Rossington Hall and the National Horseracing College

I went walking to Rossington Hall and the nearby countryside today. To get there I went via the Lakeside area as usual.

About a mile further on there's some nice countryside right next to the houses at Bessacarr.

I now use a much shorter route to reach Rossington, it's not shown as a footpath but there's definitely not a problem going this way.

I reached the stretch of the Doncaster Greenway and over to the right noticed another one of the railway themed metallic benches. There's a path going over to it but it leads to a dead-end - it's cut off by the East Coast Main Line railway line. Next to the bench there's a very good carving of a man's face in a tree trunk.

I arrived at Rossington Church and sat on one of the benches opposite to eat my sandwiches.

I continued heading south towards Rossington Hall.

Right next to Rossington Hall is the National Horseracing College; as I was passing by the fire alarm went off and people were mustering outside.

On my way back home I noticed this sign - I didn't even know we had any fens in Doncaster.

Bentley Community Woodland, Shaftholme, and Arksey

Another lovely day for a walk, I did about six miles today...unfortunately quite a bit of time was spent walking through urban areas though. I walked to Bentley and the took the path that goes along the old railway line to Bentley Community Woodland.

I then dropped down into Shaftholme, crossed over the level crossing and walked down the road to Arksey before returning to town.

 

Kirk Sandall and Barnby Dun

A drive out to Kirk Sandall today with my support worker before calling at the supermarket. We parked down by the canal, next to the church...some new houses have been built there since my previous visit a few years ago. 

The church is one of my favourites, it's architectural style is quite different to the rest of the churches in Doncaster; it's a pity about its boxed-in location though.

We then had a short walk along the canal towpath to Barnby Dun, the next village.

So that the distance wasn't too much for Siobhan we had to re-trace our steps back to the car park.

Three Local Churches

Thursday is the day I spend with my support worker. After going to the supermarket and getting my shopping done we drove to Sprotbrough hoping to go for a short walk beside the river. When we got to the carpark it was full and Siobhan commented that it was too muddy for her anyhow...it's never too muddy for me though.

She drove back up the hill and we had a little walk in the upper part of the village, in the area surrounding the church.

We then decided to visit the churches at two other local villages, Cadeby and High Melton, before returning to town.

Two Different Footpaths At Sprotbrough

I managed to find a couple of different footpaths going up through the woods at Sprotbrough today, they weren't particularly interesting but it was still a lovely walk.

The weir at Crumpsall was very loud this morning - it's officially called a 'rock ramp' though. 

The recently re-opened footpath along the riverbank was possibly even muddier than the one I'd been using that goes across a ploughed field. The muddy section was for only a few yards and by going this way I did get a slightly different approach to Newton.

This field, on the approach to Sprotbrough, was flooded the last time I was here.

I went out onto the island and found a comfortable spot to eat my sandwiches, right at the water's edge with a good view of the falls.

On my way back into town, as I was walking over North Bridge I spotted this ScotRail train waiting to go into the workshops.