Best walks from Silkstone Common

Silkstone Common Station to Penistone Station

This section generally follows the Trans Pennine Trail as the railway climbs up to and through Oxspring Tunnel into the Don Valley. Leaving Silkstone Common station, the route passes the Silkstone Waggonway mural and joins the Trans Pennine Trail along the formation of the former Worsbrough Branch Line, with a blocked-up tunnel in the cutting where an underground coal-seam fire once raged for years. It passes the impressive old building of Knabbs Hall Farm and the farm buildings at Far Coates before descending to Willow Bridge, a Grade II listed packhorse footbridge over the River Don, built in the late 1730s and once part of an important trade route from Derbyshire to the West Riding textile towns. The walk climbs steeply to Oxspring, then picks up the Penistone Line's old Don Valley route on the upper Don section of the Trans Pennine Trail. Near the former Barnsley Junction it passes the Penistone Railway Turntable and a World War II tank ramp before reaching Penistone station; the nearby Penistone Viaduct famously lost two arches in a 1916 collapse.

6km.

One field on the route can be boggy.

Highlights: Willow Bridge (A Grade II listed packhorse footbridge crossing the River Don, once part of an old packhorse route to Bolsterstone).

Documented by Penistone Line Trail / Penistone Line Partnership.

Dodworth Station to Silkstone Common Station

This shorter section passes through the centre of Dodworth at Dodworth Cross, where a World War I and II memorial of a serviceman stands guard at the crossroads, then heads through Silkstone Fall Wood and along back lanes into Silkstone Common. Leaving the station the route passes St John the Baptist Church and the cemetery before entering Silkstone Fall Wood, a coppice woodland whose name reflects the traditional method of felling one compartment a year, and where evidence of early bell-pit coal mining survives. The walk runs parallel with the railway, passing a fenced pond, before climbing through the woods and reaching Hall Royd Lane. A bench here offers an excellent viewpoint towards Ingbirchworth, Hoylandswaine, Green Moor and Upper Denby, with landmarks such as Cannon Hall, the Emley Moor TV mast, the Holme Moss transmitter and the Royd Moor wind turbines visible, and the Peak District beyond. Nearby Jays Wood was planted by miners on the site of the old Hallroyd Pit. The section ends at Silkstone Common station beside the Station Inn.

4km.

Some of the walk is through woodland and around an arable field, so paths can be muddy in wet periods. Adders live in Jays Wood, so keep children supervised and dogs on a lead.

Highlights: Silkstone Fall Wood (A coppice woodland traditionally managed by felling one compartment a year, with evidence of early bell-pit coal mining).

Documented by Penistone Line Trail / Penistone Line Partnership.