Mother Cap for the first time ...

 We walked away from the National Trust car park at Longshaw towards Fox House, a delightful pub just inside the Sheffield boundary ...

We were greeted almost immediately with a rather ominous sign ...

 

From Houndkirk Road you get a great view of Carl Wark, with Higger Tor rather dwarfing it behind ...



 Houndkirk Road is an ancient road [I don't know how ancient] and heads northward towards the western side of Sheffield ...





A mile or so along it it we could see some of the buildings of the city beyond Houndkirk Hill ...



 There was still plenty of moorland between us and Sheffield though ...



 It was at this point that we left the old road and turned westwards to eventually cross Burbage Brook ...



 The path we were following took us between Higger Tor and Carl Wark. In the photograph below Higger Tor rises above us as we cross the sometimes boggy ground ...



 Carl Wark is an Iron Age hillfort dating back four to four and a half thousand years. Here's part of the man-made stone wall that forms part of its defences ...

The wall must be between eight and ten feet high.

The hills to the west stretched away into the distance ...



 We turned south, past the remains of a millstone ...



 There are some unusual gritstone landmarks up here, besides the man-made ones ...



  Then we reached Mother Cap which merits a few photographs ...







 A few paces beyond there's the head of a creature in stone ... with a smile and two eyes [or are they nostrils]. It looks like the head of a tortoise to me ...



  Then on the floor, with the sun's ray coming in at a low angle I noticed this stone. Whether the markings have any significance ... whether they're ancient or modern I don't know. 



  What we could age more easily were the two or three millstones lying near a disused quarry below where I stood. I was reading some blurb at Caudwell's Mill just a day or so ago and it said that when metal grinders/rollers became readily available in watermills the need for millstones ceased almost overnight. This is rather supported by the fact that there are so many millstones lying around in this part of the Peak District ... still awaiting removal or collection ...



 We passed through silver birches ...



 ... and I found another of the Peak Park 'poetry benches' ...



 The nearby car park only dealt in credit cards ...



 Surely there's something to be said for a Ranger with a high powered rifle being positioned nearby ?  OK ... I jest ...

On the far side of the A6187 we followed the ancient sunken lane which runs back towards Fox House and the Longshaw Estate ...



 We crossed Burbage Brook again but this time by a much more modern bridge ...



 On the National Trust's Longshaw Estate further work has been undertaken clearing rhododendrons ... work that the Derbyshire Dales Group of the Ramblers were involved in 15 years or more ago ...



 I think this ant forms part of a Trail of some sort ...



 I never tire of taking photographs of Carl Wark with Higger Tor behind [as you may have noticed over the years] ...



 The sun was setting quite quickly as we neared the car ...

 

This walk was followed on the 27th April 2011
 
Length of stroll ~ 5.02 miles [very approximately] *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 147.09 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 27th April 2011 ~ 675.14 miles

  33 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging just over 4.45 miles a walk.]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap

Froggatt and Grindleford

We started from the National Trust's Hay Wood car park and followed the path along Froggatt Edge. It was rather a dull, cloudy day ...

... and there weren't many walkers about.

Some of the gritstone boulders up there are really intriguing ...



A mile or so along this path another path cuts back sharply to the right, below the Edge. Here discarded and unfinished millstones lie around on the ground ...



We walked down the hill into the village of Froggatt and walked along Spooner Lane. Beside the lane there were these fresh green leaves starting to push through ...

 

Spring was only just starting to make its presence felt and looking back [from July] everything looks so bare.



 The wood betwee Froggatt and Grindleford is delightful at any time of the year.



There's a pond part way through the wood and, somewhere, I have a slide showing me swinging across the pond ... no, really.



Shortly after this we took a path that rose up the hillside to see where it went ...



... it dropped back downhill to join up with the path we had left ten or fiteen minutes later.

We reached the Peak and Northern signpost at Grindleford Bridge.



We were on the way back by now and turned eastward, uphill, towards Hay Wood car park. On the way up the hill another signpost gave us an option to go one way ... or the other ...



The climb up the hill continued though I don't think it was quite as bad as this photograph might suggest ...



 Date of walk ~ 6th April 2010

Length of walk ~ 4 miles

Total walked so far in 2010 ~ 59 1/2 miles

Total walked since 1st September 2009 ~ 189 1/2 miles

13 of 2010

Up Winyard's Nick ...

My Beloved felt well enough on Saturday to go for her first walk in over a month. The Peak District is what she favoured, rather than Nottinghamshire, and I was pleased to accommodate her.

We started from the car park behind Longshaw Lodge and walked in front of the lodge, with Higger Tor and Carl Wark to our right ...

We walked down the path where we'd uprooted some rhododendrons a few years ago with the National Trust. Sheep were grazing in the [fairly] early morning sunshine ...



 Padley Gorge was busy with as many photographers as walkers ... well, nearly. Twisted and misshapen oak trees push through discarded rocks ...



Some of the oak trees were more misshapen than others ...



  A millstone lies in the path, though how many notice is debateable ...



Downhill of the millstone a fallen tree lies against another ...



From a few yards away we noticed it wasn't as smooth as it should have been ...



Hundreds of coins had been hammered into it ~ it's a wishing tree. Offer up a coin and make a wish ...



This is where I could make some reference to going from one extreme to the other, from pagans to Roman Catholics, but I won't.

Padley Chapel has a connection with the Catholic martyrs Nicholas Garlick and Robert Ludlam [or Ludlum] who were hanged, drawn and quartered in Derby near St. Mary's Bridge. There's more here ... http://padley.catholicweb.com/index.cfm/NewsItem?ID=196768&From=Home ~ I wish people would stop saying 'hung, drawn and quartered' though. 



 If I've ever looked at the ruins of Padley Manor, it must have been a long time ago. I don't remember seeing them before ...



We were following the track from Padley Chapel towards Greenwood Farm and the A6187 beyond that ...



We were tempted to have a coffee stop at these discarded, unfinished, millstones ...



There are some good views from this track across the Derwent valley, towards Offerton Moor and Hathersage ...





We turned right on the A6187, forking left on the B road after 60 or 70 yards walking up the road beside Whim Wood [shown as Whim Plantation on the OS Map]. Then we entered the wood before we turned northward towards Winyard's Nick ...



That's the nick, above, between the two outcrops. We had a coffee stop on a rock just this side of the nick ... beside a couple of small plastic bags full of dog muck. Why do people do that ? They collect the crap in a bag then they leave the bag on the moor !

We moved on.

In the nick we got a view over the other side ... of Burbage Edge and the moorland stretching down to Toad's Mouth ...



Walking down the path towards Toad's Mouth another path joins from Carl Wark. At that point there's a plain wooden seat with this plaque on it ...



We re-crossed the A6187 and crossed Burbage Brook [assuming that's what it's called, once it's off the moor] ...



Beside the path leading back in the direction of Longshaw Lodge there's a newish seat, starting to fade now, which a passing walker was pleased to pose on for me ...



All that remained was to get back to the tearoom at Longshaw.

As we went the sun was slightly more prominent ...



There was some disappointment when we got to the tearoom ~ they had just sold the last of the homity pie. Still, they were selling five of my books ... and they were still available.

Date of walk ~ 17th October 2009

Length of walk ~ 5 1/2 miles.


Total since 1st September 2009 ~ 49 1/4 miles