Friday, July 5, 2019

Norton, Little Smeaton, Kirk Smeaton, Wentbridge, Campsall, and Askern

I managed to fit in a local walk with my brother today. We caught the Pontefract bus and travelled to Norton.

There are a few nice buildings in the village.







We headed north across the fields, crossed over the River Went into North Yorkshire, got slightly lost because we were busy chatting and not concentrating on where we were going but still found the road that took us into Little Smeaton.


The local church is at Kirk Smeaton.









We walked along the northern edge of Brockadale, usually not going down close to the river. We passed through plenty of areas of open meadows with some lovely wildflowers in bloom.






Wentbridge church isn't very old, but it's lovely.








The village has historical connections with Robin Hood.


We returned to Kirk Smeaton using the footpath going alongside the southern bank of the River Went. This route isn't as interesting though, it's mainly through woodland.








We briefly ended up back at Norton, mainly going along the road, and then continued to Campsall where we visited the church.




Initially it looked like the church was closed, but as usual I wanted to walk round the back looking for different angles to take photographs and then we noticed that the side door was open and so we went inside. We were greeted by the organist who was just going to start a couple of hours of rehearsing...but he ended up talking to us for nearly half an hour, telling us all about the history of the church, the sad demise of the man who built the organ and who committed suicide because he couldn't live in an imperfect world, the legend that states the Robin Hood married Maid Marian in the church, the local connection to the Knights Templar and how the church wanted to sponsor a teenager and help her with her music studies. Unfortunately every time he meant to say 'mentor' and 'mentoring' he said 'tormentor' and 'tormenting.' Maybe God was working in mysterious ways today.

It was then only a short walk through the woods to Askern from where we caught the bus back to Doncaster.







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