Wednesday 12 June 2013

A Rowsley Round ...

A round [the way I use it here] means a circular walk. Most walks tend to be circular because you park your car and then you do a round trip to get back to the car ... 

I'm going to tell you about a walk from Rowsley, just along the road from Darley Dale.

We parked in Rowsley, near [but not] in the Caudwell's Mill car park and walked through the Peak Village complex. Just beyond this a [sometimes overgrown] path leads towards the allotments ... 

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

The guy who used to keep this path cleared hasn't been up to working on these paths for the best part of three years now ...

I mentioned the allotments. Well they're more chicken pens and it has to be said this is not the most scenic part of the walk.

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

 The path soon improves though as you pick your way through the wild garlic which proliferate in Springtime ...

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley  

Once you reach a road, turn left towards Beeley. Hopefully you won't have to step onto the road because there are cars parked on the pavement ...

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

A little further along there's a path that clambers up the hillside above the delightfully named Smeltingmill Brook. More wild garlic ... but also some bluebells ...

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

After passing through a number of smallish fields on the hillside we reached the outskirts of Beeley village ...

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

  We crossed Beeley Brook which runs downhill from Hell Bank Plantation ...

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  Often where there's a brook ... there's a duck ...

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 We walked up to St. Anne's Church, parts of which date back to the 12th century though it seems to be largely Victorian ...

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 There's a rather fine sculpture of a head at the doorway ...

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 Nearby, a rather sinister grotesque ...

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 Do you know the difference between grotesques and gargoyles ? Well a gargoyle always carries water ... gargoyle coming from the French word gargouille, meaning throat or gullet. 

  The churchyard was pink in part, covered in flower petals ...

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

 For some reason the light coloured gravestone at the top of the photo above caught my eye ...

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 Harry Bertram appears to have died nineteen days after the armistice was signed.

We left St. Anne's churchyard ...

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 We walked half a mile across the large field that lies between the Beeley/Chatsworth road and the River Derwent before rising up a small slope to reach the Chatsworth estate village of Calton Lees ...

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 You can always tell a Chatsworth property in this area by the blue doors and gates.

The Derwent Valley Heritage Way runs through Calton Lees so we decided to follow it back towards Rowsley ...

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley  

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley

 We passed under the redundant railway bridge on the edge of Rowsley and were back at the start ...

Rowsley~Beeley~Calton Lees~Rowsley


This walk was followed on the 25th April 2011
 
Length of walk ~ 4.38 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 140.29 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 25th April 2011 ~ 668.34 miles

  31 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was still averaging just over 4.5 miles a walk.]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap
 
 

17 comments:

  1. Always enjoy your waks Charlie. We are off for a few days on the Fife Coastal Path next week.

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    1. Thanks Jeff ... enjoy the Coastal Path. I'll look forward to seeing the photographs.

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  2. A rather pleasant walk, once past the scrap metal yard.....ummm....sorry, allotments. Lots of wild garlic, which I love the smell of. The churchyard looks lovely with all the blossom.

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    1. Yes, the junk yard did mess it up a bit. Still, it's probably the same wherever we go. There's always going to be one spot that spoils things. This is out of site to some extent too.

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  3. Poor old chickens, is all I can say about that! Next time you pass, you'll have to throw them a handful of grass to peck at, they'd love that! Oh, and poor old Gunner Bertram, he must have been amongst the last of the casualties, I should imagine.

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    1. The hens are still there and they're looking ok ... perhaps someone is taking better care of them now. As for Gunner Bertram, yes, I dare say he would have been amongst the last to die.

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  4. After the rubbish dump the walk was rather lovely,you can almost smell the wild garlic.I thought you were thrown of an allotment if you didn't look after it.The gravestone is another reminder of the futility of war.Ann

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    1. I'm not totally sure if they are allotments to be honest Ann. I think someone used to use them for vegetables ... I'm not even sure who owns them ~ perhaps it's a private owner ... who is very easy going.

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  5. Richness. That's the word that comes to mind to describe this walk, Charlie ... a richness of nature and history. Thank you for sharing it. I wonder if that poor young lad knew that the Great War had ended ...

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    1. Thank you Pet ... I wonder if any of Gunner Bertram's relatives are left. I'm calling him 'Bertram'. In fact I rather think it should be Gunner Bond and that his full name was Harry Bertram Bond. There's probably a village history book about Beeley which would tell us more. It does appear that he was actually buried in Beeley ... rather than in "some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England".

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  6. A lovely walk, Charlie. Delightful countryside.

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    1. Thank you Neil ~ glad you liked it. Have you been out walking and posted any walking blogs lately ?

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    2. I think you've seen all I posted, Charlie (although I added another comment to one). I think we're both up to date now!

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    3. I'll keep my eyes open for future blogs Neil.

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  7. Lovely walk, Charlie. I must get up to the hills again, to misquote Masefield. I have a soft spot for untidy allotments and the like, so long as they're being used!

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    1. Yes, I don't mind the messy allotment too much ... as you say, it's being used and it has been tidied up since the photograph was taken.

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  8. I am one of those allotment holders who keeps hens but not that one please do not judge me or the rest of the allotments on that one ---------from a very unhappy Rowsley allotment holder

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