A change of routine today. Normally when I go walking with Chris and Maureen, my friends from Leeds, I meet them at Fox House up on the moors and then we drive to wherever we're starting from. Annoyingly there are no early morning trains running from Doncaster to Sheffield on Sundays for the next few weeks because of scheduled engineering work so I couldn't get to Fox House until much later than our regular ten o'clock pick-up time.
So, we went on a much more local walk for me, out to Elsecar near Barnsley. I met Chris and Maureen at Warmsworth, near to the A1(M) roundabout, and it took us about twenty minutes to reach our destination - the car park at Elsecar Heritage Centre. We immediately went inside to use the toilets and have a quick look round - both the parking and admission is free.
Chris was particularly interested in the heritage railway station and the Newcomen Beam Engine.
We then started our walk, headed to the west via Elsecar Park and Skier's Spring Wood, going along a short section of the TransPennine Trail before turning to the north to pass the ruins of Tankersley Old Hall - there's no public access and the ruins look to be in quite a perilous state. A few minutes later we reached our lunch stop, Tankersley Church...a lovely location.
Navigating the next section of the walk through Tankersley Park Golf Course wasn't easy - the signage was poor so we just took to walking down the fairways until we reached the club house and a path that we could then follow.
We crossed over the A61 road and walked next to the perimeter fence of an industrial estate; I noticed by the signs that we were now inside the boundary of the City of Sheffield. Next up was the village of Warren, pretty boring and unattractive, before then walking along the main road for a few yards before reaching the bridge over the motorway.
It was a pleasant walk across the fields, past a couple of commercial stables, and through a small wood until we reached the small hamlet of Spittal Houses, and then Wentworth. We only entered the western edge of the village today...passing next to the old ruined church though.
It was about a further mile and a half, mainly downhill, back to Elsecar where we had time to pop in to the tearooms. I had a cream tea, Chris had a sausage sandwich and Maureen some green tea.
There was a 'Gift and Grub Fair' inside one of the buildings; I bought a pork and lime pickle pie for my supper.
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