After the much commented upon hot Summer we had this year, not mush is being made of the hot Autumn we are experiencing, possibly because the weather is a bit up and down and the warm bright days are coinciding with the weekends, but we are again looking at a Saturday that promises to be decent enough to be travelling a distance away from home and putting down 15+ miles on the trail, which is just as well as we have the year's third target to aim for, as the 1,000km marker sits only 6300m distant, and a less inspiring day might have had me reconsidering my walking plans after rising after far too little sleep and with claggy-feeling lungs that feel like the harbinger of something nasty setting in. The last South Yorkshire traversal of the year actually gets going in West Yorkshire's southeastern corner as we alight at Moorthorpe at 9.25am, and set our initial course away to the northeast, rather counter-intuitively as we negotiate away past the considerable station building to meet the steps up to Minsthorpe Lane, where we'll set off across the S&K line, south of the station junction, and past the top end of Moorthorpe cemetery and on among the vintages of suburbia that have filled in the land between the two local railways, passing over the West Riding Line beyond the Minsthorpe Inn and ahead of the South Elmsall Curves railside path, visited in 2016 before we carry on through the suburbia to bottom out at Kirkby Bridge. It's a rise from there, uphill past the extensive grounds of Minsthorpe Community College and the edge of the suburban spread to meet the Barnsley Oak inn and the northward turn through the old Minsthorpe village to aim ourselves towards Upton, gettins a better impression of the southwestern horizon than we did on our prior visit as we tangle with the A6201 and A638 in the landscape around North Elmsall, before me meet the remains of the H&BR and its old station, where we turn to follow the Doncaster Road to the northwest, but slip away from its verge as a shaded and concealed footpath presents itself, linking together the suburban closes that have grown out from Upton, and almost providing a traffic-free route out to the Common Lane corner.
Tuesday, 25 October 2022
Moorthorpe to Dodworth 22/10/22
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, 25 September 2022
Elsecar to Adwick 24/09/22
Autumn arrives and we're already over the total mileage that we managed in 2021, as very few missed walking opportunities, and the extra excursions and exertions of the last few weekends, have us contemplating where this year might be ending up, regarding the very real possibility of hitting a new annual distance total in 2022, and despite making all my measurements in miles and having no functional relationship with its metric replacement, the reality is that we could very easily tilt at 1,000km before the end of my eleventh walking season arrives, the only plausible way to make it to four figures in a year without doing 13 miles twice a week for nine months. That will be our goal as we return to the long trails in South Yorkshire, with a quartet of routes still in mind as we alight at the southwestern extremity of this year's walking field, returning to Elsecar with a northeastern trajectory to pace, starting under the brightness and chill that comes at 9.30am, rising away to head off along Cobcar Street through the terraced enclave of Stubbin, and then downhill into the 20th century estate landscape of Elsecar, finding the footpath that leads us away from Strafford Avenue to meet the path of the incline which rose up the Jump Valley from the canal wharf to Hoyland Silkstone collieries, over which the four-arched Elsecar viaduct carries the railway. The heavily wrinkled landscape of the valley gives our early going some work as we press uphill with Wentworth Road to Jump village, passing the Jump Club and meeting Cemetery Road by the Flying Dutchman inn, taking a right turn to process along by the terraces and semis with a view over the edge of the Knoll Beck valley, where we furtled last weekend, and passing the Hemingfield cenotaph and cemetery as we pass over the railway line again, just south of the short tunnel beyond Wombwell station, and run into Hemingfield village, as the lane declines to pass the Marbrook apartments in the old tavern, with a fine ghost-signed gable adjacent, before coming around to the junction by the Albion Inn. Like everywhere in this corner, the rural, industrial and suburban eras pile up on top of each other, only a short way away from the little colliery site at the valley floor, which seems lost among the tree clad hillsides these days, revealed from School Street and Beech House Road as we press east, making the turn away as we pass between Beech House and Lundhill farms, and find the lane beyond steepening and narrowing as it drops downhill to pass under the A6195 Dearne Valley parkway, passing The Tavern as the lane bottoms out and then rising sharply again up the side of Lund Hill itself, with playing fields perched to one side of us, and the growth of greater Wombwell expanding in the form of the Hillies View estate on the other.
