Walking in Peakland

The 16 routes in this guidebook cover walking in the central part of Peakland, from 6 miles to over 40, split into regional sections coveing Barlow Vale, Alport Dale, the White Peak and the Cheshire part of the Peak. With detailed background as well as original routes.

View Sample Route Map

Walk 1 - Dronfield to Linacre and the Return

---

Outline: Cowley, Highlightley, Moorhall, Barlow Grange, Linacre Reservoirs, Ingmanthorpe, Wilday Green, Peakley Hill and Cowley
Map: OS 1:25,000 Pathfinder Sheet 761 (SK27/37)
Distance: 14 miles/22.5 km
Parking: Dronfield Civic Centre or railway station

---

Route   
Leave Dronfield Civic Centre and climb the steep road to the south – Farwater Lane (so called because the residents of the Holborn area of the town fetched water from a spring at the bottom of the slope) – and turn left up Gosforth Lane to the Hyde Park Inn on the top of the hill.

Cross the Unstone–Dronfield bypass (A61) and turn right along Cowley Lane. In ¼ mile (0.5 km) the lane turns down the slope to the left but you go ahead, along the farm drive to Hills Farm. A path continues west beyond the farm; at the end of the next field turn right then left to skirt the ivy-covered ruins of Sload’s House. Cut across behind this ruin and down the fields to cross a small stream which rises on the right in Spring Wood. Cowley was called College in 1315, a place in a wood or clearing where charcoal was burnt.

After crossing two more fields on the upward slope the lane from Cowley Bar to Cowley is reached. Here, on the roadside, is Cowley Hall and a row of very ancient cottages (map reference: 333/774). Cross the road and the path leads straight down and across two brooks, with a rise of 30 feet (9 metres) between them.

The next field is irregularly shaped but the path will not be lost if you bear left, aiming for the farthest corner.

Once through the hedge look for a path leading off leftwards; follow this and soon the old road connecting Holmesfield and Barlow will be joined, deep-set and overgrown. In 600 yards (549 metres) turn right into a pasture field and the roof of Highlightley Farm will be seen, former home of Miss Winifred Wilson, artist and horsewoman.

Robert Barley of Barley was the first husband of Bess of Hardwick and his family have left their name in many places hereabouts: Brierley Wood above Unstone Green, Barlow Brook, the many Barlows (including Barlow Woodseats) and the corruption to Birley, the old farm we pass later, above Linacre Reservoirs.

Cross the B6051 road, taking the lane up past Johnnygate Farm and the fine old Tudor hall of Barlow Woodseats. From there the ancient trackway leading up the north-facing valley offers a better route in wet weather, reaching Moorhall in ¾ mile (1.25 km). Alternatively take the stile on the left just beyond the hall and follow this by its winding gorse-bush way, cross the track already mentioned and cut up the fields directly to Moorhall. A little way before reaching the hamlet an unusual stile is climbed; stones set in the wall between two gateposts allow you to pass on top of the wall and down its end into the next field.

Moorhall is a grand little settlement standing at 850 feet (259 metres) which looks down the long, smooth spur towards the Barlow Vale. The place can be extremely bleak, being set on the edge of an area which has a winter as ‘continental’ in severity as anywhere in the British Isles.

Taking the path south-east past Grangewood and Grangelumb farms the sylvan dell containing the Wilday Brook is crossed. After the open fields on the edge of the moors this is a place of great charm, overhung by ash and willow and beech, and hazy blue with bells in May.

Cross Grange Lane and pass through the farms which make up Barlow Grange, with the duck pond behind an ancient barn. Six hundred years ago this was Barley Grange, a granary (later an outlying farm) where crops belonging to the lord of the manor of Barlow were stored.

After a short climb the lane joins the Cutthorpe–Baslow road (B6050) and turning right for 200 yards (182 metres) the private road (public path only) to Birley Grange is followed on the left. In 1154 this was a Byre leah, or ‘farm in a clearing’. A few yards beyond this junction is a triangulation station, standing at 980 feet (298 metres) above the sea.

In less than ½ mile (0.75 km) along the lane the infant Birley Brook is reached, at a sharp bend of the track. Follow this brook down through gorse and, in early April, along banks covered with wild daffodils. Bluebells follow in their turn and make the walk memorable. Take a footpath to the left where it crosses the brook (map reference: 318/728). After a steady rise to Cowclose Farm you reach Overgreen. Here you can shorten the walk by going down the lane by Piker Storth Farm, by Oxton Rakes to Wilday Green, otherwise continue south-east to Pratthall village, bearing right in the village and down the lane for 100 yards (80 metres) before taking a path cutting down to Linacre Reservoirs on the right. Follow this path through the woods of sycamore and spruce not far above the water’s edge – more like ‘the lilaced Danubian shore’ than a Derbyshire reservoir bank!

Linacre is an unusual name hereabouts and is derived from the Old English terms for flax, line, and a plot of arable land, ‘aecer’. Hence, ‘lineacer’, literally ‘cultivated land where flax was grown’. By 1189 the original designation had become ‘Lynacra’ and this underwent numerous changes before becoming the modern ‘Linacre’.

When opposite the impounding wall of the lowest of the three reservoirs take a path north through the larches of Kitchen-flat Wood, brilliant in their new raiment in spring. Once on the B6050 road walk west to Ingmanthorpe (Ingman’s thorp, or outlying farm) and here take one of the footpaths leading off to Oxton Rakes, crossing the tree-lined Sud Brook by a footbridge (map reference: 332/ 738). Continue on through Wilday Green beyond the top of the next ridge. When almost at the base of the wall of Crowhole Reservoir (just past Muckspout Farm) take the path to the right up to Rumbling Street Farm. This lovely little path crosses the Crowhole Stream by a pretty footbridge. An old oak guards the farther bank and a lime leans streamwards to the right.

On both trees and footbridge handrail you can pick out names of local boys, carved long ago. The late Frank Needham remembers how the Wilday Green boys spent many happy hours here, playing in the trees and clearing gorse bushes so that they could play cricket on the level ground by the brook. You can still see the old stone roller that they dragged with chains from Barlow Woodseats to roll the ‘pitch’. It lies half-buried with foliage a little way below the footbridge.

Turn right down the street (of Roman origin) for 200 yards (180 metres) and turn left, down through the fields on the edge of Dobmeadow (Fairymeadow) Wood and cross Bradley Lane and Dunston Brook, up the big field to join the lane a little way east of Highlightley Farm. This is familiar territory and the path is followed up the fields to Peakley Hill. On joining the road (map reference: 334/766) bear left up the hill and turn right at the junction, through Cowley village. Just beyond Cowley Mission, a small stone and slate chapel built in 1893, go through a squeezer stile on the left (map reference: 339/771). Go across the fields, bearing right in ½ mile (0.75 km) past the front of Hills Farm, then go back along the drive to Cowley Lane and so return by way of the Unstone–Dronfield bypass (A61) bridge and down Gosforth Lane to Dronfield Town Centre.