It's not too far to Elsecar. Using my South Yorkshire Senior Travelcard, I paid only £3.50 for my return rail journey (American $4.70). From Elsecar Station, I plodded a six mile circular route in sweet autumnal sunshine.
The walk took me in the vicinity of Wentworth Woodhouse - a palatial mansion that is currently being restored by an army of volunteers. It was the country seat of the influential Fitzwilliam family. They were fabulously rich and in the eighteenth century even had spare money to build several follies within sight of the grand house - such as Needle's Eye - shown above.
Close to that edifice, I passed Stump Cross Cottages that were knocked through to create one larger residence. This was the scene at the front with a compass design over the bricked up doorway and Halloween gourds on the table...
In the estate village of Wentworth, I took pictures of two churches named Holy Trinity. Below is what remains of the old church that was superseded in the 1870s by the bigger church in the next photo. This was funded by a member of the Fitzwilliam family - William Thomas Spencer Wentworth-Fitzwilliam, the 6th Earl Fitzwilliam. He and his wife Lady Frances had fourteen children. His vast wealth was derived almost totally from coal mining though he never raised a pickaxe himself.
Back in Elsecar, I spotted this magnificent residential building basking in the October sunshine - Fitzwilliam Lodge. It was built in the mid-nineteenth century to accommodate single men who were coal miners in the nearby pit. More recently, it has been converted into single unit apartments.
Along my way, I spotted this tantalising sign nailed to a telegraph pole and it has already given me an idea for tomorrow's hideously unpopular post. You might be able to guess what is stewing inside my thick skull...
Its lovely round there, I love popping into Elscar Heritage Centre. Only up the road from me. Great photos.
ReplyDeleteI plan to visit the heritage centre soon. It is many years since we went there.
DeleteLovely photos. I looked up Wentworth Woodhouse and it has more than 300 rooms. Can you imagine the cleaning crew required just to keep the house clean? Not to mention how many bathrooms would be required.
ReplyDeleteThe house fell into disrepair but now it seems to be on its way back. It had the longest facade of any country house in Europe. A room for every day of the year.
DeleteOkay, you've got me curious as what tomorrow's post will be. It's good that some of these buildings have been repurposed. Here buildings are of wood so they knock them down.
ReplyDeleteI hear that you have a few spare trees in Canada.
DeleteThe only folly I've ever seen here in Canada is one in a local botanical garden run by the University of Alberta. I'm sure there must be others here and there, given our British heritage, at least in the 19th century.
ReplyDeleteTo be able to fund a folly... it proved that those wealthy noble families did not pay the taxes they should have done.
DeleteFascinating. Set me off on many Wikipedia rabbit-holes, one of which even had me in the Wonderland of Jacob Rees Mogg (whose mother-in-law was the last heiress to half of WW), not to mention the Herveys of Bath. Also a great digital imaginary quasi-drone swoop of Elsecar in its C19 heyday.
ReplyDeleteWaiting to see which utopia you settle on. The one where mineral rights were owned by the state rather than landed magnates and were exploited for the benefit of all? The one where global warming was not triggered by an exponential increase in the extraction and exploitation of fossil fuels? Or a place and its people which, according to some who lay claim to it under a different name, never existed? So many possibilities.
I know what you mean about those connected rabbit holes. It is easy to get lost in them.
DeleteThe only Utopia I know is the one that is in my head - taunting me like a carrot on a stick. Hee-haw!
I have no idea at all what might be stewing in your skull. Today's walk looks lovely.
ReplyDeleteIt is a poem.
DeleteA great day for a great walk! The "Needle's Eye" is intriguing - a doorway into "nothing". A true folly.
ReplyDeleteIt is said that Needle's Eye was built for a bet. The earl had claimed that he could drive a carriage and horse through the eye of a needle.
DeleteBy the way: Happy Birthday, Neil!
ReplyDeleteShhh! Thank you!
Delete"Shhh!"? LOL. That's a more gracious response than I got when I got in early last Thursday, albeit conditionally.
DeleteIt does look grand there. Not your typical mining village?
ReplyDeleteNo - not typical. The earliest part was built by The Fitzwilliams - complete with a canal basin and a railway coal yard. It was their fiefdom.
DeleteDid you go to Utopia?
ReplyDeleteThat's where I buy all my clothes Addy.
DeleteMaybe you walked to Utopia.
ReplyDeleteFitzwilliam Lodge, full of single young coal miners. I'm sure there would have been action.
There would have been action if you had been the live-in caretaker.
DeleteRachel Lynn Eve Grayson Goodyear. That's a lot of names for one person.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Mary Marjorie Melody Melania Moon.
DeleteYou are lucky to live in an area where you can just hop on a train and go somewhere to walk. I am envious! The photos are great.
ReplyDeleteI have been walking the surrounding areas for forty years or more and there's always some place new.
DeleteBetter Utopia than Dystopia.
ReplyDeleteIs Dystopia a bathroom cleaning product?
DeleteSo THAT'S where Utopia is?
ReplyDeleteLoved the tour, as always I love an old church and even the graveyard.
You will end up in one before too long Bob. Well, we all will.
DeleteElsecar struck me as an unusual name, so I too had to go on a digital excursion. And the Needle's Eye reminds me of portals between worlds, like in for example C.S. Lewis' books about Narnia... Did you go through it to find Utopia?? ;-)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the update on Fitzwilliam Lodge., I always wondered about it
ReplyDeleteFourteen children?! Good Lord!
ReplyDelete