding. A fine plan which comes up against the problem of the weather turning unexpectedly inclement, resulting in choosing a later start out from home, and the local trains running late and failing to make an important connection for the only available service to my start line (which incidentally has nothing to do with the strikes in force today as Northern are thankfully maintaining a full slate), and that's why we aren't arriving at Fitzwilliam until almost 10.45am, behind the worst of the morning drizzle, but already feeling mildly dispirited as gloom and chill fill the air ahead of the anticipation of a late finish that's well have to take regardless of how well the day goes, with a time window demanding either a hurry-up to make it for the earlier ride or a dawdle in order to catch the later one. It's going to be a slow day, which we can feel as we push away, to the northeast along Wentworth Terrace, beyond the industrial terraces and the Pit Club on the north side of the village, shadowing the boundary of the old Fitzwilliam Hemsworth colliery and the reclaimed fields of the country park, passing the local industrial estate before it becomes a rough track to pass along the undulating fields boundaries, gradually turning eastwards working its way around to meet Dicky Sykes Lane and the run uphill past the recreation ground and terrace ends to land us on the A638 Wakefield Road in Brackenhill, the western part of greater Ackworth, across the way from the Electric Theatre cafe and cinema (?).
Monday, 25 July 2022
South Elmsall to Conisbrough 23/07/22
As Saturday rolls up, the heatwave conditions already seem like a distant memory as the 39C peak experienced in Leeds on Tuesday (on Britain's hottest day on record), has since seen a welcome regression to the mean as temperatures dropped by 20C to get us back into a much more manageable walking climate, so we can thankfully progress without having a repeat of the Summer of 2018, and instead experience something like the same week of last year, where mid-July spiked hot before slumping into a really rather mediocre second half, as low cloud and chilly rain washed all the way across the Summer holidays. We have a nicely large time window for the plans for today, with a good cluster of points of interest at the end of the trip, really not all that far away in the Don Valley as we alight at South Elmsall a little after 8.50am, finding the day a little brighter than projected as we rise to High Street and drop down to the junction by the bus stand and the end of the main shopping street, hanging a left onto the B6422 and following the Doncaster Road as it leads off to the southeast, passing St Mary's church and out through the surprisingly narrow suburban band at Common End, soon landing in the shadow of Frickley Colliery park as we enter the countryside, not that we get much sight of its spoil tip's heights as it hides behind a bank of trees. Passing over Frickley Beck takes us out of West Yorkshire after less than a mile, entering Doncaster borough and losing the footway as Elmsall Lane moves on to pass through the embankment of the H&BR Wath branch, where we cross the Wakefield Way route and note the house of Moorhouse & South station, before the road starts its rise across Moorhouse Common, where more cyclists seem to be out than drivers as it presses uphill, revealing the local reverse horizon, with the Next depot and quarry marking its eastern edge as we push up past the woodlands of the Ashes and take a turn with the lane across the hill crest to show up the western horizon.This would guide the eye towards the distant Dearne Valley views, if it wasn't for the haze, and instead we have to look down towards the landscape of Frickley Park, which occasionally reveals itself beyond the thick hedges and wheat fields, mostly being obscured by Hooton Pagnell wood before the Hall is revealed briefly, as we land in Hooton Pagnell village, perched on the edge of this minor upland and bringing the picturesqueness along with the views, still maintaining its vintage rural flavour and some of those hints of a Cotswolds style as the cottages and farmsteads hang on around the market cross and All Saints church on its bluff, which are passed as we come below Hooton Hall, with its imposing gatehouse and high walls.
Sunday, 17 July 2022
Moorthorpe to Mexborough 16/07/22
For the third time this year, we're due another burst of heatwave conditions, and once again, they're not due to coincide with the weekend, which is just as well as we could be looking at a temperature spike in the vicinity of 38C at the start of next week, which is far beyond anything I can recall having experienced in this country (or indeed ever, as 35C in Heidelburg, Germany in 1990 is still the startling peak that I remember), and as 30+C over the summer of 2018 proved to be challenging for the seasonal walking experience, contentment can be found that we might still be able to dress normally and not be too anxious when Saturday projects a mere 25C maximum. So no early start is needed as we travel south again, getting ever closer to the established borders of our walking field for our jump off, alighting at Moorthorpe at 9.25am and admiring the under-employed station buildings and negotiating the footbridges to get to the B6422 Barnsley Road, where we strike east towards South Elmsall, passing the cemetery, St Joseph's church and the Kung Fu school, before we strike south between the terraces of Wesley Street, and then elevate ourselves up the side of the playing fields beyond Langthwaite Lane, to meet Westfield Lane by the bowling greens and the Frickley Colliery Welfare cricket club. Tracking south through this elevated urban extension of the three towns mash up, we pass the Junction Inn and follow the lane to its end, where new urban growth has filled up all the vacnat plots north of the Frickley Colliery Country park, where we enter via its original road entrance, tracing the rough track through where the pit head once stood, now utterly obscured by long grass, and our wandering detour to elongate the route starts as we join the long straight and hard path that reaches uphill to the northeast, describing the coal seams as they pass below us, if I'm interpreting them correctly. It's a good space for the locals to exercise as we are led up to the summit of the park, at the top of the old spoil tip, now identifiable with the seven grassy mounds atop it, which we'll pass around with the track as we look over Frickley Athletic FC's ground and over the South Elmsall and Upton villages, with water tower and mast beyond, as we ll as looking to the eastern horizon that we don't know as we come around to the south side, presenting the south-eastern horizon that's we've grown to know over the last month, before we head downhill on the rough, steep track to seek the way out south bound, beyond the wild ponds and the switching-back path.