Walks from Chapeltown

Ancient woods, country park and reservoir, with Civil War history, the Kes-famous Tankersley Old Hall ruins and Elsecar Heritage Centre. A longer, facility-free section.

3 highlights: Westwood Country Park (A park with woodland walking trails, cycle routes and a reservoir), Tankersley Old Hall (The ruins of a medieval hall destroyed during the English Civil War, later featured in the 1969 film Kes), and Elsecar Heritage Centre (A visitor attraction in former Victorian workshops housing the Newcomen Beam Engine, a steam railway and canal basin)

Warnings: No facilities en route; bring refreshments. Take care crossing Tankersley Golf Course.

Walk details: Penistone Line Trail / Penistone Line Partnership (PDF).

Similar walk: Slow Ways (inc. GPX).

Disused railway trackbed and the Blackburn Valley Trail through ancient Woolley Wood, following the Blackburn Brook past old mill sites into Chapeltown.

1 highlight: Woolley Wood (An ancient woodland continuously wooded since at least 1600, noted for its hornbeam trees and the locally uncommon Hawfinch)

Walk details: Penistone Line Trail / Penistone Line Partnership (PDF).

Some beautiful scenery along the way; excellent views over the fields near Chapeltown. A pleasant, quiet route that does a good job joining up green spaces (parks, woodland, cemetery and fields) with only a few roads between, through varied Sheffield suburbs. It has steep sections, many steps and muddy field paths and with uneven steps in Hartley Brook Dyke. Joins up green spaces including Burngreave Cemetery and woodland; good public transport links at both ends so you can start at either. Shops at Ecclesfield in the final stretch. Extensive woodland.

Lunch: Shops and a chip shop with outside seating along the main road at Ecclesfield.

Warnings: Steep sections, steep and uneven steps (notably in Hartley Brook Dyke), and muddy field paths; some road crossings without lights (Herries Road, the A6135) need care; kissing gates and narrow barriers throughout.

Walk details: Slow Ways.

A mostly flat, well-surfaced walk on towpath, old railway cycle track and pavement and following the Don and the canal through a green corridor between industrial sites. A few unsurfaced but compacted sections and some steps; one significant climb early on. Follows the Trans Pennine Trail along the canal. No services on route. Rotherham Central station building is notably impressive.

Lunch: No services on the route.

Warnings: A major road crossing on Meadow Bank Road needs care; use the pelican crossing as the pavement runs out beyond the residential area. The route also negotiates subways and level crossings beneath the M1 at Tinsley.

Walk details: Slow Ways.