Twenty Two of us gathered in the long lay-by between Dronfield and Unstone. This was a great turn-out because it had started to rain and the forecast for the rest of the morning was unpromising. Richard and Phoebe were our walk leaders and after they had given us a brief description of the walk we set off down Half Acre Lane. After a short stretch we took a left turn and made our way to the Callywhite Lane entrance to Frith Wood. I’ve decided to use Frith wood for this write-up, even though my heart is saying Firth Wood.
After walking the full length of Frith wood we emerged onto Firthwood Road (no apologies for using Firthwood Road because that’s what it’s called 🙂 From there it was a short hop to Owler Car Lane which we followed until we reached the entrance to the woods. Atmospheric walks through Owler Car Wood, Cook Spring Wood, Nor Wood and Long Wood put us well on our way to Hazelbarrow Farm. We then followed a good track leading us to Bochum Parkway named after Sheffield’s twin city in Germany. Within a few minutes we arrived at St James’ Church in Norton. The church dates back to 1180 and we have always found them to be very welcoming. The church serves tea and cake on Tuesday mornings and by prior arrangement they had agreed to extend their hours to accommodate us. The homemade cakes were delicious.
The walk wasn’t quite finished however, as we needed to wend our way through Graves park to meet the bus at the far end of Charles Ashmore Road. The 43 and 44 arrived within minutes to ferry us back to Dronfield.
Many thanks to Richard and Phoebe for planning and leading this walk.