Bolton

Disused railway bridge on Barnburgh Lane

Yesterday, I caught a train to a large village called Bolton-upon-Dearne. It is located north of Rotherham between Swinton and Goldthorpe in an area that was the beating heart of the South Yorkshire coalfield. As each year passes, that proud industry of yore becomes more and more like a distant memory. Even the landscape is concealing what once was.

It was a lovely afternoon. I had a planned walk to undertake while at the same time bagging four more 1km map squares for The Geograph Project - adding to the 18,602 images I had already submitted. To tell you the truth, I was feeling a little unwell so I had deliberately plotted a sensible distance of around 3.5 miles before returning to Bolton-upon-Dearne's railway station in time for the 16.32 train home.

Bolton Brickyard Ponds

I met a man with a bulldog. It had a head as big as a large cauliflower. It was his daughter's dog. It tried to hump my leg which I found most disagreeable. The man had been a coalminer in the area right up to 1986 and had fond memories of the camaraderie, still bitter about what Margaret Thatcher did to them.  In nearby Goldthorpe, on the night that Thatcher died in 2013, the people made an effigy of her and placed it on a bonfire before partying till midnight. The British establishment were appalled.

I walked to the edge of Goldthorpe then followed Barnburgh Lane to Westfield Lane, passing under a disused railway bridge that once carried coal wagons to power stations. Then south through the woods to The River Dearne. In that valley they have created a nature reserve in recent years, flooding former farmland. It is now a bird sanctuary overseen by the RSPB (Royal Society for The Protection of Birds).

Teasels at Adwick Wetland Nature Reserve

Then along Lowfield Road and back to the station with forty five minutes to spare. I sat in the sunshine, reading the first chapter of "Entangled Lives" by Merlin Sheldrake - you may remember that I found this book hidden in a wall two weeks ago. It concerns an area of knowledge that is very important but still very much incomplete - fungi.  Their underground relationships with tree roots and other plants are quite mind-boggling.

Oh and by the way, the train home arrived bang on time.

A bedroom window on Lowfield Road