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, 18 September 2022
Doncaster to Elsecar 17/09/22
It's the End of Summer weekend already, and it's going to be a long one too, the second one of the month, thanks to a Bank Holiday being declared for the day of the funeral of HMQE2, and my patriotic response will be to carry on doing what I do, as being outside to make new experiences in the British countryside is a much more valuable use of my time that reflecting on a life coming to an end after 96 years, and a career in the public eye concluding after more than eight decades, as that will always be the way that I express my love for this country, pushing the field of Walking Experience that bit further abroad. To Doncaster we travel, on this bright and chilly morning, getting away from the station once all trainspotting opportunities have been exhausted, and exit to the plaza at 9.15am, passing the 'Built for Speed' memorial to notable locomotives and horses before we seek a path south-ish, among the railway associated building to the pavements of The Rookery, taking us by the Railway and the Leopard inns before Saint Sepulchre Gate West is joined to lead us to the old GNR goods yard and St James's church, naturally, and on to the side of the A630 Cleveland Street, past the town's tower blocks and along the railway-side to the Balby Road bridge, and passing over the southern end of the Hexthorpe Triangle. Beyond the entanglement with the start of the A18, we set off south-westerly down the Balby Road, to see much more of the residential city than we saw on our previous visits, passing between the terraced faces and the open space of Westfield Park before we cross to find the ginnel by The Rec club, as it leads us down to the end of Lister Avenue, famous as the setting for the BBC sitcom 'Open All Hours' where Beautique hairdressers doubled as Arkwright's store (with Nurse Gladys Emmanuel's house across the way), to be fondly regarded before we return up to the reach the A630 as it leads on past a view over the rooftops north to Cusworth Hall and along to the old Balby village, at the top of the A60. A plausible jaunt to Leicestershire, across the length of Nottinghamshire, could be started from here, away from the White Swan inn and the parish church of St John, as we carry on above the High Road - Low Road division, encountering the Plough inn and the Luxaa apartments before the swing of Warmsworth Road takes us past Scared Heart RC church and uphill, past the shopping parade beyond and into a tree clad passage among the estates that form the boundary between the Balby and Warmsworth suburbs, with The White Church, of St Peter, being met across the way from the Horse & Jockey inn, where the local roads go high and low again as Warmsworth is approached, or avoided.
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.
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.
Sunday, 10 July 2022
Fitzwilliam to Swinton 09/07/22
It's taken a while to get here, but as we head out for this trip, its seems that we are due the first day of the walking year that will remain bright and warm for the duration, having seen several days of heatwave conditions not coincide with the weekends, or having had promising days landing prolonged spells of gloom and surprisingly low temperatures along their paths, and we aren't able to get in early to start ahead of the heat, as our travel window is again being dictated by the availability of trains, with our decision to fill July with more modest distances than we pressed in June looking like a rather smart choice in the circumstance. With another route to the south in our plans, we alight at Fitzwilliam station at 9.50am, and meander a way over the footbridge and down the ginnel, both colorfully decorated, to pick up our path from the exact point we arrived here in April, by the Hill Top terrace and straight onto the B6273 Wakefield Road, to spend much of the early going on pavements traced in 2015, over three different routes, past the King's Meadow academy, and the community centre and across the suburban amalgamation with neighbouring Kinsley, home to the greyhound stadium and the pub called the Kinsley with the old terraced streets around it, before the countryside arrives beyond the care home and the very concealed former church. The lane pushes uphill, passing the perimeter of the Hemsworth Waterpark as it rises up Shaw Hill, as well as the fields that bound the town cemetery before we arrive in its initially suburban landscape, with the stone terraces sitting on the road crest before we come down to meet St Helen's church, still mostly concealed by trees on its perch before we join Cross Hill again, as tangling with our previous trio of routes into South Yorkshire is going to be a bit of a theme for the day, passing the trio of pubs and joining Market Street as it rises up between the Tesco store, the notably large Job Centre and the Community Centre and its War Memorial garden. At the division of the Rotherham Road, by the Costa, KFC and Farmfoods store, we spilt away from our first route to Thurnscoe with the B6422 Kirkby Road as it leads south through the Common End portion of the town, noting the YMCA's shed, the former Victoria Inn and the old Hippodrome theatre in among the terraces as we are led away to the open fields beyond the Albion WMC, giving us a look towards Upton Beacon and Walton Wood mast as the landscape falls away to the east, and we come out to meet the A628 bypass road, on the H&BR mainline route, with the house of its Hemsworth & South Kirkby station still in place at the roadside.
