For our first walk of the New Year, we began our walk from Pleasley Pit.
Pleasley in the 7th century was part of the Kingdom of Mercia and part of the Royal Hunting Forest of Sherwood. It derives its name from the Old English and probably means ‘Pleasa’s Clearing’. It belonged to the family of Sevio de Pleasley who died in 1203 and recorded in historical documents as Plesele.
Pleasley Pit was sunk in 1871 and mining operations ceased in 1983. The building has one of the few remaining working winding engines and due to the hard work of volunteers has been developed and maintained as a mining heritage site and gained an award in 2011. There is now a Café, Visitor Centre and a Museum run by volunteers.
Our 5-mile walk would take us onto the Teversal Trail, towards Hardwick Hall and onto the Rowthorne Trail. We set off with dull, overcast weather, but thankfully no rain. Minutes later Steve realised that he had left his jacket at church and with no hat or gloves either, he experienced a rather nippy afternoon’s walk. It must be mentioned though, that he never complained.
We passed a pond on our left where there were plenty of Canada geese but only one swan. We also noticed a black, water bird with a sharp beak which none of us could identify. We turned left onto the Teversal Trail, firstly walking through a wide deep cutting and the onto a steep embankment which led us to a road through a sparsely populated area where one cottage was named Norwood Lodge, another Norwood Barn and the third, The Old Granary.
We guessed this was probably an area called Norwood, but for the sake of authenticity we asked a young dog-walker and were proved right.
Over to our right, we heard the sound of a 12 bore shot gun being discharged which was repeated as we reached a pair of red, wrought iron gates where we turned right and into Lady Spencer’s Wood. A line of steep steps led us onto the long walk up to Hardwick Hall where many families with their dogs were making the most of the last day of the Christmas holidays. Hardwick Old Hall loomed with unseeing eyes above us to our left with the ‘new’ hall on our right. We continued down the estate road with signs of waterlogged fields around us and blue tits flitting from tree to tree. At the end of the road a small herd of long horned cows stood near a cattle grid, one of which didn’t seem to enjoy Steve’s sweet whisperings and backed away nervously. The Longhorn is a British breed of beef cattle with long curving horns, which originated in the counties of Westmorland, Lancashire and Yorkshire, later spreading to the East Midlands and Ireland. Their colours vary but are always ‘finched’ – with a heavy line of white along the spine, tail and underside of the belly.
We soon joined the Rowthorne trail, another old railway track which took us back to a junction of paths where we re-joined the Teversal Trail, passing the pond once again.
This turned out to be an easy walk with no stiles and no mud so many thanks to our leader, Bob.
If anyone wishes to join us, our next walk will be on Sunday 4th February when we will meet at the church gates at 12pm with a packed lunch and suitable walking gear. You will be made very welcome.
Ev Lowe