This walk will offer a micro-navigation between the River Dearne and the rewilded area which now flourishes on the former ‘muck stack’ (spoil heap) of Park Mill Colliery, in Clayton West near Barnsley. Rather than walking to cover ground and arrive elsewhere, it will take time to focus on staying in this particular place, and to consider the natural-cultural-economic entanglements which continue to produce it. Through techniques of close looking and careful listening and by walking with those who care for and about this place, participants will attend to the human-altered, post-industrial landscape of an area which has been defined by its history of mining and textile production. We will make our way slowly, paying close attention to the water, rock, soil, fungi, vegetation, insects, birds and animals we encounter, and always considering the effects of human activities, past and present, seen and unseen.

The River Dearne rises near Birdsedge in West Yorkshire and flows some thirty miles to its confluence with the Don at Conisborough in neighbouring South Yorkshire. Its course, much modified to serve industrial processes, was long polluted by discharge from mines, by sewage from workers’ housing built with little infrastructure, and by the caustic washing agents and dyes used in woollen textile production. What then of the biodiversity here? What of the human and more than human life? What thrives and what cannot?

Meeting point: Woodman Inn car park, 1 Wakefield Rd, Clayton West, Huddersfield HD8 9QB

Requirements: Nothing required.