Oxspring, Wortley, Wortley Hall, Pilley, and Birdwell

I travelled to Oxspring again this morning, it's quite easy to get there. I immediately got down onto the TransPennine Trail and headed southeast for two and a half miles before passing through Thurgoland Tunnel. 

I took a path that left the Trail and led down to Wortley Top Forge and then walked along the road for a few hundred yards before joining a quite overgrown path going up a steep hillside, eventually taking me to Wortley.

 

This is where the footpath comes out at Wortley; looking at the map I was totally confused...no wonder though.

It's difficult to get any good angles of the church.

There are two buildings across from the church that aren't as old as they might look; they're lovely though.

I'd done some research online and found out that that gardens at Wortley Hall are open to the public and so I went to take some photos.

I took the bridleway that goes through Wortley Park, heading east towards the road that I needed to walk along for a few minutes before there was a path going across the fields to Pilley. The final part of the walk, to the bus stop at Birdwell, was all downhill along a country lane, not always the easiest way to finish a walk.

Cannon Hall and Cawthorne

I should have been going to Tissington in the Peak District today but my support worker phoned me yesterday to say she's having problems with her car and so could we stay fairly local, hence Cannon Hall, which is only five miles the other side of Barnsley.

We did a short walk which took us to the nearby village of Cawthorne.

[One unusual thing I noticed in the churchyard was that several gravestones had the exact age that the person had died, featuring the number of months and weeks.]

We finished off with tea and cakes from the cafe at the garden centre across from the car park.

Whitwell, Steetley, Netherthorpe, Woodsetts, Gildingwells, and Langold.

After travelling to Worksop I caught the Chesterfield bus to Whitwell. I didn't visit the church, it's out in the wrong direction and I've already seen it on a couple of previous walks. Instead I headed northeast across the fields to the hamlet of Steetley with its pretty chapel, claimed to be 'a gem of early architecture and the most complete and beautiful specimen of Norman work to be found anywhere in Europe.'

Steetley Chapel certainly didn't disappoint; the building, the location, the neatly manicured lawn, and the weather were all absolutely perfect...the time I spent there was quite magical.

I then went along a footpath and a country lane to Netherthorpe, another hamlet, passing right alongside the airfield there.

I continued going north, crossing over the Chesterfield Canal at a pretty location called Turnerwood and crossed Lindrick Golf Course on my way to Woodsetts. The church at Woodsetts seems to be architecturally similar to Steetley Chapel, except that it's larger and a much newer building.

I walked along the road to the southern edge of Gildingwells and then headed to the east, across the fields to Langold, from where I caught the bus back to Doncaster.