Adventures around Wakefieldwith PlusBus
Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore, two of the twentieth century’s most celebrated sculptors, were both born in Wakefield. This vibrant city celebrates its arty, industrial, historical, religious and rhubarb-growing heritage with numerous attractions that include award-winning museums. PlusBus adds unlimited bus travel around West Yorkshire to your train ticket and can take you to the epic Yorkshire Sculpture Park, back to the stylish Wakefield Hepworth, the Coal Mining Museum and to lots of other places too. It could take weeks to explore them all. Here are a few of the many things you could see in a day or two. Thanks to YSP for the photo above © Jonty Wilde.
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1. Yorkshire Sculpture Park
Covering 500 acres of hills, lakes, woods and meadows, grazed by sheep and long-horned cattle, the Yorkshire Sculpture Park (YSP) was once a grand eighteenth-century estate. Now it’s home to nearly a hundred sculptures, including works by Hepworth, Moore, Andy Goldsworthy, Elizabeth Frink, Antony Gormley, Damien Hirst and lots of others. There’s a dynamic exhibition programme too with changing shows in the various galleries and chapel.
- How do I get to YSP by bus? If you’re arriving by rail, you can add a PlusBus ticket for a few pounds and travel anywhere in West Yorkshire all day. The bus stop for YSP is just a couple of minutes’ walk from Wakefield Kirkgate station: walk ahead a few steps and turn left along Park Street. As soon as you get to the main road, turn right to find stop K5.
- Bus 96 leaves here every hour (not Sundays), takes half an hour to reach YSP Look out left as the bus sets off for the Chantry Bridge with its chapel in the middle, above the River Calder. As the bus drives in through YSP’s main entrance, you can glimpse Jonathan Borofsky’s Molecule Man 1+1+1 in the trees on the left, soon Robert Indiana’s LOVE (Red Blue Green) and several other works. The bus drops visitors near the door of the YSP Centre with its galleries, shop and cafe.
- The YSP site is huge and takes hours to walk around. There are free mobility scooters and wheelchairs (subject to availability). You could start with the Gardens and Hillside, just behind YSP Centre. There are sculptures here by Hepworth, including the iconic Family of Man and the large bronze Squares with Two Circleswith its reflective surfaces changing with the seasons and round windows looking out onto fabulous West Yorkshire views.
- Further out towards the lake, don’t miss Deer Shelter Skyspace by James Turrell with its meditative view of the cloudscape overhead. Hepworth loved the idea of “large works in a landscape” with room to breathe and said: “this has always been a dream in my mind”.
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2. The Hepworth Wakefield
When you’re ready to head back into town, the bus leaves from the same place you arrived. If you’re interested in exploring the wider countryside around YSP, crisscrossed with long distance paths, you could get off the bus at the next stop near the war memorial and Sycamore Lane in West Bretton. From here, it’s a pleasant five-minute stroll down Park Lane to the junction of two paths, one of them running along the edge of YSP over the Cascade Bridge and the other heading uphill through former parkland.
- Otherwise, stay on bus 96 back to Wakefield and hop off at the bus stop on Bridge Street near the Hepworth Gallery. Walk a few steps on from the bus stop and you will see the striking gallery on your left, rising above the stylishly-planted Hepworth Garden, which is free and open to all.
- Inside the Hepworth Wakefield are more sculptures by Barbara Hepworth and Henry Moore among works by all kinds of other artists too, including Roger Fry, Ben Nicholson, Jacob Epstein, Patrick Heron. There are changing exhibitions too that have recently featured ceramics from the 1930s to the present day or an exploration of the Yorkshire landscape as a crucial influence on Moore and Hepworth. Don’t miss Hepworth’s plaster and aluminium prototypes, her original work bench and tools, and the river views from the gallery windows.
- There are cafés in the gallery and garden and, once those have shut, head next door to the Distillery Bar. Open daily from 11am in a converted red-brick mill and big courtyard, this gem of a bar serves local ales, great cocktails, gin, vodka and more. It’s a nice place to wait for a train from Wakefield Kirkgate, which is less than ten minutes’ walk.
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3. National Coal Mining Museum of England
To explore a different side of Wakefield’s rich heritage, head to England’s National Coal Mining Museum and explore the old Caphouse Colliery. Here you can find out more about all aspects of the mining industry from safety lamps and pit ponies to the 1984 miners’ strike.
- How do I get to the Coal Mining Museum by bus? Bus 232 takes about half an hour and runs to the nearby Reindeer Inn. From here, it’s about five-minutes’ walk. You need to walk a few steps back up Old Road and turn sharp left before you get to house number 184. Follow this lane, cross the A642 and you’ll see the museum ahead.
- Hourly bus 232, heading for Huddersfield and passing the museum on the way, leaves from Stop D outside Wakefield’s Westgate station. If you want to go to the museum direct from the railway, it’s best to get off at Westgate. If you’re coming from the Hepworth in the Kirkgate area, you’ll need to catch a bus or walk through the centre of town past Wakefield cathedral.
- Regular buses 105, 106 and 196 all run from near Wakefield Kirkgate to the bus station, which is closer to Westgate. Wakefield Museum is nearby, where you can see all kinds of local artefacts, from a medieval ring found in Sandal Castle to a football hand-stitched in the Slazenger Factory. This area near Westgate Station is also full of pubs and cafes like family-run coffee shop and bakery, Vanilla Bean.
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And more...
There’s so much to do in the area, you’ll need to come back! For more information, take a look at Experience Wakefield. And for further car-free adventures in West Yorkshire, check out our guides to Leeds and Bradford.
