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 ... 

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.



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

 

 

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 ...

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 ...



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





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



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



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



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



 Nearby, a rather sinister grotesque ...



 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 ...



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



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

We left St. Anne's churchyard ...



 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 ...



 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 ...

 



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




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  

Rowsley and Beeley ~ a new walk for Teashop Walks in the Peak District.

With the teashops at Elton and Youlgreave closing since the original book came out five years ago I had to find some replacements nearby. Not surprisingly I plumped for Caudwells Mill and so had to plan a walk from Rowsley.

From the Peacock I walked up Church Lane and took the muddy, messy path that passes under what used to be the railway line running up to Buxton ...

   Picking my way through the mud and slurry [I'm avoiding a particular word for those who are faint of heart] things got better as I got further away from Rowsley. A vandalised waymark reminded me that I was following the Derwent Valley Heritage Way ...



 When I got to Calton Lees, a Chatsworth Estate village, I noticed this sign on a gate I passed through. I had seen no cows or calves though ...



 It might put some people off I would have thought.

I was then in the Chatsworth Estate village of Calton Lees. You can always tell which houses are owned by Chatsworth as they are painted this colour blue ...



Once I'd got past the garden centre and crossed the old stone bridge I walked across the large field towards Beeley.




  Further on in the field [it's a big field] I passed these old Derwent Valley Water Board features. I assume they are for inspection purposes or perhaps to let out any gases ?



I looked back towards Chatsworth ...



... I said it was a big field. 

After crossing the road I walked through the churchyard in Beeley. I've never been in the church here and hardly in the churchyard ...



In Beeley there's a strange, stone structure that baffles me. I half thought they might have been stocks but I don't really think so.

Any ideas ? 



From Beeley I headed across the fields towards Rowsley, crossing this footpath that runs uphill towards Burntwood quarry as I went.



Date of walk ~ 29th December 2009

Length of walk ~ 4 1/4 miles

Total since 1st September 2009 ~ 122 miles