The first weekend of October drops us our next long weekend, thanks to extra days of leave purchased from work, falling neatly between my late Summer and end of season breaks, which had been intended to be a few days to relax and stroll a bit, but turned into a four day spell of activity when I found a steam rail tour for the Thursday, the last of the West Coast Railways season, which travelled up the Settle & Carlisle line and neatly dovetailed with the occasion of my Mum's 81st birthday, which allowed me to fulfil a promise that I made the previous year to take her out for a steam train ride for her 80th, so I've got her company for the period, with us taking each other out to celebrate our birthdays. Riding out from Wakefield Westgate, it's not needing a early start despite the descent of Autumn, though our travel window does tighten somewhat thanks to the service running out of York some 45 minutes late, at 10.25am bringing us our rake of vintage BR Mark 1 coaches and topped 'n' tailed diesels that will take us to Leeds for a reversal and then a merry pound up the Aire Valley to gain our steam traction from Hellifield to take us non-stop over the watershed and up the Long Drag of Northern England's premier scenic line, which we haven't seen in far too long, up the Ribble Valley and among the Three Peaks, to Dentdale, over Ais Gill summit and on down the Eden Valley. Somehow, all the time lost early is regained as we reach Carlisle, at 2.15pm, where we can find that it's been the line-appropriate LMS Jubilee 45627 Sierra Leone hauling us (actually 45699 Galatea in disguise, and oddly wearing the number of 45662 Alberta on its cab sides), and there's locomotive manoeuvres to be watched at both ends of the break, which is otherwise only long enough for a stroll from the Citadel to Tullie House museum and back, where we can have brews and cake, and purchase that Hadrian's Wall Path t-shirt that I've been promising myself since failing to find one in 2014. Departing at 4.30pm, with the daylight still strong and the changeable and rather poor weather not really spoiling the trip we re-ride the path homewards, breaking for water and photographs at Appleby before lamenting the lack of audible chuffing from the locomotive and clickety-clacking of the rails as we ascend to Ais Gill again, gradually losing the landscape in the gloom as we come down the Ribble valley and finally finding ourselves in darkness as engines are swapped again at Hellifield, a long break that coincides usefully with teatime, before we run back to homewards in a surprisingly familiar 1980s train fashion, with the jaunt concluding at 9.15pm, a round trip of nearly 11 hours that we both enjoyed immensely, thankfully.
Sunday, 8 October 2023
Morley to Bretton Park 07/10/23
Friday, 8 September 2023
Rumination: Summer Jollies (with Trains, Birds & the Night Skies)
 |
| Esk View cottage might be the best letting we've scored so far! |
Thursday, 7 September 2023
Rosedale Railways #2: Rosedale Circular 06/09/23
Two warm and pleasant days off from the trail are spent, filled with activity before we get back to the business of the walking plan for this round of Summer Jollies, and we did not expect moorland mist to be on our menu in the midst of our warm spell, as it hangs in the air for the full duration of our 23+ mile ride out onto the moorland top, during which Mum demonstrates an amount of fearlessness in her motoring that belies her years as we tool our way up to the crest of Blakey Ridge again, to resume our exploration of the railway and ironworking that took place in the moorland edges of Rosedale, which falls away to the west and south of the road we ride the high road. We alight at 9.45am at Blakey Junction, with a 5 hour trip in our sights as we descend beside the infilled cutting that passed under the ridge road, down to the site of the Little Blakey hamlet that stood by the division of the railway lines around both sides of Rosedale, of which nought but feint foundation remnants remain in the landscape, and we'll head south from here, down the western branch, for reasons that will become apparent as we start our circular tour, with the mist already burning off as we pass through the gate by the end of the long switchback siding, with mist still obscuring views to the east, and the kiln complexes at the end of the eastern branch, which will get much of the day's attention. It's a steady contour-hugging walk to enjoy as we progress south, at about 360m with only the slightest of declines as we trot away on a decent cinder track surface, with sleeper markings still present underfoot as we look over the valley of Rosedale, trying to get some context of the landscape below as move on among the banks of purple heather that illuminate in the sunshine behind us, settling into the shallow cuttings that run atop the edge of the Glead Holes edge, and looking down across the long rib of Middle Ridge, where it looks like a huge piece of the valley side sloughed its way downhill in antiquity, leaving a scarred and wild landscape in its wake, one not caused by human mining or quarrying activity, with our surroundings becoming more steadily apparent as we track south.
