Thurgoland Eastfield RFM Blue Line

 Thurgoland Eastfield RFM Blue Line

28/06/24

I was on my own for this local walk. Its been a few weeks since I have had a lone walk.

Starting in the middle of Thurgoland the walk heads up to the ridge where long views over the area towards Dodworth and Barnsley beyond. You can make out the old Dodworth Pit Stack now a green wooded hill on the left. When we were kids it was much higher and cone shaped, had a bucket line to the top and was continually smoking so we called it Versuvius.

I was a little wary of today's walk because this area is full of farm aninals with hardly any arable so I know that farmers will ignore footpaths when this is the case. So there are 2 maps the first with the blue line shows the intended route and the second with the red line shows the actual route. All will become plain.

The short walk along the ridge towards Pule Hill Farm had extreme long views over the Barnsley area. The day was warm but cloudy with a little wind.

Oh no I thought, after our encounter with the bull at Hathersage earlier this week, just what I need a field of young bullocks. I gingerly climbed the style and headed down the field next to the farm wall on the right of the field. Several young cows watched me but though a couple looked agitated they kept their distance and I passed through safely. 

At the bottom of the field I crossed into a field full of shorn sheep, male, female and lambs. Some of them were big. They started moving away from me and as one moved more joined the exodus and they made a bit of a racket. This peaked the interest of the bullocks who thundered down the field behind me to look over the fence to see what was going on. This week I have just about had enough with farm animals. 

I followed the line of the fence thankfully in an empty field and ended up passing a charming cottage and crossing the road to drop down into Hilltop Plantation.

The path was really overgrown and I was continually, unsuccessfully, avoiding nettles and brambles.

This was a very quiet area and a bit of a hidden world. It did not look like there were many visitors although the path was just discernible.

I reached the road and turned left for a short while and then right down a lane towards Tom Royd Wood. I passed a couple of houses and crossed a field but when I went through a hedge into another field I disturbed 2 big horses one of which skittered away from me and fell on the slope onto its side before regaining its feet. I did not wait to assess my personal safety but turned around and retreated to the safety of the public road. That is the topmost red dead end you can see on the map.

I took the alternate route through the woods and towards Eastfield Farm.

In front of me was a huge field with a heavy slope up to the farm and to my right a large herd of cows mostly lying down. I decided to go for it and headed up the slope. The cows looked at me but ignored me. That's better.

Leaving the field via a stile over an ancient wall and bank I turned left on the road towards Eastfield passing a pair of beautiful Belted Galloways.

A nice man at Eastfield exchanged greetings and I progressed down the fields towards Lower 

Lee Wood. There were horses in this field but they were separated from the path with an electric fence.

Passing through the wood and alongside a field the sun made a brief appearance and there were no animals in sight.

After the wood the route passed through a very well maintained fenced off  path through loads of Alpacas. What wonderful characters.

But then another dead end (bottom right on red line map). The path was non-existant and a variety of electric fences and large herds of cows made progress impossible. I had a great conversation with a local guy who happened to be in his garden when I returned up the lane. Turns out he rented a couple of fields for horses but the ones where the path was supposed to be was owned by a local farmer. He was willing to give me direction to him but I told him I wouldn't bother as I was just going straight back up to Thurgoland.

He also was aware of the path but told me he could never find it. He also said no one used it but as I said that was probably because they couldn't. Its just typical of areas where the farmers are predominantly livestock and not arable, they ignore and actively discourage the rights of ramblers to use the paths. 

This was my view for the last mile or so up the hill back to Thurgoland never to return.