Tag: Journey

The last two days of the #GreatCentralRouteBack were wet, but we were nearly home.

Day 14 was a wet day in Wharncliffe Woods. The TPT covers some of the route of the former GCR and ocassional signs are seen like the carving on the old station at Finkle Street.

The lovely green woodlands were dripping on me and the birds were singing. In the spirit of Pentecost, the language I wish I could speak is ‘bird’. It’s so diverse and a total joy. My reward for a wet walk was a barn full of piglets.

Day 15 was the day that saw us home to Longdendale. We had a short damp walk from Longsett to Oxspring on the TPT, downhill as Bob says. I can confirm that the tank ramp and turntable site are still in situ: not so lost engineering.

We crossed the old GCR bridge over the TPT on the Padfield Main Road and it was welcome home. I’ve walked 225 miles since we left on 22nd April.

From my remembered bible: And I shall live in God’s house forever.

Rest

From a friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees, Longdendale, 6th June 2022.

We are getting nearer. In fact we are nearly back to places we know well. In 1998 we moved up to Sheffield as a family and there are places in the #GreatCentralRouteBack on days 12 and 13 that featured in family life from that time.
Day 12, I started walking at Inkersal on the Transpennine Trail, albeit a section I’d not walked before. Bob drove up to Rother Valley County Park and walked back towards me. It was a lovely walk, shady and pleasant, sometimes beside sections of the Chesterfield Canal which is under going restoration. At Rother Valley we ended with a well earned ice cream.

Day 13 was a ramble round Sheffield. We lived in the city for 10 years until 2008. Visiting again some things seemed the same while some had changed. There had been changes to some road junctions and bus services but the ammont of wayside rubbish and the bored faces of the shoppers at Meadowhall seemed much the same. As for Meadowhall itself, there were definitely more doughnuts.
We went to Darnall to visit a section of the GCR still in use although it now runs into the Sheffield Midland Station. The highlight of the day was a seam hauled service going to Buxton which followed our local train into the station: Bahamas 45596.

We walked over to the site of the Sheffield Victoria Station where the restored war memorial to the workers of the GCR who died in WW1 is now situated.
A short walk to The Wicker, we found an interesting Ethiopean resturant for lunch. Back through the city centre on foot, we caught a tram there to Meadowhall where we picked up a few bits and pieces to take for an unpromptu tea with friends.

Former railway lines come in three categories on the OS map: disused, dismantled and disappeared. To be fair the last isn’t a category. It’s just what seems to have happened to much of the GCR route: it’s no longer visible on the ground. Those are the lost sections which we have not been able to visit on this #GreatCentralRouteBack. But thankfully there have been other sections to revisit and enjoy.

It’s good to be back on more familiar ground. I am certainly tired and I’d perhaps forgotten just how tiring long distance walking can be day after day. Not many more days left of the #GreatCentralRouteBack now.

From my remembered bible: those who want to build the kindom of God should rember that, like ploughing, looking back is of limited use.

God grant a quiet night.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees, Sheffield, 4th June 2022.

On Day 10 of the #GreatCentralRouteBack we were going backwards to Ruddington. This is not uncommon on the heritage railways I’ve been on. Even on the Great Central Railway at Leicester sometimes the engine was running backwards. We were going backwards, back towards Loughborough although not that much.
Ruddington is an interesting village. We started at the Nottingham Heritage Transport Centre which is a mighty hotch-potch of locomotives of all sorts, abandoned boilers and other parts, buses and coaches in various states of repair and a miniature railway. There was also quite a lot of bric a brac and excellent all day breakfasts.

We walked back into the village to visit the hand frame knitters museum, which was very interesting. It seems that Ruddington was quite a centre for this in the 19th century. The museum still has quite a collection of the knitting frames. Looking for justice for textile workers seems to have been a significant problem then and still is now in the global context.

Walking south from the village we were back alongside the GCR, and we finished our walk in the Country Park.

On Day 11 of the #GreatCentralRouteBack we were looking back to last summer when we walked in this same area, but on different routes. I started walking at Newton on the Five Pits Trail which follows the route of the GCR or goes alongside it in places.

