2 August 2013

Celebration

Yorkshire is a land of varied landscapes. Yesterday - Yorkshire Day - I needed to walk off the excesses of our wild celebrations and drove east of Sheffield to the village of South Anston where I parked close to St James's Church - though you may choose to call it St James' Church if you are feeling especially pedantic...
After a couple of miles I was south of the village, dropping down on to a footpath called - perhaps appropriately - Cuckoo Way. For some of its distance it hugs the Chesterfield Canal which our eighteenth century forbears developed in order to link the developing industrial town of Chesterfield with the sea via the River Trent. Moored by a scenic bend, I saw this narrow boat (err..the boat was moored - not me!)....
Leaving the canal and crossing railways tracks I headed towards Brancliffe Grange where I spotted these semi-detached farm workers' houses across the ripening corn. Did you know that a "grange" was the name originally applied to outlying farms owned by monasteries? If I had turned the camera to the right I could have recorded some of the original stone "grange" buildings that stand close by...
After crossing the A57 and Lindrick Golf Course I came to this imposing Grade II listed building - Lindrick House. Fortunately there was a little iron gate in the gigantic hedge that hides it so I was able to get this picture...
In the charming village of Woodsetts I bought a pint of milk from the post office and swallowed it in two gulps. It was such a hot afternoon and though I had a bottle of water in my knapsack, dehydration was threatening...
Onwards through the hamlet of Gildingwells then along Red Quarry Lane and across the fields to Swinston Hill Plantation. Then into North Anston and back over the A57. In need of more liquid refreshment, I treated myself to a pint of bitter shandy in "The Loyal Trooper" before heading back to Sheffield. It had been an excellent way to supplement my Yorkshire Day celebrations - gathering more evidence to support the claim that Yorkshire is "God's own county" even though I have no idea who this "God" fellow might be...

14 comments:

  1. Do you spend your days walking about all over the place? In our country, villages and hamlets are not all that close together and require quite a bit of time -- several hours -- to see in a single outing. It's a wonder that you and Shirley ever had any children at all with all your gadding about.

    For yout information, I would never say St. James' Church as that is not "pedantic" but clearly wrong. St. James's Church it is.

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  2. Yorky, what lovely photos and synopsis of your walk yesterday. Lots in your story to delve deeper and read about. No mention of whether you won any pudding throwing? I felt like a pint of bitter shandy myself by the end of your story :)

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  3. RHYMES WITH PLAGUE Yesterday's walk took me four and a half hours without really stopping. Like many other countries, America doesn't have the networks of local paths that we enjoy over here. I was wondering why our kids resemble the old milkman we used to have!

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  4. CAROL I won the mini-Yorkshire pudding eating competition - eighty five of them in ninety seconds! But my Yorkshire terrier - recently renamed Carol - failed to fetch her stick in the obedience competition and was therefore disqualified. She's an awkward little madam.

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  5. All those buildings are great looking. And something strikes me as odd. I think sometime ago I saw where someone here said Britain has 70 million people. And Britain is tiny in size compared to the U.S. We have something over 300 million. But looking at your pictures, it seems you have a lot more space in settled areas than we do. Everything here seems crowded to me in comparison - from shopping malls to houses in the suburbs.

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  6. You're right David, once you get out into the countryside in the UK there are surprisingly few people around especially if you don't count tourists. You don't expect to see wide open spaces but you do, especially in Yorkshire. We were quite amazed by them and the way you can walk anywhere on these wonderful public "footpaths" is a real jewel in their crown.
    Sounded lovely YP though walking in the heat is for the birds in my opinion!

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  7. It's an unfamiliar area to me but close to home. Thanks for the walk.

    God is that chap with a long white beard dressed in a nightie. He sits on clouds and strikes blasphemers down.

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  8. DAVID OLIVER Perhaps you should take a trip to Montana or Idaho. A lovely thing about the landscape of the English countryside is how mankind has interacted with Nature through the centuries. This adds to the beauty and the interest.
    HELEN I think the Yorkshire Tourist Board should employ you to front an Australian TV campaign to bring planeloads of your compatriots over here.
    ADRIAN If God is s you describe, how come you weren't struck down years ago?

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  9. Not surprised you walked all that way without 'really' stopping. What with all those Yorkshire puddens you eat.

    By the by, what exactly does really mean? Oh and while we're on the subject do 'you' make yours with one egg or two? Added to which do you eat the YP's before the meal with gravy. That's what we used to do in the olden days, when Yorkshire grandad was alive.

    LLX

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  10. LETTICE LEAF "really" is a term widely used for emphasis. Regarding the one egg or two question it depends on how many Yorkshires you plan to make. Too much egg can make your puddings too eggy - the wrong balance. When I were a lad we always ate the Yorkshire puds first with gravy but no matter how many times I tell my Lincolnshire born wife, she will insist on serving them with the main meal - usually Sunday roast but they also go well with curries, Mexican food and Cantonese dishes. Hard ones make good ashtrays.

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  11. sounds like a great journey - thought when you set off you were appen going to Wales - is the old sign still there?

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  12. GERALD Wales is still there and the signs too. Funny name for a place - being so far from the principality. I wonder how the village got that moniker...

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  13. According to wikipedia "Wales shares its name with the country of Wales, and the derivation may well be the same: the name Wales coming from a Germanic root meaning stranger. The suggestion, therefore, is that there was a continued Celtic presence here following the arrival of the Anglo-Saxons at the turn of the 6th century. The earliest reference to Wales is in 1002, when Wolfric Spot, a Saxon thegn, is recorded as owning Walesho.
    Sir William Hewet, Lord Mayor of London in 1559, was born in Wales, and his descendants, the Dukes of Leeds, would come to dominate the area."

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