Silkstone West Circ. Walking with my sister

 Silkstone West Circ. 

Walking with my sister (Mary)

24/06/24

On a beautiful warm June day we set off from the school in Silkstone, through the estate and on towards the garage on the A62. Pleasant though pretty suburban.

We passed the garage, the cricket ground and headed up towards the road to Blacker Dam. We had a nice view up towards Silkstone Common.

Nice houses, pretty gardens.

Up to here the walk had been pretty quiet just a steady incline up to the style in the corner of the field, on to the road and then up to Blacker Dam. However we did meet a very excited young dog called Fionn who was so pleased to see us. The lady owner was a delight and as ever these little moments of conversation and greeting are a boost to any walk.

The route headed up towards the bottom of Hoylandswaine Hill across fields and through still muddy woods. Although on the photo it looks threatening it actually was sunny and dry where we were walking.

Passing more fields past Warren Royd across High Field Plantation and through the steep little wooded ravine to the A628. Its a busy road but we crossed with ease.

The pretty gate at Pye Flats has seen better days but was still a welcome sight. We pushed up the lane with Mary pointing out the various walk options coming off this lane. She seems to have walked many of them and knew the impassable ones. To be honest this area has too many walk options so some are going to get neglected. The amount of tracks has peaked my curiosity and I will have to design some more routes for this area.

Up to the left on the higher ground we could see Hoylandswaine and to the right Roger Royd. I always like to see my name appearing in place names.

It was a warm humid day and the sheep were taking advantage of the shade to rest in cool comfort although I bet they wish they could take their winter coats off.

The track through the wood at Roger Royd was bad underfoot with stones and tree roots creating numerous trip hazards. The fencing on either side of the path had signs warning of deep pits, cliffs and goodness knows what if we strayed into the fenced off area. Cynically my sister suggested it was to keep us out of the pheasant areas still this is an area of old disused pits.

We reached Haig Lane after crossing the field at the bottom of Haddon Farm. A slight misdirection took us on the wrong side of the roadside wall as we missed the overgrown gap in the wall. The OS map soon got us back on track and we retraced our steps and found the wall gap. Thank goodness for the OS app, it is, in my view, essential for modern ramblers.

Crossing the open fields towards Silkstone Beck we could see the heavy clouds over Barnsley with the hospital chimney showing its location and the better weather looking northwards towards Cawthorne with Cannon Hall in the distance. Looks and felt like a lovely rural scene.

At the end of the drive to Banks Hall, we on the suggestion from Mary, ignored the planned route and headed up the drive. Its a very pleasant drive with good views left and right.

The monumentally high solid wall is the only view you have of the site from this path. Its still impressive.

Mary lead the way on the last stretch to Silkstone.

Its very hard not to take a picture of the church and mining disaster memorial in Silkstone. Such a pretty thing producing deep dark raw emotions still after all these years. Just read the names and ages on the memorial and it would be a cold heart indeed that wasn't affected.

This was a lovely walk with my big sister which I loved. You cannot beat walking for communicating.