Scrooby, Mattersey Thorpe, Mattersey, Everton, Harwell, and Bawtry

Another local walk with my brother; we're trying to arrange a couple a month during the rest of the summer. We travelled to Scrooby, the first village in Nottinghamshire.

We then headed over to Mattersey Thorpe and then Mattersey: this stretch was quite boring, but easy going. The area near the church in Mattersey is lovely though.

We crossed over the River Idle using the footbridge: a woman and her teenage son were each struggling to climb inside an inflatable canoe contraption with metal handlebars and spoked wheels. I didn't say a word as we passed them.

Part of the route to Everton was climbing up through the woodland on Pusto Hill, the shade provided by the trees was welcome in the hot weather.

It was a lovely walk across the fields to Harwell.

We got lost in the woods on Barrow Hills but it wasn't difficult to find our way down to the road, which we needed to follow for the final mile and a half into Bawtry.

The lack of bridges over the River Idle in this area makes planning walks difficult; I'd like to visit the ruins of Mattersey Priory but the only access is down a dead-end track that's over a mile long...therefore adding over two miles to any walk's distance. I would have also liked to have returned to Bawtry via Misson and Austerfield...but there's no bridge!

Winterton Open Gardens 2019

Winterton, a small country town four miles north of Scunthorpe is only thirty one miles away from Doncaster according to Google, yet not only had I not been there prior to today, I'd not even heard of it until about four months ago when I began researching Open Gardens events to visit this summer.

It was a really good find; it's an attractive town, mainly Georgian architecture I should think with some quite grand buildings along most of the central streets.

As usual I went in the car with Siobhan, my support worker, so we got talking to a lot of people...both locals and fellow visitors alike.

We didn't just visit the gardens, we explored most of the town and so there are some general townscapes included with the photos below, and the unusual chapel of ease at the cemetery...and of course, the church.

On the way home we stopped at Roxby, the next village to Winterton. I quickly got out of the car to photograph the church and then we slowly drove through the village looking at the houses.

Budby, Church Warsop, Cuckney, Holbeck Woodhouse, Holbeck, and Creswell

I looked at the weather forecast for today and staying east of the Peak District seemed to be a good idea. I don't know what the weather was further west but in North Nottinghamshire, where I went, it was quite sunny for most of the time...just a couple of short showers, a very light one which I hardly noticed because I was walking through woodland, and a very heavy one, from which I took refuge in a bus shelter at Cuckney prior to going in to the church.

So I went on the bus to Worksop and then caught the Sherwood Arrow service to Budney.

I headed south and then west walking mainly along forestry tracks until I reached Church Warsop. Several of the photographs I took of the church were out of focus, this is something I've been noticing recently with the camera - I don't know why this is happening because everything is set to automatic, focus, exposure, and brightness.

[A perfectly good photograph ruined]

[Now back to much better results just a few seconds later and a few feet away]

Cuckney, a mile and a half to the north, is in a lovely setting.

I went in  Jac's Cafe for a mug of tea and a toasted teacake. The prices there are very reasonable although the service was a bit slow...and their large all day breakfasts looked very impressive for only £3.65.

I think it's the River Poulter that flows through the village; it's a small river but I noticed several large fish in it.

A flower show was taking place at the church, so I went inside.

As I was walking just north of Cuckney I noticed that a lot of flowering ragwort plants growing at the side of the footpath had been pulled up, a lot of work for someone. I know that the plant is poisonous if eaten by horses, and maybe some other animals...and a bit further on there were some horses in an adjacent field.

Here's a photograph I took of some ragwort in bloom; I think it's a beautiful wildflower - I didn't pull it up...it's not for me to decide.

I arrived at one of the estate roads going through Welbeck Park, and the first of several lodges I saw on my walk today [I actually saw even more belonging to the local ducal estates as I was travelling south on the bus from Worksop.]

Here are two more I photographed.

I passed through Holbeck Woodhouse and then Holbeck. The lychgate at the parish church is locked and so I couldn't even get any decent shots of the building; I could have easily climbed over the low retaining wall...but didn't.

The final section of the walk was mainly along fields used for hay or silage. The footpath took me down to the western entrance to Creswell Crags; I didn't go any further in to explore, I just took a few pictures from where I was.

The buses at Creswell are quite complicated if you've not used them before. I wasn't sure which stop to use to catch the service back to Worksop. There was a young woman waiting for a bus at the other side of the road and so I asked her - she told me I could stand either side, it doesn't matter. I didn't really understand but fortunately almost immediately a bus with 'Worksop' on its destination blind came in the direction for which she was waiting...so I stopped it and got on. The bus travelled right to the far end of Creswell then turned around and came back to the exact spot where I got on before continuing on its way to Worksop. So...basically, I could have caught the bus at any bus stop, on either side of the road.

I walked straight on to the Doncaster bus at Worksop. The ride home was interesting. At several stops in the residential area to the north of the town about a dozen people got on who were going to the evening meeting at Doncaster Races. There was a lot of cleavage on display...and some eye-catching fascinators.