Historic Walks in Derbyshire - The Peak District
Historic Walks in Derbyshire
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Without doubt Derbyshire is one of the most picturesque counties in England, renowned for its varied scenic beauty ranging from wild sombre moorland in the north to sparkling rivers laced with delightful deep dales in the central area and gentle rolling countryside further south. Derbyshire has it all, except for a coastline and natural lakes. The poet John Ruskin, whose work was heavily influenced by his many visits to the county, described it as ‘a lovely child’s first alphabet’ because ‘in its very minuteness it is the most educational of all the districts of beautiful landscapes known to me’. Another poet inspired by Derbyshire’s countryside was Byron, who in a letter to the Irish poet Thomas Moore said ‘there are things in Derbyshire as noble as in Switzerland or Greece’.
Derbyshire is situated at the crossroads of England where highland meets lowland. Many people tend to think of Derbyshire and the well-known Peak District (1437sq km/555sq miles, created as Britain’s first national park in 1951) as virtually one and the same thing but this is totally incorrect as the bulk of the Peak District sits in the north of Derbyshire and overlaps into several other counties. Another popular misconception about the Peak District is that it is a region of ‘peaks’. Surprisingly there are few hills over 610m/2000ft and Kinder Scout, which is the highest at 636m/2088ft, is a plateau as opposed to a peak. The name is derived from Anglo-Saxon times when a local tribe known as the Pecsaetans called the area Peacland.
The Peak District National Park receives an estimated 22 million visits a year, which makes it the second most visited national park in the world after Mount Fiji in Japan. Its magnetic quality is assisted by the fact that half the population of England lives within 100km/60 miles of the Peak District borders, including the conurbations of Manchester, Sheffield, Nottingham, Stoke and Derby. The latter is the county city of Derbyshire and home to the car and aero-engine manufacturer Rolls Royce and to Royal Crown Derby porcelain. The south of the county receives far fewer tourists and remains less well known despite its outstanding natural beauty and a wealth of historic houses and parklands. This book visits many of these properties, including Hardwick Hall, Bolsover Castle, Kedleston Hall, Calke Abbey, Wingfield Manor, Melbourne Hall, Shipley Hall and Elvaston Castle. Taken as a whole, Derbyshire has not only a memorable natural splendour but also a profound array of tourist attractions spread liberally across the county and providing endless interest for all the family.
How to Use this Guide
This book is a collection of 60 circular, easy to moderate, day or half-day walks from across the county. They range in distance from 4km/2½ miles to 15.5km/9½ miles and are suitable for individuals and families. Each walk includes famed beauty spots and attractions and leaves plenty of scope to explore some of the less visited areas. Each is linked to a main historical theme and the walks have been arranged in a rough chronological order according to the selected theme, so that you are literally walking through layers of history and treading in the footsteps of past generations. Information on the theme of the walk and other points of interest precede the route instructions for each trail. Where appropriate, telephone numbers are provided for the tourist attractions so you can check opening times, ticket prices and so on. A sketch map of the route is included but for navigation it is recommended that you use the relevant Ordnance Survey map as identified for each walk. It is also strongly recommended that you read the whole of the route instructions before setting out on any walk so that you are aware of the precise nature of the route, including any steeper sections, stiles and so forth.
Geology
The changing topography of Derbyshire can be explained by its geology as the county has four main distinct regions. This varied geology is also reflected in the building materials and styles of architecture in the various towns and villages of the Peak District.
In the north of the county, in what has become known as the Dark Peak, there are sandstone moorlands. The sandstone, more commonly known as gritstone, forms a horseshoe shape so that, for example, along its eastern edge there is a dramatic 20km/12 mile gritstone edge running along the Derwent Valley. Today these crags are often teeming with rock climbers but in the past this rock was used to make millstones and grindstones and has become known as millstone grit. Examples of discarded millstones can be found in the Hathersage area below Stanage Edge and around Bolehill Quarry. Its most frequent use, though, has been as a building stone.
Millstone grit is insoluble but porous so it absorbs water which often seeps through the grit to the less porous shales below, producing springs. Grit and shales are less hard than the limestone of the southern Peak District, known as the White Peak, so the rivers here have worn much wider valleys. The acid soil and harsher, wetter weather in the upland Dark Peak provides its own unique landscape of bleak and windswept peat moorland, gritstone escarpments and rugged gritstone tors.
South of the millstone grit of the Dark Peak is the carboniferous limestone of the White Peak, or the Derbyshire Dales as it is also known, which runs roughly from Ashbourne to Castleton. In the Dark Peak, as mentioned, shales underlie the millstone grit. Shale outcrops can also be found on the fringe of the limestone White Peak. Shale splits very easily when exposed to frost. As a friable material often interbedded with sandstone, it is vulnerable to landslip. Mam Tor is a good example of this problem where the A625 has now been closed for a number of years due to landslip.
Limestone has fissures and is slightly soluble in water, therefore the rivers have been able to carve deep narrow valleys, which has resulted in some of the most spectacular riverside scenery in this country, such as in Dovedale. Sometimes the rivers have found a route underground creating caverns and leaving dry valleys behind. At Winnats Pass near Castleton it is believed that a cave system has collapsed to produce a deep narrow gorge.
The limestone of the White Peak is all around you in the drystone walls dividing the fields, the crags along the deep dales, the weird rock formations in the valleys and the many quarries which have extracted or still are extracting stone for commercial use. Unlike the Dark Peak the much softer White Peak is able to support grassland used for farming, and an abundant range of flowers and plants.
North East Derbyshire has a belt of magnesian limestone running along its eastern edge by the Nottinghamshire border, which has resulted, for example, in the gorge and caves at Creswell Crags. Much of the remaining part of North East Derbyshire has developed as a result of its vast underlying coal measures and the growth of the associated industry during the Industrial Revolution. In the Peak District any coal measures found were only near the surface and the coal was of very poor quality so all such mining activity had ceased here by the early twentieth century.
South of Derby and Ashbourne is an area of clay and sandstone, providing a much more gentle countryside.
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