Wakefield to Barnsley 22/04/19

10.4 miles, via Fall Ings, Belle Vue, Sandal, Milnthorpe, Pledwick, Hill Top, Newmillardam, 

 Seckar Wood, Woolley Park, Notton Park, Staincross, Mapplewell, Athersley & New Lodge,
  and Smithies. 

Easter Monday comes around and it's still sunny, which feels unprecedented for this particular break, but we won't be continuing on the Long Walk to Leicester as the walk from the Don to the Derwent over the Dark Peak might prove too long when I have to go to work on Monday, and thus we have to look elsewhere for a shorter stretch, and establishing an eastern boundary to this year's field of experience feels like an idea, continuing the southwards trend and attaching Barnsley to our walking territory once again. So start early, so as much afternoon as possible might be usable after our stretch, alighting at Wakefield Kirkgate station amongst as much train action as I've ever seen happening there, not getting off the platforms until almost 9am because of the ungodly length of the subway tunnels, and landing myself on the southern end of the town while it feels like the locals haven't gotten out of bed yet, and immediately set a path south wandering down to the side of the A61 by the Grey Horse inn and embark on my route that ought to be my very last encounter with this town for 2019. This is my eighth trip in the vicinity of Wakefield for 2019, which is an awful lot when we aren't even three months into the season, and you'd think we'd have run out of things to see around here by now, but that's not the case as one trajectory is plainly missing, though we'll have to pass some familiar sites before we get to it, as we pass the Aire & Calder Navigation's former wharf, head over the Calder via the Chantry bridge and look over to the Hepworth and the gradually redeveloping Rutland mills sight as we untangle ourselves from the junction with Doncaster Road. Meet Bridge Street by the Ruddy Duck and pass over the initial cut of the Calder & Hebble Navigation at Fall Ings, where the residential landscape has changed much since 2012, and then continue on with the A61 on my fresh course, taking us into the district of Belle Vue as we pass the Arriva bus depot and the Baptist Church, before joining the long sweep of terraces as the A61 becomes Barnsley Road, and get the feeling that this area has a feel of both its neighbours as large townhouses and lesser terraces mingle rather randomly. That doesn't stop some of the parades being very pretty in a late 19th century desirability way, the one before the railway bridge being particularly nice, and we'll enjoy the sight on sound of a cross-country bound HST passing over as we look back over Sandal's cricket field and carry on, skirting the edge of Castle Grove park, and pass over the route to the local railway station at Agbrigg Road, which finally links Sandal with the city above, and then we can aim a course deep into Wakefield's suburbia, which stretches on for another hour ahead of us.

Train Action at Wakefield Kirkgate.

Chantry Bridge, Wakefield.

Belle Vue Bus Depot.

The old Sandal village lies beyond the RC school and the old well and pump, with a rustic pile of houses on the west side of the road, though the view up to St Helen's church is largely obscured by an oddly located Range Rover dealership, with the sweep of the road continuing on past the potentially old Sandal Hall, and on past the Castle Inn, cresting the high ridge that the castle and its suburban associations sit upon as we pass the regular school and meet an old friend in the Three Houses inn on the Chevet lane corner. The high villas and townhouses pass from the landscape and we shift downhill through Milnthrorpe, as things get a whole lot more regularly suburban, noting the few rural remains hiding amongst it as we meet the Walnut Tree and our last previously traced path from this year, avoiding the turn on to Standbridge Lane and instead keep on with the A61 as it rises towards distant Barnsley, where the suburbs are all bungalows or painted bright white to stand out boldly as the leafiness arrives at the roadside, where long old walls are suggestive of us pacing an estate perimeter, though none appears on the maps of any vintage. We can only assume that Woolgreaves house must have been one of some status before it was lost, as it did have a stables block which we pass at the roadside, and we carry on past the back of the playing fields behind Kettlethorpe High School, before we emerge from the tree cover on the edge of suburban Pledwick, where the Harrison's Almshouses sit by the road, always distinctive in styling regardless of location, opposite the Pledwick Well inn, that's just about to emerge from a makeover into a gastropub. Past the next cricket field, signage welcomes us into Newmillardam, but the pile of cottages and that we meet ahead of the Dam Inn and the reservoir calls itself Hill Top, as if every fragment of suburban Wakefield needs a distinct identity, and we are late enough in the day now for the Bank Holiday foot traffic to now be out and about to enjoy this town's best country park, where we'll pause by the shore and the War memorial to water and enjoy the sights of the birdlife on the water's surface.

Rural and Urban Sandal.

Suburban Milnthorpe.

Harrison's Almshouses, Pledwick.

Newmillardam.

Passage over the dam stitches us to the Wakefield Way path, taking us past the run-off channel and the Italian restaurant in the waterworks building, before carrying on along the road as it rises on the west bank past the Fox & Hounds inn, the Wesleyan chapel and the local Scouts branch, landing us among some very nice country cottages as we rise on past the former Primitive Methodists chapel and the edge of Wakefield's suburbia by the Best Western Hotel St Pierre, with wide open fields, above the woods of the country park, beyond. There's only a sole poultry farm out here, on the shallow east side of the Woolley Edge ridge, and it makes you feel surprised that Wakefield hasn't continued to spread out in this direction, like it has in literally all the others, and you start to feel that maybe the proximity of the Newmillardam park has prevented it, and so the mind settles into a greener landscape as we come upon the path of the MR's Royston to Thornhill line, which we've walked as it passes under Barnsley Road and I won't call 'ill-conceived' on this occasion. Countryside feeling are lost, despite the greenery, as we meet the edge of Seckar Wood, as an executive development has grown on the former works site opposite, bringing suburbia that bit further beyond the edge of Greater Wakefield, and despite the size and expense of the new houses, they're not even a distinctive design or a nice colour, so attention focusses to the burgeoning carpet of bluebells among the trees to the west, which relaxes the brain some before meeting more suburban outliers and another industrial depot site at the woodlands edge. The greenery resumes beyond though, with the A61 undulating its way over the fields below banks of trees and substantial walls as it draws on towards the perimeter of Woolley Park, once the estate of the hall to the village that we cannot see from here, but these days it's mostly a golf course, which we can peer into briefly before we come upon the old gates at the eastern edge of the park, unused in many a year judging by how thoroughly overgrown they are.

Greater Wakefield's Urban - Rural fringe.

Open fields and Poultry farm, below Woolley Edge.

Seckar Wood.

The old gates to Woolley Park.

It does feel odd that there isn't a settlement of any kind on this turnpike between these two towns, and the closest we get is as we pass over the New Road - George Lane crossroads between Woolley and Notton, neither of which we can see from here as we pass between Brickyard Plantation and Ridings Wood and again get the bluebell carpet in full effect, before we get the bright yellow of rapeseed in the fields beyond, still below the rise of Woolley Edge and running upon the Wakefield Way path again. Get a glimpse of Notton village across the fields before we meet the Warren Lane corner, and actually pass outside of my experience field, which has a very wonky border in these parts, also meeting the edge of West Yorkshire as we prepare to join Barnsley borough, clinging to the boundary for a while as we pass alongside a golf course that you'd swear was attached to the nearby Notton Park, but is actually just the Barnsley Municipal club, spread below the suburban edge of Staincross, which sits upon the southernmost end of the Woolley Edge ridge, still on the Calder catchment side as we pause again to water and look back to the high points of Wakefield, only 7 miles distant, and over the less familiar horizon of South Yorkshire. Thankfully, I can spot out Royston, Cudworth and Monk Bretton from here on the suburban fringe, where some houses have installed prominent staring windows to enjoy the eastern view, and only as we move on do we crest the ridge between the Calder and the Dearne to get a westward reveal beyond some scrubby fields that have never been built on, to show us the distant and still unfamiliar horizon of the Cawthorne Dike branch. Things start to get a bit more urban as we run down into the Dearne valley as we graze the edge of the Mapplewell estate and come upon the Eastfield Arms on the Bar Lane corner, right opposite the former station house of Staincross station on the former Barnsley Coal Railway, which passes under the A61 on a better path than the one that brought us this way last in 2015, as we progress towards the town along Wakefield Road as it passes between the Athersley and New Lodge estates.

Barnsley Golf Course, and the suburban fringe.

The view back from Staincross.

Staincross Station House.

Between the Athersley and New Lodge estates.

We're still quite a way out of town, which hides beyond the long rows of council houses, brick semis and apparently concrete prefabs that line the lane, though a view does finally come on as we pass the local WMC and the retail yard with many garden sheds, with the town centre sitting high on the southern side of the Dearne, beyond that green space that always surprises with its proximity to this former coal town. The descent to the river is a long one, past the Stagecoach depot for a bit of symmetry on the day, and through the district of Smithies, which seems to be industrial and commercial, as well as terraced and suburban, in almost equal measure, drawing us down to what I spot as a former railway yard, on the old BCR lines again, just above the valley floor, where the River Dearne is crossed, ahead of the uphill climb past ASDA and B&M on the canal wharf traffic island. The way to town is up Old Mill Lane, among the stone terraces on a steep pitch that is unwelcome at this stage of the day, taking us under the lines from Wakefield and Penistone as they converge north of the railway station, as well as under the abutment and  embankments that lead to the GCR's lost Court House station, all in the shadow of the telephone exchange and Barnsley College, which utterly dominates the landscape above some of the town's more distinctive terraces. Push into the town centre along Church Street, which take us past the Parish church of St Mary, as well as the Oaks Colliery disaster memorial (commemorating the 361 men and boys killed by a sequence of underground explosions on 12th-13th December 1866) and the statute of noted cricket umpire and professional Yorkshireman Harold 'Dickie' Bird. So on, past the University campus and the Town Hall, a Portland stone pile after the fashion of the Leeds Uni Parkinson building, which was famously loathed for its extravagance by George Orwell, and then on down through the town, where the revellers are not yet out in force in their day off, and the shoppers seem thin on the ground in ways not recently seen on urban bank holidays. We only have a few more steps to make as Eldon and Kendray streets lead us past the redeveloping market site and the bus interchange, before we cross over the railway via a temporary footbridge, rather than via the capricious level crossing to head up Schwabisch Gmund Way and close the day at Barnsley station on the nose of 1pm, with the eastern border for 2019 finally established and a jump off point for later in the season primed, ready for the surprisingly short ride homewards and feeling thrilled at my progress through the brightest and best Easter Weekend of my walking career so far.

The many faces of Smithies.

The River Dearne, Barnsley.

The current and missing Railway bridges, Old Mill Lane

St Mary's Parish Church, Barnsley.

Barnsley Town Hall.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 3787.5 miles
2019 Total: 137.1 miles
Up Country Total: 3394.4 miles
Solo Total: 3501.2 miles
Miles in My 40s: 2381.3 miles

Next Up: Visiting My Sister without a Plan!