Later one morning ... in the month of May.

After reaching Cressbrook Mill as described in One Morning in the Month of May  I started on the return half of the walk. I walked uphill to reach this rather impressive memorial seat ...

 

According to a page on the Sole Society website the stone plaque reads  

"Charles Edward Solly for 8 years in charge of Cressbrook Mill.

Died 5^th January 1898 aged 33 years"

He had been the manager at Cressbrook Mill but died in his early 30s.

I've heard it said that it was placed half way up the hill so the millworkers could have a break on their way up to the village of Cressbrook. I had to make that climb too ...

 

Eventually I turned off the road onto a narrow woodland path running between dog mercury and wild garlic ...



 A track leads to Ravensdale Cottage with a view of the far side of the dale ...



 Ravensdale Cottages were originally lived in by millworkers. I always have to take a photograph here ...



 On the opposite side of the path from the cottages there is usually a spectacular display of wild garlic ...



 The lower part of Cressbrook Dale is well wooded and largely different shades of green in Springtime ...



 I passed through a stile into English Nature's reserve and enjoyed the birdsong ...





The dale opens out a little later and I spotted the first signs of lead mining in the valley ...



 Above Cressbrook Dale is Peep o' Day Cottage which you can just pick out in the photograph below. What a fantastic view they must have ...



 Before you get near the cottage though another path takes off to the left into Tansley Dale ...



 Part way up Tansley Dale I turned around to look back down into Cressbrook Dale ... 



 Many visitors to the Peak District and Derbyshire Dales [which overlap to some extent] are amazed by our walls. We like walls up here ...



 A well used path [one of a number of options hereabouts] leads across a field towards Litton village ...



 ... it leads right up to a cottage ...



 There will be some who hate the thought of a footpath being that close to their house. Well, they should never buy a cottage or a house like that because the chances are that the path was there before the house.

In Litton itself I was amused by this sign ...



 Outside the Red Lion is a seat with a memorial plaque on it ...




 So I did ...



 After the pint and the nuts I walked past Litton Cross out of the village ...



 A path underneath a line of beech trees took me back to the car ...



 A short walk packed full of interest.

   This walk was followed on the 6th May 2011
 
Length of walk ~ 5.74 miles *
 
Total mileage walked so far in 2011 ~ 172.54 miles
 
Total mileage between the 1st September 2009 and the 6th May 2011 ~ 694.28 miles

  39 of 2011 [which means in 2011 I was averaging approximately 4.42 miles a walk.]
 
* distance calculated on Ordnance Survey's Getamap

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  

Following the Cromford Canal ~ 3

The third walk along the Cromford Canal as I  progress away from Cromford itself.

I parked next to The Birches at Ambergate and crossed the River Derwent ...



I passed the cricket pitch and the Hurt Arms before turning up Chase Road to cross the canal. On the far side of the canal is this well ...



A few hundred yards later and I was walking up through Crich Chase with the sun coming through the leaves overhead ...



I climbed the hill out of the valley and came out on the path to the west of Chadwick Nick, Crich. Turning left I entered the small woodland beside the road and followed the path through the wood. There's a good view from here away towards Masson Hill above Matlock ...



Walking down the lane towards Whatstandwell I noticed an old milestone which  is one of the roadside features that we ignore or take for granted ....



I find them fascinating, what with their quaint lettering and misspellings ~ doesn't the one above read 'ASHBOURE' rather than 'ASHBOURNE' ?

Rather than go all the way down to the A6 and pick up the canal, I wandered along some of the more obscure paths of Whatstandwell and ended up in the wood on the east side of the Whatstandwell/Holloway road ...



Then I was nearly down to the canal near Robin Hood and looking along the path we'd walked a few days ago ... and still the wild garlic wasn't in full bloom !



Then I was down by the canal and continuing along my journey, initially towards Whatstandwell bridge ...



I passed under the bridge and noticed the water level was quite low.



The unusual thing about the house on the right in the photo above is that it is built above a tunnel ...



Further along the canal some clearance work had been done on the far side of the canal and the bluebells were in flower ...





There were some small wooden 'rafts' floating on the water ...



... and close inspection revealed what they were.



'DWT' stands for 'Derbyshire Wildlife Trust'.

The greenery was lush and plentiful ...



... and by now I was getting nearer to Ambergate ...



Earlier in the day I had walked over the bridge I now went under ...



I assume the marks under the bridge were where the rope of the horse walking along the towpath slowly rubbed into the stone ...



Then I walked under a rather rusty old bridge ...



... to reach the end of the canal, at least at this point ...



The canal used to run through here but now there is, or at least there was, some large 'gas' buildings ... but more of that another day.

All that remained was for me to backtrack at this point all the way back to the car.

You can see the route I followed on the OS Explore website, here :~ http://explore.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/os_routes/show/19674

Date of walk ~ 9th May 2010

Length of walk ~ 6 miles

Total walked so far in 2010 ~ 135 miles

Total walked since 1st September 2009 ~ 265 miles

25 of 2010