Hemsworth to Bretton Park 20/08/22

15.2 miles, via West End, Vissitt, Holgate Almshouses, Hiendley Common, South Hiendley, 

 Felkirk, Hodroyd Colliery, Ellis Laithe, Old Royston, Notton, Brickyard Plantation, 

  Woolley, High Moor, Beacon Hill, Woolley Edge Services, Town End, West Bretton, 

   and the Yorkshire Sculpture Park.

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.

Hemsworth Bus Stand, and Tesco.

Midway on the Pontefract & Barnsley turnpike.

Holgate Almshouses.

Hiendley Common? Greater South Hiendley.

Maybe South Hiendley has a greater reach than we thought, having absorbed both its nearby hamlets over the course of the last century, with its common land remaining wild at the very least, which we meet in brighter conditions than when we last passed this way, dropping down to the pond and then rising past the old village chapel and the prominently located Sun inn before we take a turn onto Kirkgate Lane and pass out of the suburban growths to pass around the fields of Hodroyd Hall, one of the most impressive piles in this quarter, just downwind of Felkirk school. Passing over the old Dearne Valley railway line, we then meet Felkirk church, St Andrew's, in considerable isolation from its villages and kept company by its vicarage, where we let Church Lane guide us over to the junction that places us north of Rabbit Ings park and the remains of Monckton Main colliery, where another recent route is walked against, northwesterly among the tramways and pit heads of the lost Hodroyd colliery complex, and over the B6428 by the Westmead kennels and on among the fields below Ryhill and Havercroft to the Ten Lands Lane corner. New footfalls are made as we turn east, where the sightline offers a view of our path to come over Woolley Edge, before taking us past the farm hamlet at Ellis Laithe, more prominently marked on maps than its size deserves, with the utterly obliterated passage of the Barnsley Coal Railway and the extant path of the Ryhill Main colliery tramway crossing our lane, where a couuple of prior paths tangled up, before we turn left onto Navvy Lane to take us along a familiar route to Old Royston, the barely present hamlet of cottages between the Barnsley Canal and the North Midland mainline.

The Sun inn, South Hiendley.

Hodroyd Hall.

St Andrew's Felkirk.

The Hodroyd Colliery tramway.

Ellis Laithe.

Old Royston.

Shadowing the BCR embankment as it presses southwesterly, we're keeping just outside of South Yorkshire as we progress around the fileds below Notton Grange, gradually becoming visible beyond one of the very few cut hedges that we have encountered on our travels, looking forwards to the hill traversal to come, which we hadn't planned for when we were originally plotting, as we drop down to the passage over the B6132, by the part of Notton that seems clser to being part of Royston, south of the border, and keeping on whith its lane as it dives downhill to the village proper, half a mile or so away, where a villa culture has claimed the hillsdie above the Calder-bound Gill Beck. Bottom out over Gill Bridge and come around to meet Notton village green, in the middle of its suburban triangle, where we'll pause for our early lunch break, upon possibly the same bench that we used when the Wakefield Way brought us here in 2015, and we should know by now every village deserves at least two visits, with its extent being revealed in both suburban and vintage forms as we pace on along George Lane, rising past the Manor House farmstead and on to the farm cluster beyond, wondering how the woodlands of Notton Park hide from view while the local streams fall away from them. The views emerge as we carry on, looking beyond the high hedges when we can, south to the aforementioned, and north to the reach of Woolley Park, which place us in proximity to the A61, the Wakefield & Barnsley turnpike that has to be crossed in the shade of the trees of Brickyard Plantation to start the long rise to the Woolley Edge summit with New Road as we pass below the parklands, getting no site of the house and barely a hint of the golf course as their gates are passed, with ominous looking cloud blowing in from the east as if relative proximity to the Pennines guarantees the turns of the weather, as we pass around the Home Farm complex to tangle with the Wakefield Way route and meet the village.

Woolley Egde on the horizon, from Notton Lane.

The dive of Notton Lane to Gill Bridge.

Notton Village Green.

Farmsteads on George Lane.

Crossing the A61 at Brickyard Plantation.

Home Farm, Woolley Hall.

