Whaley Bridge

WHALEY BRIDGE, CROMFORD AND HIGH PEAK RAILWAY LINE, SHALLCROSS INCLINE GREENWAY, ELNOR LANE FARM, COOMBS RESERVOIR, RANDAL CARR BROOK, TUNSTEAD MILTON FARM, NORMAN WOODSIDE FARM, BRADSHAW HALL, ECCLES PIKE, THE OLD HALL AT WHITEHOUGH, PEAK FOREST TRAMWAY, BUGSWORTH BASIN, PEAK FOREST CANAL, WHALEY BRIDGE BASIN AND THE COCK AT WHALEY BRIDGE

Distance: Nine miles.

Difficulty: Easy.

Weather: Dry with cloud and sunshine.

Walkers: Colin Davison with Tips, Lawrie Fairman and Alan Hart.

B walkers: Geoff Spurrell and Mike Walton.

Non-walking drinkers: Frank Dudley, John Eckersley and Tony Job.

Apologies: Peter Beal (covering Olympics from Yorkshire), George Dearsley (working), Jock Rooney (in tax exile), Ken Sparrow (hols at Butlin’s) and George Whaites (visiting friends in south).

Leader: Fairman. Diarist: Hart.

Starting point: Car park of The Cock at Whaley Bridge.

Starting time: 9.35am. Finishing time: 2.11pm.

We enjoyed the best weather of the summer in ideal walking conditions, with a gentle wind and white fluffy clouds giving us regular respite from the bright sunshine.

On the wildlife front we saw a sparrow hawk and a cormorant, heard a woodpecker, braved a herd of Houdini goats, saw a field full of stud rams and were bade a cheery “Good morning, lovely day” by Edwina Currie, the former MP and lover of Prime Minister John Major.

All this plus a visit to two of our favourite pubs ! Life doesn’t get much better.

From the car park we walked past The Cock on our left and after 20 yards turned left to cross a stream and reach the disused Cromford and High Peak railway line, where we turned right. This led us to the Shallcross Incline Greenway (9mins). At the end we turned left (16mins) and left Shallcross Road to turn right into Elnor Lane (17mins).

To the left side of Elnor Lane, with a plinth, which may have once been a sundial, surrounded by a stone wall on our right, we turned left up a steep lane (21mins). We passed Elnor Lane Farm on our left and Elnor Stables on our right before swinging left up a track (28mins).

As we crested the hill, Coombs Reservoir made an appearance to our left ahead and below. We turned left over a stone step stile at a wooden public footpath sign (47mins) which pointed to the left of the reservoir.

Our journey downhill was interrupted by a lady walking uphill with a collie and a labrador. She pulled her dogs to the side of the path, allowing Colin to pass with his temporary charge, Tips. Unfortunately for the woman in question, her dogs were in playful mood. They chased after Tips, wrenching their leads from her hands and pulling her over.

Barbara Woodhouse she was not. As she let go of the leads she was propelled forwards, crashing into the back of your diarist’s legs. Happily I was unharmed.

We continued downhill until we reached a lane (60mins). After some discussion we turned left by the side of a ladder stile marked with a yellow arrow and immediately right to follow a wooden public footpath sign and right over a ladder stile.

This brought us to a gate marked “Houdini goats.” Disappointingly, they had failed to escape from the field. Colin warned us that on a previous walk through this particular field, his lady friend had been butted by one of the goats. We were on full alert not to be goosed by a goat, keeping a wary eye out as we headed diagonally right through their field. We emerged unscathed through a gate and over a stone step stile (65mins).

As we continued downhill through a field we spotted first a sparrowhawk circling to our left and then a cormorant heading on our right towards the reservoir. A little later we were to hear the distinctive rat-a-tat-tat of a woodpecker,

We negotiated a tunnel under the Manchester-Buxton railway line (70mins) and headed straight on through a field. There was no obvious way forward but your diarist headed right with a line of trees to the left guarding a stream until he found a ford across Randal Carr Brook (80mins).  On the far side of the stream we went past a ramshackle set of farm buildings before scaling a wooden gate to reach a main road.

Later we noticed that a footpath some 50 yards to the left of this gate would have brought us legitimately to the same road. Our route led us out at Tunstead Milton Farm, where we stopped for pies and Tia Maria (83mins).

We continued by crossing a stone step stile to the right of the farm. It was marked with a public footpath sign and led through a garden and over a wooden stile past some stables on the right. When we emerged in a field we headed diagonally right and exited via a metal gate (88mins).

We turned left uphill along a gravel track and entered Norman Woodside Farm (92mins). We turned right in front of the farm and went through a gate marked with a yellow arrow (95mins). This route took us to the right of Bradshaw Hall Farm and to the left of Bradshaw Hall itself (105mins).

Just beyond the hall we squeezed through a stone gap stile (106mins) and ignored a wooden stile on our left and headed diagonally right instead through a field. We kept left of a row of trees to pass to the left of a house ahead and crossed a wooden stile (115mins).

We reached a lane and turned right downhill (117mins). This led us to a wooden public footpath sign on our left and a sign for Eccles Pike and Chinley Station via Whitehough. We exited this field by a small gate (124mins), crossed a wooden stile (126mins) and saw South Head, Famine Ridge and Cracken Edge to our right, with Eccles Pike on our left.

After passing through a gate we turned left down a lane (135mins). After 30 yards we turned right at a wooden public footpath sign and followed the road downhill to reach a road 25 yards away. Our group turned left at a sign for Whitehough and Chinley (137mins).

Our route took us across a bridge over the A6 (140mins) and we soon reached The Paper Mill Inn on our right (143mins). The former Oddfellows Arms is now open from 5-11pm on weekdays and from 12-11 on Saturdays and Sundays. We passed the Paper Mill Inn on our right and turned left to reach The Old Mill Inn (144mins). Here the Marstons’ bitter was in fine fettle at £2-60 a pint.

Resuming, we walked downhill past Sheridan House (for sale) and The Old Band Room on our right, where we saw Edwina Currie walking uphill towards us with a brown Labrador. She and her woman friend, also accompanied by a dog, exchanged pleasantries as we walked past them. Apparently the former Conservative Cabinet Minister now lives in Whitehough.

We turned left along the old Peak Forest Tramway (149mins) and reached a bridge on our right over a stream where we stopped for lunch (160mins). Continuing later, we reached the Navigation Inn at Bugsworth Basin (166mins) and walked with the Peak Forest Canal on our left.

We used a footbridge to cross the canal (170mins) and now walked with the canal on our right until we reached Whaley Bridge Basin (178mins). We continued through the Canal Wharf car park and exited over a bridge to rejoin the old disused Cromford and High Peak railway line.

This took us uphill until we levelled off and took a path to our right towards a firm of electrical contractors (185mins). This brought us out on the main A6 road where we turned left for The Cock under the rail bridge and reached our cars (187mins).

After de-booting we joined our B team and non-walking drinker for pints of Robbies’ cask bitter at £2-80. Geoff informed us that he and Wally had caught the bus to Chapel-en-le-Frith and walked some three or four miles through Wash to reach us in Whitehough. Wally announced that the two-mile walk to Whaley Bridge had proved somewhat gruelling, although those were not his precise words.

Next week’s walk will start from the far car park at Errwood Reservoir at 9.40am. It is anticipated that there will be time for refreshment at a so far undesignated pub in Buxton around 12.20pm before reaching journey’s end at The Cock around 2.20pm.