Cycling in Yorkshire
10th January 2022
This bike ride is from the Interchange in Barnsley to RSPB Old Moor. It is Stage 14 of the Sustrans Slow Tour of Yorkshire.
The path has a hard, sealed surface until just before Old Moor. The ride is flat, and it's often through woods which means it's pleasant, albeit without any stunning views. The people I came across on the route were all very friendly.
The destination is RSPB Old Moor, a reserve where you can see a wealth of birdlife. It also has cycle parking and a café.
Distance: 6 miles each
way, so 12 miles there and back
Time: around 1h each way, so 2h in total
The overview map from OpenStreetMap above shows the route from Barnsley to RSPB Old Moor with a blue dotted line.
This is the ride on Plotaroute; you can download a navigation file from there.
This is the Sustrans leaflet for the Barnsley to Old Moor bike ride.
The ride starts from Schwäbish Gmund Way, outside Barnsley Interchange.
You can use the shared use pavement on Kendray Street. It takes you past a number of car shops and Machine Mart. There was quite a lot of broken glass on the pavement when I rode it.
The railway path is on the right.
There's a short ramp up to the old railway. The woods here seem to be used by local youths (or OAPS, for all I know) to eat, drink, and dump their rubbish.
At the top of the ramp, you join a nice, slightly wiggly path through the woods, alongside the modern railway (that goes south to Sheffield).
A sign says that the park on the left is an old coal-mining spoil heap. Here, you drop down to the right and pick up the trackbed of the disused South Yorkshire railway to Mexborough.
The railway ran through Stairfoot, and there was a station here.
Stairfoot Station was originally a station on South Yorkshire Railway's main line between Barnsley and Mexborough. It opened in 1851. The next line through the station was Sheffield to Barnsley, from 1854 - see the information board.
Stairfoot became a complex set of junctions and flyovers as more railways were built - the Barnsley Coal Railway, the Hull & Barnsley Railway, and the Midland Railway line between Wombwell and Cudworth.
The bike ride continues on the old Barnsley to Mexborough line, now part of the Trans Pennine Trail (TPT).
There's a railway triangle where (I believe) the Worsbrough Branch line joined the Barnsley-Mexborough line. It was a railway line that went via Worsbrough to Silkstone Common. Go straight on here.
The path goes through more woods near Wombwell, and under some road bridges.
Closer to RSPB Old Moor, there's a bridge with a swallow mural.
There are some road crossings too.
This is the crossing of Manvers Way. After Manvers Way the surface is no longer sealed, and in Winter is obvious that it makes a world of difference: the unsealed surface is full of puddles and covered in mud.
The entrance to RSPB Old Moor is on the left, over a little bridge to the car park.
When you get to the car park, turn left to the site entrance. There are a few Sheffield stands for cycle parking on your left, and more in the courtyard near the café.
Return the way you came.
Have you done this bike ride? What did you think of it?
The Barnsley to Old Moor bike ride is on the 1:25,000 OS Explorer map of Sheffield & Barnsley, number 278.
There's lots of birdlife to see at RSPB Old Moor.
On the shallow lakes and scrapes, there are kingfishers and avocets, and among the reeds are bitterns.
Barn owl boxes at Old Moor are usually occupied, which means you could see a magnificent barn owl gliding low over a meadow in the early morning or late afternoon.
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