Elsecar

The Elsecar Heritage Centre near Sheffield is somewhere we visit occasionally if we have a couple of hours to kill in the city.  It's a bit of a sod to get to (more so now they've redesigned a couple of roundabouts, apparently to vastly increase the likelihood of road traffic accidents), but when you get to the actual place it's rather nice. 

I was there with Younger Child, killing time whilst waiting for Amy and the two Other Childs to finish a narrowboating trip with the Scouts at Wakefield, so with no particular plan we wandered around the museum and the paths near the railway.

The railway itself is a bit of an oddity; a former colliery line which has been preserved, so heavy on the industrial locomotives (two generations of Sentinel above, vertical boilered steam loco and later diesel), but a short line... except it should be a longer line, a big chunk is out of use waiting for the level crossing to be signed-off as safe for use.

After a stroll along the side of the old canal and the railway, we returned to the preserved colliery buildings for a mix of photography subjects, some nature shots of the surprising varieties of flowers around the site, and some of the industrial archaeology.

After we'd exhausted the amusements of the heritage centre, we went over to the adjacent park, where Younger Child entertained herself trying to give some of her blackcurrant juice to the very tame ducks.

Not a bad way to spend a day, and somewhat unexpectedly, another shot from the day published (as with York the day before, they were very much sent off on the off-chance someone might like the pics).

Not directly related, but this is from a little earlier in the year, a pic published from the New Years trip to the Black Country Living Museum.  As with Elsecar, it shows the sort of thing I tend to get published these days, the less 'mainstream' subjects.  Whilst everyone else is rushing around photographing "Flying Scotsman" I do rather prefer going after these smaller locomotives and ex-industrial subject matter...  And yes, this is me unashamedly blowing my own trumpet.