History - South Yorkshire Way

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So how did the South Yorkshire Way come about?

 

The two routes of the South Yorkshire Way were created by Doncaster writer, film-maker and broadcaster Andrew White, (right) who first had the idea for a circular walk around the county in 2009, after being disappointed by the numbers of people who walked in South Yorkshire.


As the editor of Walks Around Britain, he put his thoughts about the possiblity of creating a new long-distance walking trail in South Yorkshire on the website.  This was picked up by BBC Radio Sheffield's Rony Robinson, who invited Andrew onto his mid-morning programme to talk about the new trail - which at this point was still very much a basic route.

 
 

With the interest of the Radio Sheffield audience, Andrew began to work more deeply on the route, with a view to launching it in April 2014 - the 40th anniversary of the formation of South Yorkshire as a county.


So began months of work with maps and GPS units as well as many trips to walk the proposed route linking up existing public footpaths and bridleways to make a 171 mile trail around the outskirts of South Yorkshire.  Andrew tried to remain within South Yorkshire and to stick to the boundary as much as possible - as well as routing through places of interest.  The first draft route was finished in January 2014.


However, in planning the circular route, there were many places of interest in the centre of the county Andrew simply couldn't bring into a boundary walk - so he decided to devise a further trail to take in those central places - and the Central route was born - which weaves a path through the towns and city of South Yorkshire - and meets the Boundary route at the east and west.




 
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