OUR ALBERTS, THEN ON TO BARNSLEY

Our first stop today is the village of Blacker Hill, just north of Hoyland. You can see our route on this map. Here we could once find the wonderful Royal Albert ("Our Alberts"), which I first visited as a Ward's pub. It's seen here in 2003, when it sold Wentworth Ales. Sadly it has since closed, a great loss.

Here's a much earlier photo of Blacker Hill and the Royal Albert.

Blacker Hill was once home to a bus scrapyard. A former Wilts & Dorset Bristol LS is awaiting the torch.

Several former Doncaster Corporation buses met their end here.

We're in an area once littered with coal mines. Beside the GCR line was Rockingham Colliery.

To the north was the freight only line through Worsbrough, seen here through the camera lens of the late Ben Brooksbank. Electrification is imminent, but steam was still in use at both ends of the train (Creative Commons License).

There were several level crossings on the line through Worsbrough. Here's an early view of the one at Worsbrough Dale,

And this is Glasshouse Crossing signal box in the late 1970s.

Barnsley's trams had termini at Worsbrough Bridge and Worsbrough Dale. This is the latter.

The Red Lion pub, at Worsbrough Bridge, seen here in an old photo, is still serving decent beer.

The Edmunds Arms at Worsbrough is a Samuel Smith's house.

Into the Barnsley suburbs now, once reached by this Barnsley & District bus, seen at Kingstone.

The Keresforth Hall was a pub in Kingstone, serving some real ale. It has since closed and become a private residence.

We pass through an area called Pogmoor on our way into Barnsley, noting Yorkshire Traction Leyland Leopard no. 375 on service.

Now we've arrived into Barnsley town centre. We start with the rail facilities serving the central area. The surviving station is what was called Barnsley Exchange, until the 1960s, a single platform affair. The loco shed, seen here in LNER days, was alongside.

At the south end of Exchange station was Jumble Lane level crossing and here, in 1967, Yorkshire Traction rebuilt Leyland Tiger no. 787 is waiting for the gates to reopen (Les Flint).

Maybe that crowd was here to see "Flying Scotsman", though this is a later occasion (1969). No. 4472 is about to depart from the new southbound platform.

Here's Jumble Lane signal box in 1980, with a Cravens DMU in the station.

Some more DMUs at Barnsley.

A "Pacer", in brown and cream colours, calls at the station, before the buildings were rebuilt.

An earlier railbus, a class 141, at the rebuilt Barnsley station in 1994.

At the north end of the station was Barnsley Station Junction signal box, of L&YR design.

Both signal boxes shown here were replaced by this new affair.

Today's services are provided by Northern Rail.

Barnsley's other station was called Court House and was situated at height over the bus station, within spitting distance of Exchange railway station.

58075 is seen inside Court House station, on the shuttle service to Cudworth (Ben Brooksbank - Creative Commons License).

The Court House itself was adapted to become the station offices. Long after closure of Court House station, the building became a Wetherspoons pub called the Courthouse, though they've since sold it on.

That's where I'll leave you for now. Next time, more about Barnsley's beer and its buses.