Conisbrough

By The River Don at Sprotborough 

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 refer 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 Sprotborough where I ordered a refreshing pint of bitter shandy before carrying on between The Don and Sprotborough 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

from Yorkshire Pudding https://ift.tt/HhqlGem