Sunday, 3 July 2022
Streethouse to Bolton upon Dearne 02/07/22
After our rail strike imposed interlude, we can get back to our questing into South Yorkshire as July rocks up, and today's start line requires quite the most ridiculous train ride to get to it, not just necessitating an early start on the ground to give me the best possible time window for, but also requiring an even earlier departure from home as there isn't a direct service to be had until much later, making this the third time this year that I've been compelled to travel the long way round when using services on the Wakey-Knotty line, and I'm sure it won't be the last either, so that we might alight at 8.55am at Streethouse. Starting out westwards along High Street, it's worth noting that Wakefield district appears to have got its bus services back as the #148 trucks past as we observe that the settlement beyond the level crossing is certainly the more substantial of the halves, taking us past its estate and primary school as we are led past the old Station Hotel, for the lost Sharlston station and over the top of the railwat triangle that once led into New Sharlston colliery, now landscaped away in the fields to the north as we pace on as the lane passes among the Coalpit Fields to the turn onto the track of Hammer Lane, that set us off south, taking us over the railway line that we didn't travel in on. Sharlston Common village lies beyond, with its suburban acquisitions reaching past its village school, which is passed around as we seek the route through the estate houses, along Jubilee and Northfield Road to find the way onto the A645 Weeland Road across from St Luke's church, where we continue southwest to the road division by the Spring Green Nurseries garden centre, and take the old Pontefract Road down its leafy passage toward the general spread of Crofton village, not on the most direct possible route considering our destination, but taking in lanes otherwise unpaced as we come down to the Church View terrace and war memorial on the Doncaster Road. Cross the A638 by the Cock & Crown inn and follow Cock Lane downhill as it passes around the western edge of the grounds of the lost Crofton Hall, now mostly buried beneath the suburbia that has swollen this satellite beyond greater Wakefield, with our route turning southeast as we join Harrison Road, passing the Shay Lane primary school and rising uphill to take us to a short detour up to All Saints church before joining the High Street, where the Crofton Old Hall hides behind the Crofton Academy, and the Royal Oak inn provides a faux half timbered contrast the rest of the main street shops, before we come up past the infant school and Sainsbury's store, ahead of the Hare Park Lane corner.
Sunday, 19 June 2022
Featherstone to Goldthorpe 18/06/22
After three days of heatwave conditions, or more realistically three days of temperatures in excess of 20C for the first time this year, we look forward to Summer as we sit just shy of the top of the year, but predictably enough, the heat and sunshine cannot last into the weekend, and we're looking at a potentially tight weather window to pace against to fit with our tight time window that's dictated by our choice of start point and destination, which looks like it might be the theme as the High Season progresses, so we're going to have to keep the pace up today if we don't want a long wait to get home. Arrive at Featherstone at 10am, on the first train that doesn't take the long way round, to strike out route south down Station Lane, past the Railway Hotel and the mildly bustling main street, taking us down to the A645 Wakefield & Pontefract Road, which is crossed between the town council offices and the Lidl store, joining Girnhill Lane as it takes us south through the terraces into the suburban band of the town beyond the WMC and community gardens, an area that seems to have swollen with Lego houses below the lane's sudden eastbound turn, which leads to the rough track at the town's edge. This leads us to the field path that we traced back in 2014, joining it as it heads arrow-straight southwest through the wheatfields on a clear route over to the rougher and partially concealed tracks that take us down to the passages over the upper reaches of Went Beck, feeling happy that there's a dog walker to follow as we track around the edge of a plantation that's grown a lot over the last 8 years as we are led to the hamlet of West Hardwick, where the main farmstead and associated cottages are passed around as we get onto New Road as it leads southeast for a bit to put us onto the permissive path that leads towards Nostell Priory. Southwest-bound again we ahead below the plots of South Ings Fields, shadowing Hardwick Beck as it flows away from the estate, as the Pump Lane track directs us towards the eastern perimeter wall, where the National Trust site could be entered, it appears, but we're staying outside it, trying to find a path in Engine Wood that might not actually exist before picking up the Engine Lane track as it leads down to the Nostell East Vista, where a wide open space leads the eye west to the Palladian Nostell Priory house, with grazing cattle in the fields to the east, and a staring bench is provided for elevenses, as it is feel like that time of day already.