Monday, 4 September 2023
Rosedale Railways #1: Battersby to Blakey Junction 03/09/23
Late Summer Jollies arrive, not a moment too soon, and we're off to stay in Ruswarp, a stone's throw up the Esk Valley from Whitby to operate as our base as Mum and I get in a week of relaxation and I can target some walking on the North York Moors, having trailed the coastal railway path and dropped feet on my OL27 plate for the first time in the Spring, it's time to get onto the OL26 map for the first time as the 20 miles of the Rosedale Railways on the remote High Moors, demand my attention as a complete change of scenery from all my day tripping from home, and not least because I've had them on my walking target list for longer than I can immediately recall. They're not especially local to where we're staying of course, and instead of using the Parental Taxi privileges to get to the start line, we'll catch a train up the Esk Valley line instead, starting out relatively late due to the scheduling of the Sunday services, and already in the grip of warm Summer conditions that we haven't seen the like of in two months, having snared a cheap ride for only £3 and travelling along a line I've seen in part before, having ridden the NYMR section to Grosmont in 2016, and as far as Danby back in 1985 in order to visit the National Park centre (Oh Hi, School Trip Memories!) and thence it's a dawdle into the unknown, beyond the head of the valley and into the catchment of the Tees where we can alight at Battersby, that odd junction station where all services have to reverse, in the apparent middle of nowhere. We'll depart here at 11.25am, away from the station complex and the long terraces of railway cottages shadowing the start of the branch line as it split off towards the moors, looming large on the southern horizon, a wholly industrial line constructed by the NER in 1858 to service the distant ironstone mines in Rosedale, creating a significant freight interchange in this landscape where the only immediate remnant to see is the crossing house on Stone Stoup Hill, from whence we have to follow the turns of the local lanes with the trackbed inaccessible through the fields, allowing attention to wander to scoping our surroundings, placing the Captain Cook monument on Easby Moor, and the anvil peak of Roseberry Topping behind us to the north, while a trio of prominent moorland tops rise like knuckles on the edge of the Cleveland Hills to the southwest of us.
Wednesday, 30 August 2023
Morley to Wakefield (Westgate) 28/08/23
If August Bank Holiday Weekend had failed to provide a walkable weekend, we might have rioted, but we are pared the consequences of that, despite the fact of both Saturday and Sunday presenting better weather than forecast, though with a few intense downpours in amongst, while Monday, when we did choose to leave the house gave us gloomier coverage than projected, albeit with no rain, so altogether a mixed bag of a Long Weekend, where the additional days of inactivity at the start felt like a bit of a bonus, having had a rough week at work, delving into the latest project that will certainly wear us out, physically moving half of the hospital libraries files around in order to condense our workspace. I'm recovered enough to go once our mandated extra day off comes along, with four more orphaned destinations in our locality targeted as we arrive at Morley Station at 9.55am, having a fresh-ish route to the south figured out as we rise up the steps from Valley Road to Albert Road and trot out past the old Morley Main colliery site to the merger with Peel Street, in order to find the ginnel that sneaks its way between the houses on Denshaw Drive and Crescent and across to Wide Lane opposite the Gillroyd terrace, before another passage leads us into the site of Gillroyd Mill, and the pavements of Millside Walk and Millbeck Approach can lead us down to Magpie Lane. Rise beyond along Peacock Green into the suburban knot on Burn Knolls where every road has a bird's name, with this lane seeming to set off with purpose before petering out by the playing fields that are home to Morley Town FC, which are crossed to meet Ingleborough Drive, which in turn leads us to the secret passage into the back of the Topcliffe Grove close, itself built on the site of Glen Mills, through which we pass to meet Topcliffe Lane, ending our novel trek in sight of the enduring mills on this hillside as we join the old railway path that leads over to Capitol business park, between to West Ardley Colliery site and the Ardsley railway triangle, hone now to the yards of AvailableCar.com and the Tradeteam distribution depot.
