Elsecar

I used to be indecisive, but now I’m not so sure. I’m quite ambivalent about antique shops, for example. When it comes to railway antiques, I feel very much at home. In more general antique centres, such as the complex at Elsecar Heritage Centre, near Barnsley - well, put it this way, I’m through there in half the time and ready for morning coffee.

There is plenty else at Elsecar. Deep-level coal mining and accompanying ironworks developed here in the late eighteenth century. Much of the industrial site is still in place, including the oldest Newcomen steam engine [for removing water from mineshafts] still in its original location, dated 1795. The heritage centre, set up to develop tourism in an area that struggled after the rapid decline of coal, has a visitor centre, museum and cafes, offers arts and crafts courses and has a range of specialised retail outlets and other services.

Elsecar Heritage Railway is the remaining section of a branch line that joined the main network at Mexborough and was built to take out the coal and iron. Opened in 1860 as part of the South Yorkshire Railway, it closed down after the Cortonwood pit ceased to operate in 1985. Reopened as a heritage line in 1994, it was re-connected with Cortonwood in 2014.

Number 14 Gervase is an 0-4-0 vertical boiler Sentinel locomotive in Kent and East Sussex Railway guise. It was pottering around on driver experience turns.

Elsecar Heritage Railway station museum was a bit short on artefacts, to be honest. I tried to think of something from the volumes of stuff in the antiques centre that might have made a difference to their own display. Then I remembered the stand-out feature during my quick circuit there in the morning. It was a giant, fully restored, 1930s neon sign of a stork advertising a draper’s shop that had been rescued from Barnsley town centre - “We supply all but the baby”. Not railway, but certainly heritage and wonderful all the same.