Our next stop is Adwick le Street, a short distance up the line from Bentley. Whereas Bentley now feels very much like the suburb of Doncaster that it has become, Adwick le Street retains more of a rural village feel, at least around its historic centre. Its distinctive name is derived from Ermine Street, the great north Roman routeway that once ran from London to Lincoln and York, and which is also known as the Old North Road. Confusingly, it also now goes by the name “the Roman Ridge”, but is not to be confused with the series of earthworks sometimes known by the same name of which Wincobank Hill Fort – we which we encountered back on the Meadowhall walk – may form a part.
The village’s railway station is named simply Adwick and opened in 1993, the year after Bentley’s station. Like that station, it was opened on the site of an older station, which opened in 1866 as Adwick-le-Street and Carcroft, before changing its name to Carcroft and Adwick-le-Street in 1880. It closed in 1967, and the new station is located slightly south-east of the original location, which is still marked by the presence of the original station building. On leaving the current station via Church Lane, this building can be seen by peering over the high side of the road bridge as it crosses the railway line. From here, turn left along Church Lane and then right at a junction (still following Church Lane) to enter the old village centre. This is dominated by Adwick le Street’s oldest building, the Grade II*-listed Church of Saint Laurence, which has parts dating from the twelfth century. Like most old churches, it has required restoration over the centuries, twice during the nineteenth.
The Church of Saint Laurence
After passing the church, turn right along Village Street, taking an optional detour to explore the park on the left-hand side of the road. This pleasant local park has a bowling green and children’s playground, and also includes Adwick le Street Memorial Garden, which is home to the village war memorial. Continue along Village Street, passing the Foresters Arms, the obligatory village pub which was built at the start of the twentieth century on the site of a previous tavern named The Plough. After this, the road bends left and becomes Fern Bank, shortly passing the architecturally modest Adwick le Street Methodist Church on the right. Stay on Fern Bank, which soon bends right and becomes Red House Lane. The next section of the walk follows this for about three quarters of a mile, and is one of those slightly irritating lengths of uninspiring road walking sometimes required to make a walk circular. The lane is at least lined with hedgerows, and we shortly pass Red House Cemetery on the right, a small isolated cemetery of the type one finds on the outskirts of villages whose dead have eventually become too numerous for the churchyard.
After passing the cemetery, care should be taken as the pavement disappears and the road tends to be slightly busier with traffic than one might expect. Fortunately, this section of the walk soon ends at the A638 (a.k.a. the Great North Road), although unfortunately this is a wide dual carriageway with a central reservation lined with crash barriers of the sort that interrupts many a rural walk and requires a slightly convoluted route in order to cross safely. Thus, we turn right, then cross over and turn left to reach a roundabout, but just before this, we turn right again and cross straight over, then follow the road (which is still the A638, but became Wakefield Road at the roundabout) a short distance to a crossing point, finally turning left to reach the other side. The road thus navigated, we continue straight ahead along a footpath which bears left to reach Rockingham Way, and then cross straight over and then follow a bridleway that follows the line of the aforementioned Roman Ridge.
The bridleway runs through an archway of tress for three quarters of a mile until it reaches Ridge Balk Lane, and the continues on the other side to reach Green Lane. Here, turn left to enter the Woodlands estate. Like Bentley New Village, Woodlands is a model village designed and built in the early twentieth century to provide housing for the miners of Brodsworth Colliery, but it is on a somewhat grander scale and constructed to a more coherent design than its relative. This has gained Woodlands conservation area status, with many of the individual houses Grade II-listed. Like most mode villages (and for that matter many post-war housing estates and new towns) it is built along “garden city” lines, with each house having a respectably sized garden, and the roads trimmed with green verges. Having entered Woodlands, immediately turn right off Green Lane to follow The Crescent, soon reaching All Saints Church, built for the people of Woodlands between 1911 and 1913 by Charles Thellusson of Brodsworth Hall. Whilst it lacks the quaintness of St. Laurence’s Church, it makes up for it with grandeur, a looming edifice of red brick with a tall spire that on a clear day is visible from Doncaster.
All Saints Church
Walk past the church and then turn left, before turning right again to follow Central Avenue. Take the next left-hand turn along The Park, before bearing right to follow a path diagonally across Woodlands Park, a large open space dotted with trees that was originally another provision for the people of Woodlands. On reaching a road (still The Park), turn right and follow it straight ahead before passing through a stile to follow a path between trees, shortly passing Woodlands Park Club on the right. This occupies a large house named Woodlands that was built during the eighteenth century, and after which Woodlands Village was named. Continue straight ahead past the club, then bear right through another stile to reach the path running around the edge of Highfields Lake. This delightful body of water was built for owners of Woodlands (the house, rather than the village) and now forms the centre piece of Highfields Country Park. Turn right and follow the path antic-clockwise, turning left at the end of the lake and climbing a short flight of steps to reach the Great North Road once more.
Turn left and walk past the roundabout, then cross over to the Highwayman public house. We are now in Highfields, a separate mining village but one which – unlike Adwick le Street – has been entirely subsumed by twentieth century housing and is barely recognisable as a separate village in its own right. Turn right, then left again to follow Doncaster Lane, and follow this for nearly a mile, passing the unassuming St. Joseph and St. Theresa’s Roman Catholic Church on the left on route. Continue to follow the road as it bends right, passing Adwick le Street Town Hall on the left. This handsome building is a former rectory, and is currently used as offices by a housing company. Just after passing Park View on the right, turn right along a public footpath and follow it across a field, then turn left as it runs along the field edge to cross a footbridge over a stream (which may in fact be the mill race of Adwick le Street’s former water mill, now a private dwelling off our walk route). On the other side of this stream, the footpath turns left; follow it until it climbs steps to end at Church Lane, then turn right to return to the railway station.
From Adwick le Street, the Wakefield Line continues on towards the city that it is named after, but for now we return to Swinton to continue exploring South Yorkshire before heading further up through the West Riding. And from Swinton we proceed along a different branch of the Wakefield Line, to visit a trio of neighbouring villages in the Metropolitan Borough of Barnsley…
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