Sunday, 20 August 2023
Morley to Oakenshaw 19/08/23
The first pair of weekends in August are lost to poor weather, not catastrophically wet but fundamentally uninspiring when energy levels are low, having endured two busy weeks at work in the LGI, launching a new collection routine after finally closing down our mostly empty library in the Clarendon Wing and concentrating service into a single office, which would have proved hard work for me come the weekends regardless of our current conditions, which has me feeling that the 2020-esque second half of the season which we might have hoped for is most likely going to be replaced by a 2021 styled Summer of disappointment and junked plans. Honestly, though, the inertia de to reduced stamina is more troubling to this August than the weather has been so far, as both weekends promoted activity that I could have engaged in, but didn't, with engineering possessions on the railway prompting the belief that the new footbridge spans at White Rose station were finally due to be installed, and the BBC Proms bringing a concert, albeit one of chamber music, to Dewsbury Town Hall, about as ever as we'll get to home, but the lack of trains to use on a Sunday, coupled to the busing shenanigans that would have been otherwise necessary to get there, meant that it might as well have been on the Moon for how accessible it would have been for me. So August is well on its way, and almost on its way out once we can get to our first trip of the month, pulling up the shortest available on on the slate to get busy with the other season specific trend for 2023, as Shuffling the Tiers has also revealed a whole bunch of Tier 2 destinations, now abandoned far from its outer perimeter and now looking lost among the extensive reaches of the trails of Tier 1, where to my tidy mind feels they ought to be, and that's why we will be 'Gathering The Orphans' in Season 12 as well, and we've got three of them to aim for today, scattered across North Kirklees, and in the Spen Valley.
Sunday, 25 June 2023
Morley to Deighton 24/06/23
This past week certainly has been a busy one, with no trains to ride on my working days due to the engineering possession, and all my comings and goings to three hospital sites across the cities having to be on a variety of buses, with the potentially unlimited strike by Firstbus drivers only lasting two days in amongst to keep things manageable, which allowed me plenty of oppotrubites to stroll locally after work to see exaxtly what was going on at Morley station, and at the ongoing development at White Rose, tales which will probably ned to be recounted at another time as all that chatter could easliy derail the account of wandering for this weekend otherwise. We're hardly feeling full of beans as Summer arrives, rising late and strolling to our start line rather casually, turning our back on the developments at the station before we start out at 9.55am, with our eyes on the trail to the Colne valley that we imagined into existence after our failure of two weeks ago, heading west along station road, by Dartmouth Mill and the Rec, and noting that the factory redevelopment on the south side is indeed becoming residential as dormer windows emerge from its roof, ahead of the roll up to Morley Bottoms, where the closed off stub of Queen Street has been reopened to wreak havoc on the block paving, where we rise up to Scatcherd Park, passing below the Cenotaph and through Hopkins gardens to our way away up Queensway. It's all familiar going beyond too, past Morrisons and the Leisure centre, and up to the civic complex of fire station, police station and health centre on Corporation Street, which is passed as we join Scatcherd Lane, to take us past the Cricket and Rugby Union clubs and on to Dartmouth Park, which is shadowed as St Andrew Avenue leads up to its eponymous church and the A650 Bruntcliffe Road, which is crossed to finally make a new path, into the Lego house estate of St Andrews View, where Perry Way leads us over the crest to the reveal of the views to Emley Moor mast and the Calder catchment, ahead of the footbridge over the M62 and our winter astronomy spot.
Sunday, 4 June 2023
Morley to Normanton 03/06/23
We were very fortunate through the whole month of May to have not worked a single five day week across the whole width of it, and as we find ourselves at the first weekend of June, that five week run comes to an end, and thus we'll have to start worrying if the stamina is going to hold up after a very testing four day burst in the hospital libraries, followed by no scheduled time off until mid-July, so hopefully a return to sunny days will give me a mental lift to propel me on through the High Season, rather than proving physically draining as my body has yet to get itself into the early Spring mindset, as we veer dangerously close to your actual Summer. So, sunshine abounds as we head out, from Morley station once again, at 10am, and setting a course to the southeast as our quest to add new destinations to the local tiers, and to shuffle the routes beyond continues, rising from Valley Road up the long step flight again and feeling like we're soon going to be at a total loss for new routes away from this town as we join Clough Street again, ahead of visiting Denshaw Drive and Grove in our ongoing attempt to Watchperson every pavement hereabouts on our way towards Newlands Academy and the Gardeners Arms, where Wide Lane is joined to push us east, beyond the suburban reach and into the fields of Owlers. Meet and cross Dewsbury Road, and join the West Wood Road track for the n-th time as it drops down beyond the A653, passing over Millshaw Beck and rising under the railway lines current and former, before meeting West Wood and the intermittent shade that comes with paths along the periphery of the Middleton hillside, a route which I'm really glad that I haven't tired of having seen so much of it in recent years, and one which we surprisingly have to ourselves as the heat starts to bear down already, especially on the exposed stretch uphill to meet Sissons Wood, where the views back west across Morley, and northwest to Rombalds Moor, always entertain my brain, despite their familiarity to me.
