8 April 2022

Conisbrough

By The River Don at Sprotbrough 

The Lone Ranger and Silver were reunited today. For my first proper walk since COVID mugged me, Clint kindly carried me to Conisbrough this morning. It took forty minutes to get there. Clint insisted that I should park him in the little car park at the railway station and I duly complied.

There I donned my walking boots and set off over The River Don, soon crossing what was once a coal mining landscape and then over The River Dearne which meets the Don just west of Consibrough. I met two women on the footbridge over the Dearne and one of them said I sounded like the poet Andrew Motion though I think she meant Simon Armitage - every word measured and weighed.

Fresh sycamore leaves in the spring sunshine

Then onward to Denaby Ings. I like the word "ings". It is used more commonly in Yorkshire than in any other English county. The term is of Norse origin and refers to water meadows, marshes or land that is often flooded. Ings are frequently associated with wild birds.

The lane to Cadeby was about a mile in length and I had to be alert to motor vehicles as I hugged the narrow verges. Not much traffic passed by but enough to keep me on my toes.

St John the Evangelist Church in Cadeby

I didn't know what I would make of Cadeby but it turned out to be a very charming little village with around two hundred inhabitants. There was a lovely church and even  a pub-restaurant and though there were some modern houses they blended in nicely with the older stone properties. It was off the beaten track but only six miles west of Doncaster.

I continued to plod feeling perhaps uncharacteristically weary - the after effects of COVID I should think. I reached "The Boat Inn" at Sprotbrough where I ordered a refreshing pint of bitter shandy before carrying on between The Don and Sprotbrough Flash - a still lake and nature reserve that sits parallel to the river.

Up ahead an impressive railway viaduct came into view. Disused nowadays, I hadn't expected it to rise so high above the river valley. Lord knows how many bricks had been used in its construction - many thousands I am sure. I spoke to another lone rambler and he confirmed that I could walk over the viaduct. We crossed it together sharing friendly conversation. He had been born and raised in Conisbrough but now lives twenty miles away, close to where Shirley grew up.

Old railway viaduct over The River Don. A number of suicide jumps have 
happened here. The keep of Conisbrough Castle is visible on the skyline.

After the viaduct it was only a further mile and a half back to the railway station where Clint was snoring in the lengthening shadows of the green pedestrian bridge over the railway lines. I climbed into the saddle and called out "Hi-yo, Silver, away!" before galloping of into the sunset. Well, to tell the truth, there was no sunset at four thirty in the afternoon but it sounds better that way.

A view of Denaby Ings

35 comments:

  1. Lovely views from your day, but I'm especially drawn to the sycamore leaves. Such an interesting color!

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    1. Thank you Kelly. The light upon them caught my eye.

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  2. One of my favorite quotes is from Mark Doty:
    "I am not, anymore, a Christian, but I am lifted and opened by any space with prayer inside."
    I am not a fan of what goes on in most churches, but I love the buildings themselves.

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    1. That is a quotation with which I can very much identify. In English villages, the churches are filled with the echoes of past funerals, weddings, christenings and long forgotten Sunday services. They speak of what once was.

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  3. I'll bet you wondered how the walk would go after covid. Good that you're good to go.

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    1. When I had COVID I did very little - hardly left the house so I would have been weaker anyway.

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  4. With all of your excercise I believe you shall live to be one hundred or more. Unless, of course, you make a rash decision while crossing one of those sky high viaducts.

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    1. It is best to cross that viaduct in a happy state of mind!

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  5. You chose well for your first walk since you were ill, and I am glad to know you made it even if feeling more tired than usual, which is only natural.
    Sprotborough - I am pretty sure I‘ve been there some years ago for a family reunion, since the older aunties and uncles live closer there than in the Ripon area.
    And one summer holiday with Steve, his sister drove us to Conisbrough where we played tourists, visiting the castle. If I remember correctly, it‘s not all that far from Wath on Dearne, where Steve was born and grew up.

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    1. I vaguely remember you writing about Sprotborough. It is only a couple of miles up the river from Conisbrough.

