The first stop along the Wakefield line from Doncaster is a Bentley, once a mining village and now a suburb attached to its parent city by a strip of houses south-west of the station. Although Bentley is mentioned in the Domesday Book, it neither looks nor feels like a particularly old village, having only really achieved any significance when Bentley Colliery opened in 1906. This resulted in Bentley New Village being built on the edge of the tiny existing agricultural one (which mostly consisted of a handful of farms) in order to accommodate the workers. Even the oldest buildings in the old part of the village only date from the nineteenth century. Bentley is also one of those places that probably aren’t widely visited by walkers (let only tourists), although a fair few probably pass by on the various footpaths that run through the area. Now largely a commuter village for people working in Leeds, Wakefield and Doncaster, Bentley is, by and large, merely innocuous.
Nonetheless, like most places it is not entirely devoid of either history or interest, although its railway station isn’t especially noteworthy. Opened in 1992, it is a basic affair with simple waiting shelters and no other facilities, built on the site of Bentley Crossing, a small wooden halt that opened in 1914 and closed in 1943. For those wondering what the difference is between a halt and a station, then the answer is a pedantic one: “halt” was a term used by some (but not all) railway companies for an unstaffed station with no goods facilities, and according to some authorities only includes those stations where trains stop on request, of which a handful still remain in the United Kingdom, albeit not in Yorkshire.
From the station, we turn right along Church Street (crossing the level crossing if starting the walk from Platform 1) and follow it as it becomes Cooke Street, shortly passing the Bay Horse Inn on the right. This large and welcoming red brick public house is in the only one we shall pass on the walk. Soon afterwards, turn left into Bentley Park, continuing straight ahead to reach the pavilion. The park is perhaps Bentley’s proudest feature, opened in 1923 and developed using money from The Miners’ Welfare Fund. The pavilion, which is solidly built out of ferro-concrete, opened in 1931 and is still in use today. The park has lost some of its original features (including a lily pond) but has kept others such as the bandstand and remains a well-maintained and pleasant public space, especially following its Heritage Lottery Funded restoration in 2011. On reaching the pavilion, turn left past the afore-mentioned bandstand, eventually exiting the park on Park Road.
The Bay Horse Inn
Turn right and follow Park Road, which soon becomes a metalled track running between fields before climbing a rise and bending right to follow a former railway line, a branch of the defunct Hull and Barnsley and Great Central Joint Railway, which once served Bentley Colliery. The path eventually passes under a road bridge carrying Askern Road to enter Bentley Community Woodland, a 232-acre woodland on the site of the colliery, which closed in 1993. Like Kiveton Community Woodland, which we visited on the Kiveton Park walk, this is managed by the Land Trust and is one of those public spaces that one suspects only exists because the threat of subsidence makes the lane unsuitable for building on. We will be visiting other examples in the future, and one thing that they all have in common is a feeling that they have yet to be fully established: Bentley Community Woodland includes woods, meadows and a wetland, but whilst it is pleasant it still looks designed and vaguely artificial, lacking the unruly wildness of an ancient woodland or empty moor. Such places have an element of tidiness that feels inauthentic, albeit not to the extent of those blandest and most contrived of green spaces, golf courses.
In spite of that, this section of the walk is quite enjoyable. As we turn right and take the second left turn along a path, it climbs gently uphill between trees; at the next two junctions bear left, then turn sharp left past a cast iron sculpture commemorating the woodland’s past as a colliery. Here, the park offers its greatest reward, a panoramic view of much of the surrounding countryside. Having savoured this, continue straight ahead, ignoring the first path off to the right and then taking the second, which loops around a large copse of trees. At the next junction, turn sharp left, following the path to Marsh Lane, where there is another entrance to the woodland on the left. Turn right, then take the second left turn and follow the path past Pit Lake, which was designed by local schoolchildren to resemble a foot. This incongruous design is best seen in aerial photographs; from shore level, the lake is the park’s finest feature, thanks to its abundant waterfowl. Keep following the path until it ends at a junction, then turn right and follow the next path as it curves right. On reaching another entrance to the woodland, turn left through it to reach the end of The Avenue.
Bentley Community Woodland
Follow The Avenue for nearly a mile, shortly passing between Bentley Colliery Cricket Club on the right and A.F.C. Bentley football ground on the left: we are now passing through the New Village built for the colliery workers more than a century ago, along the model village lines exemplified (far more grandly) by Saltaire near Leeds, which we shall visit on a future walk. When The Avenue ends at Arksey Lane, turn right and follow it to a roundabout, then turn left along Finkle Street to head back into the “old” village. Soon, we reach the Grade II-listed village pinfold, one of Bentley’s oldest surviving buildings, which is believed to date from the early nineteenth century. Bear right along a path past this to reach Mill Gate, then turn right and follow the road to High Street. Here, turn left, shortly passing St Peter’s Church on the left. This church (like the pinfold, Grade II-listed) was built in 1891 to 1894 in Gothic Revival style and is probably Bentley’s most handsome building. Cross the road and continue along High Street, crossing the bridge over the railway, then turn right along Broughton Avenue. From here, we conclude the walk by weaving between houses, immediately turning right along Stockbridge Avenue, then following it as it bends left and becomes Austerfield Avenue, turning right along an alleyway at the end to reach Fern Avenue. Finally, we follow this as it becomes Holly Avenue, and then turn right to return to Bentley Railway Station.
With the Bentley walk concluded, we now proceed further along the Wakefield line to our next stop, which is only a little further away and still in the Metropolitan Borough of Doncaster...