Thursday, 25 May 2023
The Cinder Track #2 - Ravenscar to Whitby 24/05/23
 |
| Long Distance Trail Means Selfies! #2 at Ravenscar |
Monday, 22 May 2023
The Cinder Track #1 - Scarborough to Ravenscar 21/05/23
 |
| Long Distance Trail means Selfies! #1 at Scarborough |
Sunday, 19 March 2023
Cottingley to Burley Park 19/03/23
No walking occurs on the weekend of 11-12th as there's a ice risk to deal with after the only significant snowfall of this persistently chilly winter coming at the end of the preceding week, and I value my ankles to much to be testing out some challenging going, and thus I can't be inspired to get going again until some actual sunshine arrives, to not be seen until the following Sunday, which means we are yet to get into a routine of Saturdays when starting from home, as we finally travel away from Morley to start from Cottingley station instead, as we need to make use for it now that notice for its formal closure has been posted. Get away ahead of 10.20pm, and pass over the footbridge to pass away from our local paths by taking the route across the Cottingley Hall estate, via the Dulverton Grove paths to pass north of the towers and over the Cottingley Drive orbital route to descend through Cottingley Cemetery as a path exists to take us past the crematorium and chapels before we dropped out at the point where the A6110 Ring Road Beeston and A643 entangle themselves, where we cross by the builders yard and cement plant to follow the latter as it leads up to, and under, the railway line to reveal the Planet Ice rink, which has finally opened after an extremely prolonged construction. We'll move toward the city, and our planned targets as we join Bobby Collins Way as it leads though the lots of the Elland Road Park & Ride, where the Covid vaccination centre loitered for most of 2021-2, taking us round the side of Leeds United's ground that regular traffic doesn't normally see, before we split under the M621 to the Lowfields industrial estate, and move with the footpath down to Junction 2 where all sorts of heavy engineering work is going on the remodel the traffic island, which looks certain to be ongoing for a while, before we shadow the A643 once more as it heads off to form the Leeds inner loop road.
Sunday, 16 October 2022
Barnsley to Doncaster 15/10/22
If passing the 600 miles marker makes for a successful walking season, we're already there having passed it by the width of a conversion error last weekend, for the first time since 2019 after two pandemic blighted seasons, but the reality stands that we still have four weekends to go on the year, with two more mileage targets looking immediately due as a new personal best and the 1,000km barrier should be attainable soon enough, and we've still gotten plenty of miles left on the slate too, as there are still four trips in South Yorkshire plotted, landing somewhat benind schedule thanks to having already done most of my end of season park walks on our various train strike weekends. So we find ourselves in the middle of October, looking to the long route that stitches together the pair of boroughs below West Yorkshire, which might transpire to be my second longest excursion of the year, alighting at Barnsley to depart via the Interchange exit at 9.20am, already adding minutes to the trip before we've even gotten started, emerging onto Midland Street and starting off south, towards the old road junction that's now lost by the retail developments in Barnsley town centre, passing through the May Day Green square to note the first Covid Pandemic memorial that we've seen on our travels, and then make our way through the GlassWorks and the Alhambra shopping centres, before we emerge under the traffic island below the tanglings of the A61 and A628. The left hand path takes us on to the stub end of Doncaster Road and the southeasterly press that will be the feature of most of the day, past the shopping parade and up to the view across to Oakwell stadium as we join the A635, pressing on through Measborough Dyke with its stone terraces surrounding the redbrick church of St Peter & St John, with the bright skies reveling the waning gibbous moon as our companion feature as we drop down meet the A6133 as it merges in below Barnsley cemetery, and then we rise again up Measborough Hill to meet Kendray Hospital at its crest, across the way from the old Oaks Colliery disaster memorial, situated just south of the site of the loss of 361 lives in Decemeber 1866.
