The train whisked me back from home to Barnsley on a somewhat greyer, cloudier day than yesterday’s bright sunshine; but still warm and breezy in a way that would help me ride NNE. So far in this cycling adventure, you just can’t fault the magic spinner for its choice of direction. Incredible luck, really!
I had a nosy around a new looking shopping complex close to Barnsley station, called the Glass Works. It was linked across the train tracks by a sleek, modern, curving pedestrian suspension bridge, and outside there was more public artwork and clever landscaping. I didn’t know the Barnsley of old; but it seems to have benefitted greatly from recent investment. The town centre has been transformed into a genuinely pleasant and interesting place to come.
The Glass Works, like a few other cool modern shopping developments I have seen in places like Liverpool and Bracknell and Edinburgh, appears to take existing street patterns and put a glass roof over them, in combination with new buildings, and the overall effect is very clever and, in my opinion, much more aesthetically pleasing than a more conventional shopping centre development. The whole of the town centre was dotted with pieces of sculpture honouring citizens and industries past and present. I think my favourite has to be the life size statue of Harold “Dickie” Bird, the legendary international cricket umpire, whose image shows him raising the finger of death, condemning another batsmen to return to the pavilion.
But now it was time to leave Barnsley. The “Barnsley Experience”, in the town hall, must wait for another day. Not to mention the market, which is famous in its own right. Always keep something up your sleeve.
The next section of the ride today was pretty forgettable. Nothing much wrong with it, you understand, but it consisted of a series of large, former pit villages in average countryside and didn’t have me reaching for my camera. I got my head down and tried to accumulate some miles, with the result that I almost cycled all the way into Wakefield by mistake. However, these things always seem to happen for a reason, and when I saw a sign pointing me to Sandal Castle, I knew it was all for the best.
Sandal Castle is a fantastic set of earthworks with a few bits of wall and a couple of old archways, plus some modern bridges and steps spanning the moat and leading to the top of the motte. It all stands in a small country park and is visible to passing traffic on the nearby M1 motorway. The lofty location is excellent, with a superb view over the Calder valley and the city of Wakefield, a couple of miles away to the north. The graceful cathedral spire showed prominently above the rooftops, alongside a less lovely but conspicuous block of flats. More distant, on the hills on the western horizon, stood Emley Moor Transmitter, looking for all the world like a Yorkshire version of Toronto’s CN Tower. The hilltop location makes it look taller and in reality it isn’t close to the height of its Canadian cousin. But it is taller than London’s Shard, so there. Yorkshire 1 London 0.
Hereafter for the next hour I found myself in mostly drab and at times unattractive villages and towns, like Normanton and then Castleford. They were trying: the pedestrianised high street in Normanton had bunting out; but it was a worn out sort of place that was never going to look pretty. The people in the cafes looked worn out, too. I’m sure I am being unkind. But I didn’t hang about.
The main road got me through Castleford as quickly as possible to a way across the River Aire, which is what brought me this way. But right next to the road bridge, above a frothy weir, I discovered a snaking, modern bridge for pedestrians and cyclists, with wooden seating and decking cleverly set into the design. It was a great piece of architecture, and would not have looked out of place in the most fancy of towns. It has won many awards since its opening in 2008, and is intended as an anchor for a bigger series of projects to reunite Castleford with its overlooked waterfront. It’s a good start. It was the subject of a Channel 4 documentary presented by Kevin McCloud (of Grand Designs) and it was as much down to the passion of the local community as anyone else that the bridge now exists.
So now, people from the three streets of back to back terraces on the northern bank can walk peacefully in to shop at what must be about the biggest Poundland anywhere, or to catch a bus or train at the modern transport interchange, and enjoy a nice sit down above the water on the way.
It was time for lunch, but I had wanted to get past Castleford first. Now I was faced with a long straight stretch of main road and no obvious food stops. I decided to chance my arm and turned off at the first opportunity into the village of Allerton Bywater. The sign told me it was a “Millennium Village” and on one side of the road, all kinds of new looking housing, again of architectural merit, began to appear. I since learned that it was one of seven villages in England that together formed the Millennium Villages Initiative, encompassing 6,000 new homes (of which 520 are here). The new homes were built around green spaces, and I saw a big group of kids out kicking a football in one of them, so I took that as a good sign. It felt positive, although after Castleford, maybe that isn’t a surprise.
I also stumbled upon an excellent lunch location, the Urban Food Hall, which was a bit like it sounds. The building was nothing special but it contained various counters of quality local produce surrounding a very convivial cafe area. I had their ploughman’s and it was nothing short of sensational, not to mention a work of art. So that worked out.
But I still had a good way to go and the day was getting on. I cycled along straight lanes that tracked the A1(M) and kept going north when it slid away to the north west. It was around here that everywhere suddenly started to look quite smart. I was tempted by the genteel bars and cafes of well heeled Boston Spa, where I crossed the River Wharfe on a narrow limestone bridge; but I had an appointment to keep at 4pm in the Vale of York, still 20 wind assisted miles away. It was always going to be tight, but I might have exactly made my rendezvous in an Easingwold coffee shop were it not for a gated level crossing at Cattal station, which I reached just as the lights began to flash. The signalman had descended from his box and was swinging the gates shut, just like when I was a child. Two trains and ten minutes later, I was released by the reopening of the gates, but my tight schedule was blown. It didn’t matter. My friend Rob had caught the bus 30 minutes out from York and we found each other quickly in this delightful little town, which looked like just the sort of place you might want to live in another life. It certainly had a fine array of pubs and cafes, which entertained us for a good couple of hours.
We were also distracted by a narrow thoroughfare. Post Office Slip is a tiny crack of a cobbled footpath in between the corners of two abutting brick houses, set at angles to one another so you can’t even see through from one side to the other. Some clever curved brickwork has created a small space out of the lower portion of one house, making it a fairly comfortable squeeze for a child, or a slim, careful adult. Rob challenged me to get my bike through. After removing the pannier and tipping it up onto one wheel I eventually managed it; but only with great difficulty. It was a bit like trying to manoeuvre a three person sofa on its end through a low doorframe. The waitress in the coffee shop over the road said she remembered fitting through on her first bicycle as a child. Perhaps a right of passage. See what I did there?
Rob hopped on his bus home and I set off on the last leg of my ride, over the bumpy foothills of the Yorkshire Moors, through Ampleforth, to the delightful small town of Helmsley. This whole area is a true pleasure to cycle and I had the lanes entirely to myself in the brightest weather of the whole day. I was almost sorry when it came to an end. Almost. But a shower and then a steak and ale pie with a locally brewed pint won the day, and when I emerged from the pub it was dark!