Past the prominent Mount Farm house on the corner, we seek the path that leads directly to the churchyard, once the promenade route from the Hall I'd fancy, taking the grass track behind the back gardens and under the cattle-pruned trees, just as the brief burst of rain starts to fall, and we're taking shelter under the yews in the yard of St Peter's until it's passed before we move on to the last phase of the ridge traversal, up Church Street to the memorial garden and left up Molly Hurst Lane, which rapidly loses suburban status and becomes a rough bridleway, before leading to a field boundary path. The altitude gained is revealed as we press uphill, looking back to an horizon that reaches from East Leeds to Wakefield and the Five Towns, across the Upton Beacon and Walton Wood upland and thence down into South Yorkshire with its scattering of wind turbines, a panorama that I've touched most of across the year, with only Drax Power station standing beyond it, all to be admired as the sunshine returns, passing among the fields of High Moor, below High House farm and across to Intake Lane, where we pass into the equestrian fields and conifer plots of the Woolley Edge Christmas tree farm. Thus Beacon Hill it almost topped, its 178m trig pillar standing just off our route as we drop down through the wooded apron on its western face, revealing the upper Dearne valley ahead of us for what will probably be our only visit for the year, passing over the high crossroads and ploughing downhill with Bramley Lane to pass between Bimshaw and Savin Royd Woods, which obscure the mass and proximity of the hillside behind us as we come down past Woolley Bank farm and pass over the M1 by the access roads to Woolley Edge services, a name that resonates culturally farm more than the hillside above it.

Cattle-pruned trees around St Peter's Woolley.

Molly Hurst Lane.

The Southeastern Horizon from Woolley High Moor.

Equestrian fields on Beacon Hill.

The Upper Dearne Valley, from Bramley Lane.

Woolley Edge Services.

There are also railway tunnels under our feet as our southwards perspective looks down the Dearne Valley to Barnsley, as the motorway pushes over its watershed to towards the Calder and Wakefield in the north, while the northwestern look shows up Ossett and Gawthorpe on the nearby horizon, with Woolley Edge revealing its mass behind us as our destination sits just beyond our visual reach, with a significant gap in the paths getting covered as we tangle more with 2019's paths again by meeting Bretton Lane and follow it southwest towards the farmsteads at Town End, just to the east of West Bretton village. Sycamore Lane leads us south, among a variety of farmsteads and suburbia on the way down to the A637 Huddersfield Road, which is crossed over by Bretton Lodge house and the ornately carved War Memorial, with Park Lane being joined to take us past the village cricket fields, and the well, before we slip through between the Home and Park farms, tracing the boundary wall of Bretton Park as the Emley Moor mast rise again at much closer proximity than before, to meet the gates to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park by the Avenue Lodge, where the gates seem firmly shut and security have to direct me in, and also make sure that I paid before offering admittance. It was free when I previously came this way, but £6 isn't a lot to pay to have free reign of one of the county's best outdoor attractions, and our amble about can take us into the formal gardens, past Jason Wilsher-Mills's 'Jason & His Argonauts in Love', to meet the iconic 'No Borders' by Hilary Jack, and a number of Robert Indianas about the Underground Gallery, including 'AMOR' and 'ONE through ZERO', before we use the facilities at the YSP centre, mostly so we can nab a map, before returning to the promenade up to the Bothy and Garden galleries, where an elevated parkland view to the south comes with late lunch on the staring bench.

Woolley Edge from the end of Bramley Lane.

Town End farmstead, Bretton Lane.

The War Memorial, Park Lane, West Bretton.

Avenue Lodge, Bretton Park.

Jason Wilsher-Mills's 'Jason & His Argonauts in Love'.

'No Borders' by Hilary Jack.

Robert Indiana's 'ONE through ZERO'