Sunday, 9 October 2022
Cross Gates to Ossett 08/10/22
Return from Down Country with my brain and legs ready to get back into the walking routine, having spent the midweek celebrating My Mum's 80th birthday by organizing an afternoon tea for her church fellowship on the day itself, no small task as it required two days of labour and another of rest before we headed back Up Country with Mum being particularly pleased with how it all unfolded for her, and with that done we can get back into the walking year, still having to work around train strikes which limits my options again, and as we've done the best park walks in Wakefield district, staying much closer to home seem the best option. So we're walking in Leeds again as my ancient Explorer 289 comes out for probably its last hurrah, bussing ourselves out on the #40 to the east of the city to alight at 9.05am on the A6120 opposite the Cross Gates shopping centre and the railway station where we can start our tilt to the southwest, under unseasonably bright skies, with a pronounced autumnal chill in the air as our path takes us away down Green Lane and Cross Green Lane through the suburban quarter of semis to meet the Victorian townlets that grew beyond the city back in the day, meeting the terraces and town houses of Gravelythorpe on the way up past the Leodis inn, and onwards Chapel Street and the transition into Halton. Beyond said chapel, and the Dial House, the prettiest in this corner, we meet the Halton High Street, all of a 1980s redevelopment style that we're thankfully not doing any more, strung along the Selby Road, which we cross to head south, down Irwin Approach behind Lidl and alongside the local recreation grounds to meet Temple Newsam Road, leading us down through the suburbia and into the spread of Temple Newsam park, with our park walk arriving at the start of the day rather than the end, shadowing the perimeter of the golf course and sticking to the shaded pavement below the canopy of autumnal leaves as we are led up to the eastward turn and the reveal of the view back across south Leeds (one of the few places where Morley can be placed in the landscape at a significant remove). Press uphill on a familiar route past the running track and on to the Sycamore Walk to pass through the shade towards the heart of the park, arriving to the north of the Jacobean house complex and meeting the track that leads us down between the stables block and the Home farm, observing just how many folk seem to be out early to make the best of this sunny Autumn morning, and find a park run going on along the track on the fringe of the east lawn, which we'll not tangle with as we press east still, down the side of Mather Wood to the revelation of the wild woods on the rise beyond, where we have a single focused target, to be found beyond the fall of the beck that feeds the Menagerie Ponds.
Monday, 3 October 2022
South Elmsall to Nostell Priory 01/10/22
My September Nine Day Weekend finally arrives, too late for Summer Jollies and not featuring any Autumn Jollies as midweek is going to be spent with My Mum, to celebrate her 80th birthday, and thus we're left with only the weekends to use as we push for 1,000km in 2022, with our organisation being disrupted further by having renewed strikes on the railways, postponed after the death of HMQE2 and now restored to keep us inside West Yorkshire, which isn't a huge problem as I've had a couple of bus-able plans on my slate for months now, with the idea of walking in the park maintained as we seek out another one deep in the heart of Wakefield district. Thus we ride out on the #425 and #496 to South Elmsall, alighting at the bus stand at 9.45am, after a journey that was almost twice the duration of one on rails (no thanks to Arriva for misplacing a service along the way) and the bright morning sunshine that we had for most of the journey looks like it's not going to endure as we head out, over the railway station and up High Street, with the rain coming on sharply as we hide in the bus shelter by the United Service Club for several minutes, letting it pass before we continue on up Hacking Hill to the estate at the top of the town before Field Lane leads us out above the old quarry remnants and into the landscape dominated by the Next distribution depots. It's a development that's still growing, placing a new facility on the south side of the lane with its own linking bridge overhead, to be regarded with a certain kind of awe at it sheer extent across the plots ahead of the A638, where we land by Cherry Tree farm and the H&BR Wath branch, where our easterly push, away from our apparent destination continues, across the Doncaster Road and onto the dirt track of Coal Pit Lane as the early gloom starts to lift, dropping a rainbow above the Upton Becaon / Walton Wood / Barnsdale ridge as we press on toward the earthworks around the lost Waterfield farm. We can place ourselves on the very edge of Doncaster borough, west of the A1 and Skelbrooke village before we turn north, onto the Wakefield Way route as it strikes along the muddy field boundary down to the sewage farm , where the path up to the cottage by the remains of the H&BR South Yorkshire Junction branch is overgrown and damp, reminding me of just how little interaction I've had with horrible paths across this year, a theme which reoccurs once we've met the driveway and taken the most direct path north, a field walk and green passage that's enough to make me want keep to pavements from now on, which we can do once we've landed on Sleep Hill Lane and drawn ourselves out to and across the A6201 Wrangbrook Lane.
