Our next railway station stop is at Silkstone Common for a walk that includes the adjacent village of Silkstone. This pair of villages is away from the towns and cities of South Yorkshire, but whilst they may be in the countryside, the area’s coal mining heritage still dominates. Silkstone is an old settlement, referred to in the Domesday Book as Silchestone and the name comes from the Anglo-Saxon for “Sylc’s farmstead”, but most of the history evident on this walk dates from the nineteenth century when mining became an important local industry.
Silkstone Common Railway Station opened in 1855 as Silkstone Railway Station and was closed in 1959, before reopening in 1983. On this occasion, the original station master’s house survived and is now a private residence at the end of the platform (as at Dodworth, only one platform now remains to serve the single-track line). Walk to the end of the platform and leave by crossing the railway, exiting via a wooden gate onto Cone Lane, then turn left and follow the road to its junction with Ladyroyd. Here, we turn right and continue down Cone Lane as it becomes a track, and when this ends we bear right through a gate and follow a public footpath downhill across fields, crossing a bridge over Lindley Dike to reach Blackergreen Lane.
We now turn right and follow the lane past Blacker Dam on the right, a former mill dam that is now used for fishing. Just after the road bends left, turn right and climb over a stone stile to follow a footpath across a field to a gate into a wooded area, then continue to follow the path, past a cricket ground on the right, eventually reaching Barnsley Road and the village of Silkstone. Turn right, then cross over and turn left to follow High Street, shortly passing two public houses – The Bells and The Red Lion – on opposite sides of the road. On reaching the junction with Martin Croft on the left, take a brief detour along it to visit the former Ebeneezer Chapel, opposite which is the impressive Silkstone War Memorial, which was erected in 1922.
The Church of All Saints.
Return to High Street, shortly passing the Grade I-listed Church of All Saints on the right. This is another of South Yorkshire twelfth century churches, although it was remodelled in the fifteenth. It was restored in the nineteenth century and is locally nicknamed “the minster of the moors”. In the churchyard, close to the road, a memorial to the Huskar Pit Disaster can be seen. This was erected to commemorate the fifteen boys and eleven girls who died when Huskar Pit was flooded during a torrential thunderstorm on 4th July 1838, in one of the darkest episodes in South Yorkshire’s coal mining history. After visiting the church, we return to High Street and continue straight ahead at a junction, where it becomes Silkstone Lane. Proceed along this lane, ignoring a bridleway on the right, and when the road bends left bear right along a tree-lined track running between fields. Ignore all turn offs until the path enters a small wood, then turn right and walk through the trees to Silkstone Waggonway.
Silkstone Waggonway was a two-and-a-half long narrow-gauge industrial wagonway built in the 1790s to carry coal from the mines in the Silkstone valley to the Barnsley Canal’s terminus at Barnby Basin. It is now a public footpath and many of the original stone block sleepers can still be seen along its route. We follow Silkstone Waggonway all the way back to Barnsley Road, then turn left, passing Pot House Hamlet on the opposite side of the road.
Pot House Hamlet.
Pot House Hamlet is a former industrial site built on the site of a seventeenth century glassworks, the remains of which are a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Largely restored, the buildings are now occupied by a variety of small businesses (including a plant nursery) and a café, which makes a great place to break up the walk with lunch. Just after passing Pot House Hamlet, turn right and follow a signed footpath up through Silkstone Fall woods to another branch of Barnsley Road. Here, we cross straight over and continue to follow the path uphill, eventually crossing the railway line that brought us to Silkstone Common and leaving the woods to follow another tree-lined track between fields to Hall Royd Lane.
Turn right and follow the lane to Silkstone Common; just before the lane reaches the railway track, it turns left and ends at Ben Bank Road. Turn right here and then just after passing Hall Royd Walk on the left, turn left and follow a public footpath, which crosses Hall Royd Walk and then runs through the edge of a playground. Stay on the path, which turns right and eventually ends at a road, then turn left and then right along this, then bear right and walk along a narrow path to a track. Turn right again and follow this to House Carr Lane. Turn left here and just before the road passes under a former railway bridge, turn left along a path to reach the disused railway on top of the bridge, which was once another “mineral line” built by the South Yorkshire Railway to transport coal, and which now forms part of the Trans Pennine Trail. Take a detour further along this to the left to see another memorial to the Huskar Pit disaster, which was built on the trail in 1988. Otherwise, turn right and follow the trail to Knabbs Lane and turn right to follow it back to the railway station. Before catching the train, an optional detour can be made slightly further along the road to visit the Station Inn on the right and the Methodist Church on the left.
From Silkstone Common, we now finish our tour of South Yorkshire at the next station along the Penistone Line, at the town that gave the line its name.
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