Kendray, Locke Park, Stainborough, Hood Green, and Birdwell

I travelled a bit further afield today; I went on the bus to Kendray, about a mile before Barnsley town centre, and made my way over to Locke Park...somewhere I haven't visited for a very long time. Before reaching the park though I visited the municipal cemetery because I noticed a large folly there that looks as though it's been built to resemble the ruins of a mediaeval monastery...I certainly wasn't expecting to find this.

The next four photographs were taken in Locke Park.

There's a footpath that goes through the park and continues down to the TransPennine Trail near to the M1 motorway at Gilroyd. I was on the trail for about half a mile, heading west. I then walked down the road to Stainborough until I found the entrance to Stainborough Park, which is a rather nice archway.

The concessionary footpath going into the park was closed, and the gate locked; the sign tells people to walk up the drive to the information booth. It was quite a steep climb up to the top; I was expecting to be able to enter the park without paying, because it's always been free, but now that it's managed by the National Trust you have to pay. I wasn't expecting this and so went back down the hill, turned left and walked through the small village of Stainborough and then up the hill , the same hill but this time I was using the pavement running along the road going up to Hood Green.

Near to the top there's the entrance to Northern College, which still uses the castle for residential courses I think. Just inside the driveway there's a folly and a gatehouse that has a tower that looks like a church tower.

The bottom word that's been blocked on this sign south of Hood Green is 'cattery' and so I'm assuming the top one is 'kennels.'

I was walking along a bridleway at this stage - maybe the chickens might spook horses...I don't know.

 

I got lost a couple of times as I headed over to Birdwell and added quite a bit of mileage. I had planned to carry on as far as Ardsley and get the Doncaster bus home from there. Instead I caught the Barnsley bus from Birdwell, but it arrived in the bus station at a convenient time to catch the X91 back home.

There was some pleasant countryside in the areas where I went off my originally planned route though.

A few minutes after passing this sign attached to the southern entrance to Stainborough Park [the gate wasn't locked] I had a slightly surreal chat with an old man who was very worried because there weren't any frogs in his pond.

Local/Regional National Trust Properties I've Visited

CLUMBER PARK, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE: Unlike most of the other properties, I can reach here on my own by using public transport. There are some nice walks round the lake and through the woods...strangely though, mobile phones never work here.

LYME HOUSE, NEAR STOCKPORT, CHESHIRE: It was raining heavily when we visited here and so I didn't get to explore the parkland and gardens. I can't remember much about the house - I think it might have a picturesque central courtyard.

HARDWICK HALL, DERBYSHIRE: There's a 'new' [Elizabethan] Hall and the ruins of the old mediaeval hall- the new hall was closed on the day I visited with my support worker. The gardens and grounds are well-maintained though and there's a nice country park with some fishing lakes at the bottom of the hill.  

KEDLESTON HALL, DERBYSHIRE:  I visited this property with Siobhan, my support worker. We found it to be poorly signposted; I think this is the property where Siobhan said that all of the women whose portraits were hanging on the walls were ugly.

NOSTELL PRIORY,  WAKEFIELD: It's not a priory, it's a stately home built on the sight of an old priory. There are plenty of artifacts associated with John Harrison, the man who made the determination of longitude possible by using his accurate timepieces.

THE WORKHOUSE, SOUTHWELL, NOTTINGHAMSHIRE: I quite enjoyed my visit here with Siobhan, my support worker, she much prefers stately homes though. Her family used to live in one and owned a lot of land in Ireland many decades ago...whereas I was born in a cottage hospital which only a few years earlier had been the medical wing of the local workhouse. We both enjoyed the fact that we didn't have to pay though because the computerised ticketing system wasn't working.

WINSTER MARKET HOUSE, DERBYSHIRE: It's only small, one room only in fact, but there's a museum and information centre inside.

Hardwick Hall, Hardwick Park, Darfoulds Garden Centre, and Langold Lake Country Park

I've been posting a lot more often on the blog recently, that's because I've been walking and going out with my support workers at every opportunity for the last two months. I need to keep busy; something happened in May that I'm having difficulties coping with. I'm really struggling to self-actualise at the moment and I'm needing a lot of support and feedback. Basically, I wake up every morning not knowing who I am and what my place in the world is, what I need to do to feel that I'm contributing to society...how I can become the best person I'm capable of being.

I'm stumbling about in the dark and so I've decided that the best short-term solution is to keep busy, tiring myself out, both physically and mentally...leaving me with little time or energy left to fret about things or do anything stupid.

So...I went for a trip out to Hardwick Hall today with Siobhan, one of my support workers. I'd checked online and there wouldn't just be the Hall and gardens to look at though, there's also extensive parkland areas with lots of walking routes.

Hardwick Old Hall is nearby, less then a hundred yards away actually, and I would have liked to see both sites. However, the Old Hall is managed by English Heritage and we're only members of The National Trust and I wasn't prepared to pay £13 for the both of us to visit the ruins.

It's situations like this that really pisses me off about contemporary Britain; not only having to pay once, but then you're expected to pay again. Why on Earth are there two rival competing heritage organisations in England? 

We arrived at Hardwick just after eleven o'clock and were told that the hall was closed, as it is every Monday and Tuesday, and so we'd only be able to look at the gardens and the parkland. I told the staff who worked there that it wasn't obvious on their webpage that the property wasn't open today....they disagreed and thought I was some sort of time travelling saboteur. 

Here's a link to the page stating the times and openings; in order to find out that it doesn't open on a Tuesday you need to scroll down the page...something that's not obvious - and shouldn't be necessary. THIS INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE PROMINENTLY DISPLAYED.

Hardwick Hall Opening Times

We still enjoyed ourselves though; the weather was lovely - a little too hot really though, especially for Siobhan. I bought a new [secondhand] camera yesterday after breaking my previous one on Saturday, and so had a lot of fun experimenting with its features...and took a lot of photographs.

After we'd eaten our sandwiches we drove down the hill to the bottom part of Hardwick Park and walked round the fishing lakes and through some very nice meadows.

At this point I noticed that Siobhan was struggling a bit in the heat; she's a few years older than me and walks with a slight limp anyhow, and so I decided to abandon my plan to call at Creswell Crags on the way back and walk through the gorge, having a look at the caves.

I formulated an alternative plan; cream teas at Darfoulds Garden Centre, and ice creams at Langold Lake Country Park. At the garden centre we sat right next to a 'geranium wall;. Everyone seemed to be very impressed by it - we were told that the set-up would cost £900.