Wednesday, 21 September 2022
South Elmsall to Doncaster 19/09/22
As I've already mentioned, traditional patriotism and pageantry is not for me, and I'd honestly rather be at work on the day of HMQE2's funeral, as shutting down many hospital services for the occasion seems like a poor choice when the NHS has 6M+ backlogged admissions to deal with, though trying to run as normal would probably be something of a fool's errand too, when you consider that approximately half the population of the country will be watching the proceedings on TV, and thus the extra bank holiday allows me the opportunity to get out and push the mileage again, on a late Summer day that is a total contrast to the one we had at the weekend. To South Elmsall we ride for an early start, back in West Yorkshire when I had intended to do all my September business in South Yorkshire, alighting at 8.50am, and setting off on a bit of a weird deviation to get us onto the southeasterly trajectory that we had in mind, by pushing uphill on High Street to the corner by Trinity Methodist church before striking along Ash Grove northwesterly though the suburbs and estate houses, above the primary school and leisure centre, on the way across to Minsthorpe Road, where we land by the community college and then press further uphill northeasterly to come up to the Mill Lane crossroads by the Barnsley Oak inn. Suburbia ends beyond as Dale Lane skirts a way around the northern edge of the industrial estate comprised entirely of distribution depots, passing those of Superdrug and ASDA as the Upton Beacon water tower and the Walton Wood mast loiter under the gloom on the northern horizon, we come up to the bottom of the North Elmsall bypass, and join the A638 Doncaster Road as it sets off southeasterly, starting here as there's an inexplicable footway alongside it all the way, processing on as the Wrangbrook junction terrace and the rise of Barnsdale's hill sit across the fields off to the northeast, on the ridge that conceals the flatlands in the east, as we head on by the ever-expanding depot facilities operated by Next. At the end of Field Lane, by Cherry Tree house, we pass over the H&BR Wath branch, where one bridge parapet endures in spite of the extensive road remodelling that has taken place at this junction, and the we're on our way, outside of the Wakefield Way route beyond the cottages at the roadside and soon out of Wakefield district and into Doncaster Borough as bizarre waves form in the clouds before we dive down below Turnpike Plantation, and the South Elmsall quarries, to pass above the Stubbs Hall farm complex, which is most notable for its angling lakes, visible from the railway.
Sunday, 11 September 2022
Swinton to Silkstone Common 10/09/22
It's been all change in the real world this week, seeing both the replacement of the Prime Minister and the death of HMQE2, after a reign of 70 years and truly bringing on the end of an era, but reflections on such things will have to wait, as national mourning isn't for me when there's walking to be done, especially with Summer hurrying towards its close and having a railway walk on the slate which was first mooted some eight years ago, after our 2014 trek over the Woodhead route, but never landed on our schedule as our focuses shifted elsewhere, and what would have been another trail deep into the unknown back then, now sits as an underlining of our Field of Walking Experience in 2022. To Swinton we return then, getting away from the station at 9.45am after we've watched an honest to goodness coal train pass through, passing out to Station Street and Bridge street to pass under the railway and over the canal to join the towpath of the Dearne & Dove as it reaches up the remaining stretch of the pound to the skew bridge back under the railway, which leads to the cycleway path that leads among the green spaces that leads north towards Manvers, not following the canal alignment as it passes over Queen Street and through the scrubby remnants of Bow Broom Wood, meandering northwards with some purpose as it approaches the industrial estates. This leads us to the extensive campus of Dearne Valley College, stretched along most of the length of Manvers Park road, and into the post heavy industrial landscape of what once surrounded Manvers Main colliery, of which nothing remains under the light industry that have replaced it, with no suggestion of the presence of the GCR's passage over Golden Smithies Lane or that of the North Midland Mainline at the A6023 traffic island, where we set off outside of our bubble as we join the multi use path that keeps us away from the traffic on Manvers Way, following the old alignment for a bit as we skirt Fairfield Park Ind. Est. on the site of Manvers Main's #2 pit, and pass below the Brookfields Park site, on our northwesterly tack.