Sunday, 12 June 2022
Normanton to Thurnscoe 11/06/22
A break of six days allows my body to recover from the stresses that it suffered at the end of the bust two weeks that it had endured, and as we return to the trail today, we can feel happy to report that there are no limb or foot related concerns to take with us as we return to our quest for new railway station destinations across South Yorkshire, also digging deeper into my patriotic 70-mile June for that matter, and start by heading back to the Five Towns to start hanging the High Season trips into the southern unknown onto the framework that we laid out almost four months ago. We alight at Normanton for an early start at 9am, soon getting away from the combo of long platform and footbridge, and away from the goods yard that’s finally getting the residential redevelopment that it always seems destined for, and head through the town centre via the Market Place, with its station hotels, and up the High Street before the shops have really got going, taking a turn onto Church Street to lead us through the town's southern terraces on the way down to the municipal cemetery and the leafy passage through the yard of All Saints church before getting on our southeastwards track with Snydale Road. The B6133 will lead us for the rest of this day’s first hour, soon wandering beyond the vintage town and on through the suburban spread of the southern reach, meandering its way among the semis and bungalows before arriving by the field above the A655 bypass road, which is crossed at the Winterton’s Hill traffic island, with Church Lane leading us uphill between the high hedges bounding the narrow lane beyond, leading us into the village of Old Snydale, a settlement still retaining most of its rural footprint, despite the amount of coal mining that encroached hereabouts, with the Don Pedro colliery branch showing its bridge remnants midway along New Road. It’s remarkable how little it’s grown, either with colliery terraces or later suburban arrivals, keeping it quietly out-of-the-way feeling as we pass the Cross Keys inn and the other arm of the Snydale branches, leading to the Ackton Hall and Featherstone Main pits, then into the fields beyond, leading us around the grounds of Snydale Hall and below the rise of the Calder - Went watershed that we crossed in April, not that we're really feeling the ridge ahead from the roadside this time around as we pass up by Common Side farm, with its many enclosures and preserved fire engines as we come up to the previously seen Common Side Lane at the western edge of Featherstone.
Sunday, 5 June 2022
South Elmsall to Darton 04/06/22
Having gotten down the long day on the trail for the start of the long Jubilee weekend, we now pull up a more modest distance for round two, a route that I've had plotted since 2015 and got left on the to-do list when unfortunate family circumstances overtook us, and it's just as well that I'm not looking to light up the trail with many miles, as I've got another pain to to add to that of my sore calf, and wonky hip and knee, and that's a blisterized right heel, caused by the apparent collapse of the support in my boot sole (after only a year of use!), which will need two layers of padding to make it walk-onable. We make our immediate return to South Elmsall then, alighting after 9.50am under very glum skies, with our route set to the west, rather than delving further to the southeast, taking us down past the bus interchange to join the B6422 Barnsley Road as it pushes us along the main shopping drag, predictably dressed in patriotic colours, as we match another old route from seven years back as it takes us through the first of the three villages that grew into a single town, having all the flavour of its post-mining status as we pass St Luke's church, the library, the old cinema and the Kung Fu school as we transition into Moorthorpe. Past St Joseph's RC church and the cemetery, we pass by Moorthorpe station on the line down to Sheffield, and keep to the previously seen roadsides as we soon enough enter South Kirkby, the largest of the three villages, as we pass the Barnsley Road recreation grounds and finally start on along a new pavement as the lane becomes White Apron Street, bringing a bit more vintage flavour to the environs as we are taken around All Saints church, and the Church House inn opposite, passing the police station and colliery memorial as we keep to the northernmost of the westbound route options, rising as the lane does up to Ball Park farm but not getting any real sense of where we are in this urban landscape. Quit the road towards Hensworth as we pass the Co-op store, and hit Holmsley Lane as it traces the northern edge of the South Kirkby Common estates, rising up beyond Hob House farm and finally giving us a vista to the north to regard, looking back to Upton Beacon and Walton Wood as the only distinctive parts on this horizon, which could easily draw attention away from the supposed Saxon vintage encampment in the now open fields to the south, before we head up past the Old Garden Centre (which is named as such), and on up to the corner by the old isolation hospital site, where the Wakefield Way route is met.