Wath-upon-Dearne, West Melton, Brampton Bierlow, Elsecar, Street, Hoober, Upper Haugh, Nether Haugh, Greasbrough, and Rotherham

I can't easily get to the Peak District on public transport at the weekends at the moment; on Saturdays there's a strike on the railways which is limiting the number of services which are running to Sheffield, and on Sundays there's currently engineering work which has closed the line. So, it was another local walk today...in the rain.

I'd got no particular destination in mind when I arrived at the bus station at 7:30 this morning. I scanned the destinations screens and saw that a bus going to Wath was due and so I rushed over to board it.

Obviously the church at Wath wouldn't be open at this early hour.

I left Wath by heading westwards; some women who most likely worked at a hairdressing salon were smoking as they waited for the premises to open and must have been sharing some particularly juicy gossip because as I approached, the woman with the loudest voice stopped mid-sentence and just smiled at me, continuing her tale a few seconds later when she hoped I would be out of earshot.

I soon reached the allotments at West Melton and then found the footpath that goes along the old railway embankment. There were plenty of windfall apples along here; this is often the case alongside former railway lines as the apple cores were discarded by passengers and crew. I looked up at the trees if there might be one just ready for picking and easy to reach - I didn't spot one, but I didn't linger over the task either,

I had to walk along the road for a while before I picked up the TransPennine Trail and then the Elsecar Greenway, which is actually the towpath of the Elsecar Canal, a  short spur leading off from the now drained and filled in  Dearne and Dove Canal.

The heritage railway that's based at Elsecar Heritage Centre runs alongside, or quite near to, the canal towpath; one of the steam locomotives passed but I didn't have enough time to take my camera out of my pocket...and on its return journey I wasn't able to see it through the trees. I did eventually capture an image of it though as it set off again just as I was approaching the station.

A few minutes later I was at the heritage centre.

Even though it was only 11:15 I still had a cream tea in Brambles Tea Room and sat next to the radiator and imagined it was switched on, it was raining and quite cold outside. By the way, I wasn't the only person enjoying a scone served with fresh cream and jam.

I walked up to the Needle's Eye, one of the Wentworth Follies, walking through the woods and across fields.

I then walked down the lane to the hamlet of Street.

I could pick out two of the other follies as I walked along here, Keppel's Column and Hoober Stand.  The road ends just beyond the houses and then continues as a bridleway. 

The next place I reached was Hoober; I don't know how Mr and Mrs Hobson manage to persuade their hens to only lay eggs on certain days though.

I walked across more fields to the edge of Upper Haugh, fortunately not too muddy despite the rain, and then traipsed down the road to Nether Haugh, Greasbrough, and finally Rotherham town centre.

Despite the strike there were still some local trains running and I only had twenty minutes to wait for one back to Doncaster.

Swinton, Upper Haugh, Hoober, Wentworth, Nether Haugh, Parkgate, and Dalton

I travelled on the train to Swinton this morning and then walked over to Wentworth, one of my favourite local villages.

There wasn't anything interesting  at Swinton until I got to the church, half way up the hill.

The next interesting thing to look at was the Waterloo Kiln right next to some lovely countryside. There's easy public access but the kiln's surrounded by railings and private land and I couldn't get any decent approach shots; my close-up efforts were awful.

I had to briefly re-enter the built-up area before heading off towards Wath Wood, then through the golf course and across the fields right to the edge of Upper Haugh. I had planned to go to Abdy on my way to Hoober but got confused in the woods - it would have meant less walking along the roads going that way.

At Hoober I walked through the village before taking the footpath up to Hoober Stand.

The road down to the hamlet of Lea Brook is quite steep; I left the road just before reaching the houses and walked over the fields to the Wentworth road. Before arriving at Wentworth I did a short detour to have a look at the Needle's Eye.

Wentworth is lovely when the sun is shining.

I ate my sandwiches on a bench in a quieter part of the village, briefly visited the garden centre to use the toilets and then walked through the Gun Park to Lower Haugh. The walk to Dalton from there to catch the bus back to Doncaster isn't particularly attractive, in fact it's rather ugly in places as I passed by the steelworks. I did get a few bargains from the Asda supermarket at Dalton though.