The Derwent Valley Heritage Way is a 55 mile walk from Heatherdene [a car park at the southern tip of Ladybower Reservoir] all the way down the Derwent valley to Derwent Mouth [where the River Derwent flows into the River Trent].
It's a varied walk full of interest though some may say that the scenery becomes slightly less appealing the further south you go ... see what you think in the series of blogs to come.
I started off following the route on the 9th January 2011, nearly two years ago ... and I still haven't finished it, though I haven't got that much more to do. That's the way of things for me I'm afraid.
I started off from Severn-Trent's Heatherdene car park where an impressive carved wooden seat sits outside their toilet block ...
I soon saw my first waymark ! How many more of these would I see I wonder ?
At the southern end of the path that stretches away from the car park I crossed the A6013 and leaned over the wall to see how much water was flowing into the Ladybower overflow that day ...
We can all see that there was none.
After crossing the reservoir we turned south and soon picked up the old railway line that is now the Thornhill Trail ...
There were some good views across the valley towards Bamford Edge on the far side ...
At the southern end of the Thornhill Trail, beside a Quaker Meeting House ...
... we noticed some community gardens !
The stonework over the entrance to the Meeting House indicates that it was once a meeting house for something very different ...
... the Derwent Valley Water Board.
In fact it seems that although the building is used for Quaker Meetings there is a Quaker Community there too.
Even though we were moving away from it, we still had some great views of Bamford Edge ...
After walking on the edge of a couple of fields we passed under the railway line ...
... and walked through the grounds of High Peak Garden Centre to reach the A6187.
We turned left along this road and left the Derwent Valley Heritage Way to walk south-east along the Mytham Bridge road to reach the main road near Bamford railway station. Here we walked up through the village of Bamford itself.
Have I mentioned that my walks are sometimes not like other people's ? This may be because other walkers probably don't use as many roads and lanes as me. Ah well ... we love looking at other people's houses [we really do].
We left the main road near the top of the village [somwhere between the two pubs] and walked up what is shown as Bamford Clough and Leeside Road on my OS Dark Peak Map and The Clough on Google Maps.
I did say that we "walked up what is shown as Bamford Clough" didn't I. Well initially it was a gentle enough climb ...
... though I think you can see from the photo above that it was pretty steep.
It got steeper ... and rougher ...
In fact, it got even steeper and rougher ... and slippery too ...
We were glad to take a few breaks to admire the view towards Win Hill ...
Then the track [which is in fact a road] got bumpy too ...
We passed one of the five sculptures on the Bamford Touchstone Sculpture Trail. This one represents 'Air' ...
All the way up this very steep track I had been concerned that we might have met something coming down ... a 4x4 or some motorbikes perhaps.
As we got near the top of the track we noticed a very poignant plaque beside the track ...
Feeling tired and rather subdued we finally reached the top of the track and turned left down New Road with Bamford Edge above us on our right. On the roadside we passed an interesting old stone fencepost though it wasn't being used quite as it would have been used in the past ...
As we descended we had Win Hill away to our left all the way ...
At the bottom of the hill, on reaching the A6013 we turned right and retraced our steps back to the car. An interesting and sometimes taxing walk.
This walk was followed on the 9th January 2011
Length of walk ~ 5.6 miles *
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 10,8 miles
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 9th January 2011 ~ 539.85 miles
3 of 2011
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap