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    2. I have just looked up my old post about the family gathering at The Boat Inn in Sprotbrough (spelled like that throughout the post), back in 2014. There are pictures of the river Don and of the church.

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  6. You seem to have recovered well from your Covid experience. It sounds like a good walk and in such beautiful weather too.

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    1. As I say, I felt unusually weary half way round.

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  7. Anonymous8:35 am

    I'm sure the viaduct looked wonderful from a good vantage point... It's ok, no need to make a return trip just for me. I found it online.

    I am reading something set in fens. They sound the same as ings.

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    1. I guess there is a bit of a coonection but when I think of fens I imagine the flat, peaty lands of east Cambridgeshire and Ely.

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  8. Just on the off chance, I looked for Conisbrough in my gigantic 50 years old Times Atlas of the World. And found it. Map 57 coordinates L6.

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    1. Conisbrough Castle features in "Ivanhoe" by Sir Walter Scott.

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  9. I'm glad you managed to do a bracing walk but do be careful post-Covid as it can take it out of you. Maybe now is the time to get a mobile phone in case you do get taken poorly while out and about.

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    1. Are you working as a part time agent for Apple ADDY?

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  10. I want to walk across that viaduct too.

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    1. I didn't know about it. It is certainly an impressive structure. "The magnificent Conisbrough viaduct is impossible to overlook with its 21 arches, 150 foot lattice iron girder span over the river, and 1,527 feet in length. Opened in 1909, it was part of a connection between the Hull & Barnsley Railway and those of the Great Northern and Great Eastern. It consists of more than 15 million bricks, and features some beautiful decorative brickwork. It is so vast that an aerial ropeway was built to carry men and materials across the valley during its construction."

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  11. Beautiful pictures Neil It looks to be a glorious spring walk, and I'm pleased that you were feeling well enough for walking.

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    1. It was indeed lovely but at first there was a distinct chill in the air. It had been frosty over night.

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  12. It is terrible to think of people jumping to their deaths with that last view of the Don.

    Energy prices have risen 50 per cent and food prices will rise about the same.
    Many will die in their homes of hyperthermia and many will just give up and jump.

    Wages have been stagnant for twenty years so people have no savings to fall back on.
    Our Centre-Right politicians did not warn us about the austerity that lies ahead.
    They abandoned the poor long ago while the very rich pay little Income Tax.

    And we have a government in Westminster without a plan.

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    1. *Cost of Living Crisis: Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown urges action on child poverty.*
      YouTube. Sky News. March 30 2022.

      *In Conversation with Gordon Brown (8 March 2022).*
      YouTube. Our Newcastle.

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    2. Brown was a better man than Blair. I did not like the back door way in which he came PM but he talks good sense and continues to reveal his pragmatic socialist credentials.

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  13. Super photos. I must find time to get walking again.

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    1. I like your accounts of walking Dave. Why not tootle off in the car one nice day - maybe four or five miles from home and take a walk there?

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  14. So pleased that you felt able to take one of your interesting walks YP. Particularly like the photos of the Sycamore leaves and Denaby Ings.
    You probably went further than you should, after so recently having the dreaded virus. Friends who succumbed not long ago say they still tire easily, so do take care.

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    1. Thank you Auntie Carol. Your advice is noted. I am also sleeping more than normal.

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  15. Glad you got back in the saddle and built up your hiking legs! I am surprised you don't travel with a cell phone. I always have mine along in case of an emergency.
    Looked like a lovely hike! Thanks for the photos!

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    1. Our forebears did not have cellphones and yet they generally made it through the trials and tribulations of their lives.

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  16. Another beautiful ramble! Thanks for sharing the travelog. I bet that covid IS still having its way with you.

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    1. Since testing negative I am sure that I have slept more than usual

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  17. My stepmother is still bouncing back from her bout with Covid. For some people, it takes a while. I am astonished that woman knows what Andrew Motion sounds like. Or Simon Armitage, for that matter. I'm clueless on both counts.

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