Both in the Hand Frame Knitting and Mining industries, whole families were involved, with both health and education taking direct hits from the working environment. Yet we seem to fail to learn these lessons from one generation to the next.

I was soon crossing the line of the Silverhills Trail which we walked last summer. Bob walked towards me from Holmewood, and we had a picnic near Williamthorpe Ponds, just before the end.
A hot day, we stopped for a cold drink at a pub in the way back, and later on, in the evening, we walked to Tibshelf for some fish and chips. I’d managed over 9 miles in the day which was more like my LEJOG 2019 average, and the best so far this year.

From my remembered bible: There is a time for everything.

For everything…. Thanks.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees, Tibshelf, 2nd June 2022.

Days 8 and 9 of the #GreatCentralRouteBack were across the centre of 2 midlands cities: Leicester and Nottingham. According to my informant it was originally called the London Extension of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway, but as it was built between the East and West mainlines the Great Central Railway seemed a better name. The route of the line also goes through the centre of Sheffield, but more of that later in the week.

On Day 8 we went through Leicester on the Great Central Way, an off road route that follows the GCR. We found a small cafe for elevenses en route. In the city centre I was also able to visit the Richard III exhibition. It makes you wonder what you might find under a car park.

On Day 9 we crossed Nottingham by tram, some of which follows the route of the GCR or crosses it. In the city centre we also visited the City of Caves exhibition, an exploration of some of the hundreds of sandstone caves that exist under the city. We could hear the trams rumbling overhead.

Unfortunately a shopping centre replaced the old station several decades ago.

Our last stop was Bulwell Forest where there was a GCR brick wall by the road side. Of such are great adventure made.

From my remembered bible: Can anything good come out of (enter name of city or town under consideration).

Song of the day: Underground, over ground, wombling free….

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees, Nottingham, 31st May 2022.

Days 5 to 7 of the #GreatCentralRouteBack was about following a track or the traces of one, not always walking. With a good map on which we had marked the course of the line we could tell when we were on it, near it or crossing over.

Day 5 I started walking at Onley Lane, South Rugby on a well maintained route called the Great Central Way. Maintained by the Wildlife Trust as a wildlife corridor it is an example of what the whole route could be. Butterflies, beetles, plants: it was just beautiful. Elegant bridges remain in place and extra oases for wildlife have also been engineered. The local Rotary Club have set up some art installations, including some sections of track, as if abandoned by Wallace and Gromit and the old Rugby Central Station getting a makeover.
I met Bob in Rugby and we had a snack in the new station. We then walked north out of the town on the next stretch of the line up to Newton Five Arches, also a Wildlife Trust site.

On Day 6 the traces of the track were less easy to follow, and there were a lot of nettles in places. Bob started at Newtown Five Arches, crossing the M6 near junction 1 (only a little more than 3 weeks since I was alongside junction 2). I started at Shawell, battling my way through the nettles to meet Bob. He carried on to Lutterworth back and forth to paths near the route of the line, while I drove to Lutterworth and walked the section north of Station Road (no station left). After that the line gets caught up into the route of the M1.

Day 7 was a different opportunity on the heritage Great Central Main Line railway from Leicester North to Loughborough Central. We had to change round the order of our days in order to travel on the GCML on a day when trains were running. It made a pleasant change to sit back and enjoy the route with steam or diesel. We made sure we sampled refreshments at each station.

Tomorrow we’ll be walking again.

From my remembered bible: My soul is restored.

Put me back on track.

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees, 27, 28,29 May 2022, Leicestershire.

Do you know the old man, who lives along the track,
I look over my shoulder: does anyone go back?
The old key is hanging on the door by a thread,
And the tune of this song is going round in my head.

These two days on the Jurassic Way, crossing back and forth over the route of the Great Central Railway are bound together by traces of what remains of that now disused line. We walk many disused railway lines and can only lament that this is no longer a working line or viable as an off road walking route of any length.