Descend away, finding SHARP's 'BEACON (without words I found myself home on our stomping ground)' strung over the path between Robert Indiana's 'LOVE WALL' and Imperial LOVE', beyond which we return to the driveway that leads towards Bretton Hall, taking the path around it as it leads past the complex that has finally had its day a college and is now slated for redevlopment to pass by the Camelia House with its companions Sophie Ryder's 'Sitting' and Kalliopi Lemos's 'Bag of Aspirations', beyond which we wander down through the open parkland of Lower Park towards Anthony Caro's 'Promenade', and pass below Bretton Hall itself, which will probably enjoy a future as an hotel. Meet the path that takes us over the channel of the river Dearne, and down to the boathouse on the chore of the Lower Lake, starting a clockwise circuit by pressing east past Jørgen Haugen Sørensen's 'Supplement til Titlens Afskaffelse' and Gavin Turk's 'Oeuvre (Verdigris)' on the most accessible of paths to meet the birch trees and blackened stumps of David Nash's '49 Square' and 'Black Mound', before we take the path over the embankment and Dam Head bridge to the south side, where the folly of Lady Eglinton's Well and Alfredo Jaar's 'The Garden of Good & Evil' can be found in Oxley Bank Wood. The path through Menagerie Wood drifts away from the lake shore and offers no sculpture, though we do meet Highland Cattle amiably grazing among the trees, before we meet the public bridleway, with Bruce Beasley's 'Advocate IV' and Thomas J Price's 'Network' to be found on the South Yorkshire side of Cascade Bridge, and Heather Peak and Ivan Morison's 'Silence - Alone in a World of Wounds' and Lucy + Jorge Orta's 'Gazing Ball 2018' on the Wakefield shore, where the circuit continues by Mikayel Ohanjanyan's 'Diario', across the way from Jaume Plensa's 'Wilsis', and up to the installation of YARA + DAVINA's 'Arrivals + Departures', where our river walk and reservoir tour ends.

'BEACON (without words I found myself home on our stomping ground)' by SHARP.

Kalliopi Lemos's 'Bag of Aspirations', and the Camelia House.

'Promenade' by Anthony Caro.

Gavin Turk's 'Oeuvre (Verdigris)'. 

'Black Mound' by David Nash

Lady Eglinton's Well.

Highland Cattle in Menagerie Wood.

Heather Peak and Ivan Morison's 'Silence - Alone in a World of Wounds' 

Mikayel Ohanjanyan's 'Diario'.

We next head for the Country Park, rising among the rough grass and the grazing sheep between the notable Henry Moore works 'Reclining Figure: Arch Leg', 'Large Totem', 'Large Two Forms', to meet the Deer Shelter Skyspace, artified by James Durrell, before we pick up the path to St Bartholomew's chapel, where part of Jaume Plensa's 'In small places, close to home' exhibition has been installed, inside and out, and then it's downhill again towards Dam Head again to pass between Andy Goldsworthy's 'Shadow Stone Fold' and Sean Scully's 'Crate of Air' which are probably my favourite pair in the park. At the southeastern corner we have quartet of Damien Hirsts, whose never been my thing, though 'The Virgin Mother' and 'Charity' have a certain monumental quality by the path down to the Weston Gallery, where we hairpin back to get a closer look at 'The Hat Makes the Man' and 'Myth', before we power on back uphill, taking in the extent of Bretton Park, including the Upper Lake and Longside fields that we didn't have time to approach as Henry Moore's Upright Motives #1, #2 & #7' and Robert Indiana's 'LOVE (Red Blue Green)' are passed between on the way back up to the YSP centre, where there's wedding party gathering among the visitors, rather surreally. With the bus ride time still distant, we'll depart Bretton Park on foot, to take us past Henry Moore's 'Three Piece Reclining Figure #1', Ursula von Rydingsvard's 'Heart in Hand' and Jonathan Borovsky's 'Molecule Man 1+1+1', as Archway Lodge House, feeling that there's probably enough of the YSP that remains unseen to warrant a future visit as we land back on the A637 and power our way back to West Bretton, where the day can wrap, beyond the War Memorial corner at 3.50pm, and shade can then be sought for a cool down ahead of the #96 bus arriving.

Henry Moore's  'Reclining Figure: Arch Leg' 

'Deer Shelter Skyspace' by James Durrell.

St Bartholomew's chapel, housing Jaume Plensa's 'In small places, close to home' exhibition.

Sean Scully's 'Crate of Air'

'Charity' by Damien Hirst.

Andy Goldsworthy's 'Shadow Stone Fold'.

Henry Moore's Upright Motives #1, #2 & #7'.

Robert Indiana's 'LOVE (Red Blue Green)'.

Archway Lodge, Bretton Park.

5,000 Miles Cumulative Total: 5753.4 miles
2022 Total: 464.7 miles
Up Country Total: 5,272.7 miles
Solo Total: 5417.8 miles
5,000 in my 40s Total: 4343.2 miles

Next Up: Late Season starts and we take up residence in South Yorkshire for the next month.