Below Fitzwilliam, the Wakefield Line splits into two, with one branch continuing to Thurnscoe and the other to Adwick le Street, both of which we visited on our tour of South Yorkshire. As a result, the next two stations on our route – one on each line – are only a mile apart on foot and the next two walks very briefly intersect. Our first stop is at Moorthorpe on the route to Thurnscoe. Moorthorpe is a small village that may have been occupied since at least the Iron Age. It is mentioned in the Domesday Book, and its name derives from the Old Norse for “farm on the moor”. It was basically a farming hamlet until the Industrial Revolution, when it expanded due to the opening of the South Kirkby Colliery; as a result, most of its surviving buildings of interest date from the nineteenth century or later. It adjoins the larger (if still modest sized) town of South Kirkby, which Moorthorpe Railway Station was really built to serve, and which this walk also includes. South Kirkby was also in existence at the time of the Domesday Book, having originated as a Saxon settlement, and like Moorthorpe it grew considerably when South Kirkby Colliery opened in 1881.
Moorthorpe station opened in 1879 as part of the Midland Railway and North Eastern Railway’s Swinton and Knottingley Joint Railway. The original station building became derelict in the nineteen nineties after a short stint as a public house, but happily was restored in 2010 and became home to a successful café. Unhappily, this subsequently fell afoul of the COVID-19 Lockdown in 2020 and the building – whilst still in fine condition – is currently unoccupied.
Moorthorpe Railway Station
We leave the station onto Minsthorpe Lane and turn right to cross the bridge over the railway track, then turn right again to enter Moorthorpe Cemetery. Walk straight across this, passing the cemetery chapel in the middle, a small red-brick affair that like so many cemetery chapels we have encountered has seen better days. At the far end of the cemetery, turn left along Barnsley Road, passing St. Joseph’s Catholic Church and then the former Empire Theatre, both on the left, and the former Miners’ Institute – now a martial arts academy – on the right. The Empire Theatre was opened in 1912 and largely rebuilt in 1919, when it reopened as the New Empire Cinema, designed for both film and variety performances. Like many former cinemas, it eventually became a bingo hall (in 1968) and finally closed in the nineteen-nineties, eventually being converted into flats in 2006.
Just past the theatre, turn left to the see the Moorthorpe Empire Working Men’s Club, and walk a little further along Barnsley Road to view the Moorthorpe Hotel. Otherwise, turn right along Langthwaite Lane, which immediately bifurcates; continue straight ahead past a public house called The Little Un, continuing to follow the lane as it becomes a path and bends left past a balancing pond. Like most balancing ponds, this was presumably created to alleviate flooding and has since been colonised by a variety of wildlife, including – inevitably – ducks. Continue to follow the tree-lined path, shortly crossing a footbridge over the railway track and then passing Broadway filtration ponds on the right. Cross a wooden plank bridge over Langthwaite Beck, and on reaching a grassy open area continue straight ahead along a tree-lined path between houses to reach Broad Lane. Here, turn right and follow the lane for approximately a mile, before turning right along a signed footpath across two fields, crossing Langthwaite Beck again in the process. When the path ends at Mayfields Way, turn right and follow this to its junction with Stockingate.
Follow Stockingate to a three-way junction, with South Kirkby Miners Statue in the middle. Another of the West Ridings mining memorials, this one is topped by a statue by Barnsley sculptor Graham Ibbotson and the marble plaques on the base are inscribed with the names of miners who died at the South Kirkby and Frickley Collieries. Bear right past it (still on Stockingate, which forks here) and then turn left to visit the South Elmsall and Moorthorpe War Memorial. Continue past this, passing a duck pond on the left, to reach White Apron Street. Turn right here and follow the road a short distance to a crossroads; the Church of All Saints is on the right.
Church of All Saints.
This handsome Grade I-listed church is the oldest building on the walk, dating from the thirteenth century (with later extensions and alterations) and built from magnesian limestone. Turn left at the crossroads, passing the Church House pub on the corner, and follow Northfield Lane, staying on it when it bends left at a small roundabout. At the next roundabout, turn right along Hague Park Lane and continue straight ahead until it ends at Hague Park Drive.
Continue straight ahead along a footpath that runs next to a wood, then crosses a field, enters another wood (in the middle of which it crosses a stream) and then crosses a second field to end at Avenue Lodeve. Turn right and follow this, then just before reaching a road junction on the right, turn right and follow a signed footpath past the two South Kirkby Colliery fishing lakes. After passing the second lake, turn right and follow a path past South Kirkby Wildlife Pond, then bear left at a junction to climb a path that leads up the former colliery pit stack, now the centrepiece of South Kirkby Woodland. This entire area is of course another of the region’s former collieries transformed into public open space; landscaped following the closure of a colliery in 1988, it is a now a nature reserve managed by Wakefield City Council.
When the path forks, bear right and then turn right again at the next junction to walk downhill. At the bottom, turn right and then bear left to reach Carr Lane. Turn right and follow this, passing a former Primitive Methodist Chapel on the right, shortly followed by South Kirkby Marsh nature reserve on the left, which is basically a large pond providing a home to numerous waterfowl including a gaggle of geese. Stay on Carr Lane until just before it ends at Barnsley Road (passing the Travellers Inn on the right), then turn left and follow a path across Barnsley Road Recreation Ground. When the path ends a T-junction, turn left, then right and then right again to exit the park on Clock Row Avenue. Follow this to Barnsley Road, then turn left and continue straight ahead at the junction with Minsthorpe Lane to return to the railway station.
From Moorthorpe, we now finish our exploration of this corner of the City of Wakefield from the aforementioned station roughly a mile to the east, in Moorthorpe’s other neighbouring town of South Elmsall.