The Unofficial
Website
Parks
Country Parks
Heritage Woodlands
LNRs
Other Green Areas
Other Nature Reserves, Woodlands & Wetlands
Recreation Grounds & Playing Fields
RIGS
SSSIs
Urban Parks
For an industrial town Rotherham is full of green areas (oh all right a lot of them are derelict plots). The country parks have been created from
old pit sites or surround old reservoirs and all of these are popular and well-used. The urban parks, by and large, are nothing to write home about
and as such parks do, they suffer from the ills of the age - druggies, yobbos, vandalism, and under age drinking. Clifton Park, near the centre of town, is a very nice place but even
here there seems to be a lack of money to properly maintain certain areas.
"We are getting a campaign up to save Herringthorpe Playing Fields and Leisure Centre. Any one want to help?" Email
pippacmeataol.com (remember to replace at with @).
Other green areas tend to suffer from other forms of yobbism - indiscriminate shooting with air rifles, bikie boys, burnt out cars, dumped rubbish, and that scourge of the 21st Century, the four-wheel driver who thinks that he has a perfect right to drive wheresoever he pleases. (I know you meet them on the roads as well but at least you know what to expect there). Don't let any of this put you off - it does not put me off. Just shout very loudly when somebody is doing something you think they should not be - from long experience I have noticed that even hardened yobbos will shear off sharply from a good Yorkshire gob like mine.
Not all these places have been visited, certainly not recently and have not yet been reviewed. Please practise patience probably for quite some time, but it is my intention to take the dog and the camera and let you have my opinions, if you haven't had enough of those already.
For any of those amongst you paying close attention (Ah there are some out there! ) you may have noticed that one area can have a number of different categories. For example Anston Stones Wood is both a site of Site of Special Scientific Interest and a Local Nature Reserve. Then we have Blackburn Meadows which is a nature reserve but does not appear to have Local Nature Reserve Status. Confused? I am! Then we have woodlands classed as Heritage Woodlands which means that the area has been woodland for at least four hundred years, and then we have other woods which do not have this classification so are unprovably old or appallingly modern.
Some of you have asked if I can provide maps so that you can look at the areas covered. Sadly at this point, I have to say that all the maps I have looked at are copyright, and that there is a charge to have then displayed on your site. You must know by now that I am as Yorkshire as they come and if I can't get "owt for nowt" then I don't use it. I shall look into linking to suitable mapping websites.
Rotherham Borough council owns and manages 43 woodlands as well as wetland areas. I found this list somewhere or other; in time I may get around to visiting those I've not already walked around. Threat or Promise!
Barley Hall - Engine Pond, Little Common Lane - South Norwood
White Quarry Plantation - Great Bank
And isn't this just the most wonderful name - Doodiddles Quarry
All I can say is that, if I get around to visiting these woods and reserves and commenting on them, you or I or the both of us are going to be very bored indeed.
Contact:-
Rotherham Countryside Team, Third Floor, Norfolk House, Walker Place, Rotherham, S65 1AS Tel. 01709 822453 Email andy.leeatrotherham.gov.uk (remember to replace at with @).