Walk · South Yorkshire

The Silkstone Waggonway

Silkstone · S75 4JN
N 880 YD
2.5MILES
1h 20mON FOOT
85mCLIMB
Linear — plan the returnSHAPE
Off-road 90% 10% shares tarmac with cars
Field & moor path 45%Lane & track 45%Road with traffic 10%

Our drawing of the route — the shape of the walk, not a navigation aid. Carry OS Explorer on the hill.

Starts at
Silkstone Cross, by the church in Silkstone village, S75 4JN S75 4JN
Finishes at
Pot House Hamlet and Barnby Basin, on the Cawthorne roadLinear — plan how you get back
Parking
Free on-street parking around Silkstone Cross and on High Street; there is no car park in the village and the streets are narrow. Pot House Hamlet at the Cawthorne end has its own visitor parking for
Directions to the start →

The line of a horse-drawn waggonway begun in 1809 by the Barnsley Canal Navigation Company to carry Silkstone coal down to Barnby Basin at Cawthorne, now a walking and cycling route of about two and a half miles. Many of the original stone block sleepers are still in the ground along it. The route passes Nabs Wood and the Huskar memorial to the twenty-six children drowned in the pit there in 1838, crosses the A628 and runs on through Silkstone Fall woodland past the scout camp. It starts at Silkstone Cross in the village and finishes at Pot House Hamlet on the Cawthorne road, which has a cafe.

THE SMALL PRINTBarnsley Council's borough-wide dog fouling and control PSPO, in operation from 1 April 2025 for three years, applies along the whole route: remove the faeces, carry and produce the means to do so on request, and put the dog on a lead when an authorised officer directs. Dogs are excluded from fenced children's play areas signed as such and must be on a lead in every Barnsley cemetery, which matters here because the route passes Silkstone churchyard. The fixed penalty is £100. Barnsley has no general lead order, but the middle section runs between grazed fields and crosses the A628, so a lead is the sensible default there.

House rules, decoded

Off-lead OK
Livestock — leads on
REGION · SOUTH YORKSHIRE
GRID · 53.5480, -1.5635
SOURCE · HTTPS://WWW.BARNSLEY.GOV.UK/MEDIA/1XBBDLXV/PSPO-DOG-CONTROL.PDF
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