South Elmsall, Frickley, Hickleton, Cusworth, and Doncaster

My original plan today was to go walking in the Peak District but I checked online last night and saw that no trains are running to Sheffield today and so I caught the Leeds train instead and travelled to South Elmsall and walked it back to my home in Doncaster.

Yet again there was an organised cycling road race in the town centre this morning; this seems to be a regular event in Doncaster now every few weeks. As usual barriers were blocking my access into the town centre and so I asked a marshal or official where I needed to go in order to be able to pass through them. He didn't know and wasn't very helpful at all, in fact he was rather surly and rude. As it happens his colleague pointed over to the left and I did eventually find a break in the barriers. I don't like these road racers, whether cyclists or runners, or any of the people associated with them - their arrogance and sense of entitlement and moral superiority appals me. What gives them the right to use a public space and block my access whenever they feel like it?

I still managed to reach the railway station in plenty of time to catch my train though.

I got off the train and headed out of South Elmsall towards the east and then turned right when I saw a footpath signposted to Frickley Country Park, one of the many local landscaped former colliery spoilheaps. I climbed to the summit, maybe two hundred foot high.

I then took a bridleway, a couple of footpaths and a short stretch of road to reach Frickley church, which is located in an isolated spot surrounded by fields. Not far from the church there was a metal detectorists' club event - I think that's the third one I've stumbled across so far this year.

I didn't know, but it was the annual Open Weekend at the church and so I was able to go inside...and they were serving tea and cakes!

I got talking to one of the ladies and she pointed out the gravestone of a local man murdered by highwaymen at Darfield...apparently he'd won a lot of money gambling in Barnsley and they'd been following him. In the information leaflet that she gave me his assailants are described as 'ruffians.'

On the way out I signed the visitors' book, the first person to do so in over a year.

I walked along paths familiar to me from the time when I lived in Thurnscoe, the next village, and soon arrived at the bottom of the hill leading up to Hickleton.

It's easy walking from Hickleton back to Doncaster and I made good time because I wanted to reach the supermarkets before they closed.

I took a few photographs in Cusworth and couldn't resist the milepost on the Great North Road - the sun was at the perfect angle.

The cyclists were still at it when I reached the town centre, going round and round in circles but going nowhere...whereas I'd completed at least ten miles today.