Goldthorpe, Thurnscoe, Frickley, South Elmsall, Skelbrooke, and Norton

In my post about my previous walk visiting as many local authority areas as possible I managed four and thought I could possible improve on that figure on a local walk. Unfortunately I haven't managed to do so yet, so in the meantime I went on one of my favourite local area walks which also covers four local authority areas, Barnsley, Doncaster, Wakefield, and Selby.  I think I might be able to manage five in an area further south but I haven't spent much time on the project. I could have reached five local authority areas today if I'd started the walk a couple of miles to the south west at Wath-upon-Dearne in Rotherham borough...but the walk from there to Goldthorpe, where I started my walk today, isn't very attractive...it's mainly roads and warehousing or call centres.

Goldthorpe is halfway to Barnsley and just inside Barnsley borough. I climbed up to the summit of Phoenix Park to take some photographs and then walked along Chapel Lane on the edge of Thurnscoe, which forms the boundary between Barnsley and Doncaster, and then continued walking along the boundary until I turned to the north and headed for Frickley, a small estate village consisting of a few scattered houses and farms, the hall, and the church, definitely inside the Doncaster boundary, but having Pontefract phone numbers. I didn't visit the church because it's isolated from most of the other buildings and it would have been inconvenient to go there.

The 'Charm Bracelet' installation was clattering quite a lot in the strong wind this morning.

I pressed on to the north and crossed into Wakefield, and West Yorkshire, about a mile further on. I skirted the edge of Frickley Country Park, like Phoenix Park a landscaped former colliery spoilheap.

I reached South Elmsall and as I left the village I'd been using  the Wakefield Way for the previous two miles and continued to use it for about another mile until I broke off to the west of Skellbrooke, back in South Yorkshire now.  I visited the church in the village and then headed north to the Great North Road at Barnsdale Bar.

I walked down the quarry road and was soon inside Selby District, and North Yorkshire, but there's no sign on the boundary because it's a private road...but still functions as a public footpath and a bridleway. My next village should have been Kirk Smeaton but by now the weather was looking quite threatening and so I turned to the west and took the shortest route to Norton, back inside Doncaster Borough, and I had a wait of twenty minutes for the bus back to town.