It’s called the Jurassic Way but there are no traces of dinosaurs as far as I could tell. On Wednesday, a grey day, we started at Woodford Halse. I explored the community woodland now in the middle of the former junction. Bob walked onto Charwelton. I caught up with him at Church Charwelton where a 12th century Church stands out in the meadows. We negotiated access to the key from its worthy guardian.

Having completed the section of the route for the day we enjoyed some cake at Draycote Water.

For the second day on this part of the Great Central Railway route (Thursday), Bob started at Charwelton Packhorse Bridge, a trace of a much older route in these parts. I started at Staverton and walked towards him. He was able to follow some of the line of the Catesby Tunnel, its airshafts still marching across the landscape. I was walking through arable land: oats, barley and wheat, and crossing some challenging stiles.

Eventually I reached the track bed of the Great Central Railway just south of the Catesby Viaduct. Not officially on a footpath, this right is reserved for the sheep currently in residence, but I do a reasonable impersonation myself.

Bob and I walked back to Staverton together: we then went back to Draycote Water for lunch.
I love to winkle the traces of history from the landscape. There are more sections of the Great Central Railway ahead, some reused, some abandoned.

From my remembered bible: The Shepherd One leads me in peaceful paths.

May I leap one stile at a time!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees, Woodford Halse to Staverton, 25-26 May 2022

In this blog I will celebrate the first two days of the #GreatCentralRouteBack from Marylebone Station. No, we didn’t walk it all. First there was a train to Marylebone which was originally the London terminus of the Great Central line. The first train ran in 1899.

We got off one at West Ruislip to walk back to Denham via Ickenham. Bob grew up with this railway quite literally a back drop to his childhood as it ran at the bottom of the garden. We had a few HS2 works to contend with which meant one of the footpaths was rerouted. Eventually we met the Grand Union Canal at Bridge 182 in the Colne Valley Country Park, a part of the #GrandWalkOut I was walking exactly a week ago. We stopped for lunch at the Denham Visitors Centre.
Our afternoon route was not railway related as we drove along the A40 into Buckinghamshire across the Thame Valley. There’s was something of a mix up over our B and B so we carried onto Winslow where we found room at the Bell Hotel, and some very nice pies.
Day two began at Quainton, named after Queen Edith, consort of Edward the Confessor. It has a lovely windmill and a 15th century preaching Cross. The windmill was celebrating the 100th birthday of Dorothy which proved relevant later.

We went onto Quainton Road Station where the Buckinghamshire Railway Centre resides. The station is closed to main line traffic and Network Rail is currently taking up the track.
It is in Railway Centres like this that the forgotten corners of history are celebrated: a steam car made in Birmingham, in 1951, to run on diesel which was used on Egyptian National Railways until 1962 is awaiting restoration as is Janice, a large steam engine that, made in 1954, worked on South African Railways. There’s much more of course, piles of this and that which is bound to come in handy some day but which should definitely not be wasted.
There were plenty of opportunities to explain our #GreatCentralRouteBack one of which resulted in a conversation with a man who’s father had been a porter at the station ‘back in the day’. He turned out to be Dorothy’s grandson.
He also told us quite a bit about the local section of disused line Bob had hoped to walk. So I set Bob down in Westcott village whilst I went onto Ashendon, where I visited the church, and then to the junction of the former line on the way to Wooton Underwood. I did some rooting around whilst Bob walked there, a period of the day which was more than a bit showery and included a thunderstorm.

We moved onto a different line. The former line between Princes Risborough and Thame is now a Sustrans route called the Phoenix Trail. Bob dropped me near Hinton Crossing and I walked to Towersey. The skies were dramatic and thunder rumbled around but the sun came out again again by the time I’d reached my destination.
There’s more than a tinge of celebration about the Rule of St Benedict, I’m glad to say. These are the bits I like: what psalms to include in worship, how often to shout Alleluia. There’s so much to celebrate in life. Happy Birthday Dorothy and all those celebrating today!

From my remembered bible: God’s voice is like thunder, breaking the trees, and making calves jump.

Come on and celebrate!

From a Friend of Scholastica and a Member of the Lay Community of St Benedict.

Janet Lees, unexpectedly resting at Winslow, 24th May 2022.