Tuesday, 6 September 2022
Doncaster to Swinton 05/09/22
For Monday of our long weekend, we're ready to get on the trail again, admittedly not all that early as train services are dictating the time window available, but not quite ready enough as my first train connection out of Morley gets cancelled, which puts me in an immediate time hole, though it allows me plenty of time to organize tickets beyond my WYMetro travel area, unfortunately going on a total mind vacation while doing this and managing to get my mCard boundaries confused, purchasing one that doesn't permit me to ride the LNER express service out (and costing extra £s!), meaning that we have to wait for the local service at Leeds, and burning nearly an hour of viable day before we've even started. It's thus 11.10am when we get out of Doncaster station, heading back the way we came after a fashion as we take a turn into the Frenchgate shopping centre, certain that a path must lead through to it's north end, found by traveling up to, and down from, the food court and through the bus interchange, under North Bridge and around the back of the B&M store, so that Grey Friars Road might take us along the Don Navigation waterfront, and around to a circuit of three sides of St George's church, Doncaster Minster that does much for giving the city more than the status of 19th century railway town, it's Gothickry to be admired before we close the loop by passing up onto North Bridge. All local routes to the north side of the Don have to go this way, passing the Halfords and Boots Optician on the Marshgate island, to lead over St Mary's bridge by the Three Horse Shoes and onto the traffic interchange with the division of the A638 and A19, leading us under the avoiding railway line and onto new pavements on our desired southwesterly trajectory as we join Sprotborough Road as the town's suburbia fans out on the fields away from the riverbank, looking like it had a couple of distinct bursts of growth in the mid 20th century, on the stretch from the Screwfix store to the Community Library. We've travelled some way along, past the Sainsbury's Local, the Newton Arms inn and the Goldsmith centre before we feel that we ought to be looking at the map, as we are finally blazing a long trail across E279, not that route finding is particularly important yet as it's still straight forward road travelling as we rise to pass over the H&BR-GCR joint line / Trans Pennine Trail for the fourth time, and follow the ascending Melton Lane as it passes the Levett and Richmond Hill schools, and carries on through the council houses and 1980s suburbia before it peters out, revealing open fields to the south above the green and woods shrouded passage of the Don, and the council grit depot to the north, before the A1(M) passes below us.
Sunday, 4 September 2022
Bentley to Wombwell 03/09/22
It's worth a brief reflection to note that August Bank Holiday weekend has never been that rewarding in terms of my walking career, having only brought multiple days of exercise in three of my past seasons, probably becasue I've been keeping the powder dry for my week of Late Summer Jollies at the start of September, which we won't be enjoying this year because of how I've arranged my leave with regards other things going on, and thus we approach the End of Summer with only a long weekend booked in its place, where we might have hoped to have travelled away before my plans rearranged themselves. Instead we are still pulling walks off the normal slate, and finding that today we will be doing something very rare indeed, which is travelling between two places which have arrived on my radar within a calendar year, which will also not pass through any part of the walking bubble that had been previously established across the last decade, which has not been done (outside of holiday trips) since 2015, which has me realizing just how tethered we have gotten to the Field of Walking Experience that we had inflated over my first four years on the trails. So everything we see today will be exclusive to the season of 2022, as we resume our east-west passages across South Yorkshire, alighting at Bentley at 9am, deep within greater Doncaster and setting a course southwesterly down Watch House Lane between the terraces and the spread of suburbia that hasn't claimed the extensive allotment gardens, ahead of the rise over the old H&BR - GCR joint line, the contemporary Trans Pennine Trail, and thence down among the semis to the passage over the A638 York Road, immediately getting us back to crossing this year's trail as we land outside the York Bar WMC, just downwind on the old Roman Road path. Cusworth Lane leads us on, among the suburban spread, where Dillicarr House is the only residence of a particular vintage, with the Mallard inn (hopefully named for one of the city's most notable products) sitting opposite, beyond which we detour slightly into Cusworth village, where most of the local rural flavour can be found, around the British Orthodox church and the way into the public park in the grounds of Cusworth Hall, just another noble pile to add to the number in this quarter, where we are led through the woods and up to the end of the driveway by the gatehouse, trying to not get tangled up with the participants in the local park run before we alight on the roads once again, at Back Lane.
Monday, 29 August 2022
Adwick to Barnsley 27/08/22
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, 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.