Driving lessons in Moorends

Moorends at a glance

• Postcode district DN8, which falls within the Thorne and Moorends ward of the City of Doncaster.
• Just over a mile north of Thorne town centre, linked to it by Marshland Road and King Edward Road.
• Home to roughly 5,500 people, according to a 2016 council estimate.
• Built largely to house the miners of Thorne Colliery, which stood next to the village.
• On the edge of Thorne Moors, close to where South Yorkshire meets East Yorkshire and Lincolnshire.
• About two metres above sea level, so the village is almost completely flat.

Before the colliery was sunk, this was mostly farmland with a handful of houses. Coal production at the pit ended in 1958, the headgear came down in August 2004, and the site has been a solar farm since 2015. What remains for a learner driver is a compact village of twentieth-century streets with one main road running through it, and a market town with motorway links just to the south.

How lessons progress from Moorends

Starting on the side streets

First lessons use the residential roads that branch off the bus route, such as Kents Gardens and Gainford Road, or the streets around Newfields Avenue at the Thorne end of the village. They give you room to learn moving off and stopping without a queue behind you. Streets of this age were not designed around car ownership, so you also get early practice at judging the gap beside parked vehicles.

Marshland Road and the bus loop

Marshland Road is the spine of Moorends and carries the First 387 and 388 buses to their terminus at the Winning Post stop, by the Grange Road junction. On the way to the terminus they loop through Wembley Road and High Hazel Road before coming back via Northgate and Micklethwaite Road. Learning to wait behind a bus at a stop, or let one out, starts right here. Term-time mornings add parents around Marshland Primary Academy.

Into Thorne and out to the main roads

From Marshland Road you continue south along King Edward Road into Thorne, past Thorne King Edward Primary, and on to the busier streets of the town centre. Later lessons head out along Selby Road, which is the A614, to the six-arm roundabout at junction 6 of the M18. That is where lane discipline and planning start to look like test standard.

Pick-up points in and around Moorends

We usually collect learners from home. If another place suits you better, these work well:

• Marshland Primary Academy on Marshland Road, which is handy for parents learning to drive around the school day.
• The Winning Post bus terminus at Marshland Road and Grange Road.
• Trinity Academy on Church Balk in Thorne, the secondary school with a sixth form, for students who want a lesson after classes.
• Thorne North station, the closest railway station to the village, on the line between Doncaster and Hull.

If you live at the southern end, near the boundary with Thorne, see our page on driving lessons in Thorne for the streets there.

The route to Doncaster's test centre

Practical tests are held at Heather Court on Shaw Wood Business Park (DN2 5YL), on the Armthorpe side of Doncaster. That is around eight miles from Moorends in a straight line and further by road. Getting familiar with the roads near the centre is part of preparing for test day, so we cover the drive in lessons.

One option goes through Thorne to Selby Road and joins the M18 at junction 6, heading south past the M180 interchange at junction 5 and leaving at junction 4. Learners can use the motorway with an approved driving instructor in a dual controlled car, so this is a sensible later-stage lesson. The other option avoids the motorway: Kirton Lane out of Thorne into Stainforth, then Broadway through Dunscroft to the A18 at Dunsville and Thorne Road through Edenthorpe.

The test lasts about 40 minutes, with roughly 20 minutes of independent driving to a sat nav or road signs. Read our guide to the Doncaster driving test before your date.

Lessons we teach in Moorends

• Manual driving lessons in Moorends, with clutch work around the buses on Marshland Road and hill starts found on the bridge approaches in Thorne.
• Automatic driving lessons in Moorends, a good fit if you want to learn around the school run or shifts.
• Beginner driving lessons in Moorends, beginning on the side streets off the bus route.
• Intensive driving courses in Moorends, set after a free assessment drive and built towards a booked test.
• Refresher driving lessons in Moorends, for licence holders who want to tackle the M18 or the Tudworth roundabout again.
• Nervous driver lessons in Moorends, where the village's flat, compact layout makes a gentle start easy.
• Motability driving lessons in Moorends in automatic, dual controlled cars.
• Mock driving tests in Moorends, marked on the DVSA sheet with a written debrief.

Your instructor and how to book

Our instructors are all DBS checked and most are DVSA approved driving instructors (ADIs), and every car has dual controls and full insurance. You can choose a female instructor or a male instructor. Bogdan teaches manual and is calm and patient, while Nick puts a lot of weight on hazard awareness and understanding why things happen on the road.

Lesson costs and block bookings are on our prices page, and our guide to driving lesson prices in Doncaster explains what affects them. You can see feedback from other learners on our reviews page. Ring 07402 034084 or message us on WhatsApp to arrange your first lesson.

Questions from Moorends learners

Is Moorends part of Thorne?

Moorends is its own village, but it shares the civil parish with Thorne and both are run by Thorne-Moorends Town Council. For driving lessons the two work together: the village gives you the early streets and Thorne gives you the town centre and the motorway links.

Do all my lessons stay in Moorends?

No. The first few usually do, because the side streets suit early practice. As you progress, lessons move into Thorne and out to the A614 and the M18, and later towards the Armthorpe side of Doncaster where the test centre is.

How far is Moorends from the driving test centre?

The test centre at Shaw Wood Business Park is roughly eight miles from Moorends as the crow flies. You can reach it through Thorne and down the M18 to junction 4, or on local roads through Stainforth and Dunscroft towards Edenthorpe.

Can I learn in an automatic in Moorends?

Yes. We teach in both manual and automatic cars. An automatic licence restricts you to automatic cars, so read our guide to choosing a manual or automatic licence if you are undecided.