Homeward bound from home ...

Many people [dog walkers in particular] walk up through a private wood to get onto Darley Hillside ... 

 Head north along the lane at the top of the wood and you will reach Lumb Lane with a bit of luck. Fork right up this to reach a bridleway on your left ...


 

A few years ago the bridleway bridge was badly damaged by a flash fllod but it has since been repaired and made safer in the event of another flood ...

You can see in the next photo that some holes have been left in the stone bridge so that if the stream below floods onto it the water can flow away more quickly.

  

We'd gone looking for bluebells and as we entered North Wood [between Northwood and Tinkersley] there were certainly plenty to be seen ...

   

Sometimes though photos of bluebells can be disappointing ... sometimes you have to be there ...



 As we walked into the hamlet of Tinkersley, assuming a handful of houses and farmhouses is a hamlet, we got a great view of Peak Tor, Rowsley ...

 

Peak Tor is the 'bump' of trees in the photo above. There are some old earthworks around the other side of this hillock. I thought they would be a couple of thousand years old, possibly more, but I've seen a report in which the Peak Park refers to the earthworks dating  from the "Anglo-Danish period".

A footpath leaves Tinkersley towards Copy Wood and Rowsley ...



There's a strangely shaped tree in the wood which always catches my eye.



 From the small private golf course in someone's garden we got another view of Peak Tor ...



 Once we'd crossed the A6 we soon picked up the Derwent Valley Heritage Way to walk through Rowsley Sidings.



 This isn't a public footpath though it is part of a long distance route !

The path eventually runs alongside the River Derwent which you can see on the right below. The wild garlic was out when these photographs were taken.

  

Beyond Peak Rail's Rowsley Station the path opens out as it passes through meadows towards Churchtown, Darley Dale. The Toothbrush, a narrow strip of trees atop Masson Hill can be seen on the horizon.

 A litle further on one tree was strangekly leafless ...



 Once we'd reached Churchtown we continued between the Whitworth Park and Peak Rail's railway line ...

  

... before heading home.
 

This walk was followed on the 2nd May 2011
 
Length of walk ~ 6.31 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 166.80 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 1st May 2011 ~ 688.54 miles

  38 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging approximately 4.38 miles a walk.]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap

Holly Wood, a melanic deer ... and the Duke of York Stone.

There are a number of places you can park in Rowsley ... though don't use the Caudwell Mill car park. Only patrons can park there !

From the village, on the western side of the River Derwent, a footpath follows a 'private road' towards Stanton Woodhouse ...

 

This path gives a great view of Peak Tor on the right ...

 

On the other side of the tor are some earthworks but nothing is particularly obvious on this side.

A little further on the path passes through Holly Wood ...

 

Since this photo was taken the mature but untidy trees in the wood have been felled and the ground replanted.

We were getting near to Stanton Woodhouse now ...



 

Stanton Woodhouse is a farm and a couple [perhaps three] houses, though it's hard to tell.

We passed through without incident though I did once have an encounter with a gentleman who obviously thought he was someone special the way he spoke to me. I was explaining that the map wasn't very clear as to where the path went at the time. We parted on less than friendly terms.

On the far side of the houses we climbed up through the fields ...



Looking back you get a good view of the Derwent valley ...

 

We passed disused Endcliffe Quarry and turned right along the lane towards Stanton-in-Peak and Pilhough ...



Where the lane forked, we took the left fork for Stanton-in-Peak, and heard something rummaging in the trees on our left. 

It was a melanic fallow deer ...

 

There's a whole herd of them in this area. The story goes that they escaped from nearby Stanton Hall some years ago and now wander around the area. I once saw five or six of them in the mist jumping a wall on Bonsall Moor, not far from Slaley. [This won't mean a lot to some of you but to local people it might ...]

We took the first path on the left that leads to Stanton Moor and which passes through a wood on its way. 





To the left of the path, where it levels out, there's a large rock [there may be more than one] and on the far side there's an impressive stone carving ...

 

As I say the path is to the left of the rock in the photo above. When you get close to the carving you can see it's a fine piece of work but at the time of the walk I had no idea as to its significance ...



 A 'Y' and the date '1826' below a crown ... well just this afternoon, after some scrambling around on the internet, I've discovered that it is known as the Duke of York Stone.
  
On reaching the Nine Ladies stone circle ...

of

... we turned sharp right and headed back towards the lane we'd left a little earlier. On the opposite of the lane a concessionary path leads towards Pilhough ...





Though a concessionary path it was obviously well used ...

 

We reached a couple of walls which looked more like the entrance to an ancient stone fort than a quarry ...



We descended the hill away from the disused quarry ...

 

and reached Pilhough. 'Pilhough' according to Louis McMeeken's enlightening Place Names of the Peak District means "place where the oats were grown".

From Pilhough you can get another view of Peak Tor, from above ...



From the lane between Pilhough and Rowsley we could see the houses of Northwood ...

 

We had our last look at Peak Tor from this lane too ...

 

This walk was followed on the 13th March 2011
 
Length of walk ~ 4.15 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 54.25 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 13th March 2011 ~ 582.30 miles
 
14 of 2011
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap