Monsal Head

MONSAL HEAD, LITTLE LONGSTONE, SHACKLOW WOOD, ASHFORD IN THE WATER

Distance: 12 miles

Difficulty: Easy

Weather: Generally dry with early cloud giving way to sunshine.

Walkers: Alan Hart, George Whaites, George Dearsley, Jock Rooney and Tips, Colin Davison, Pete Beal.

Apologies: Mickey Barrett (Achilles injury), Lawrie Fairman (lecturing on a cruise ship), Julian Ross, Tom Cunliffe (wo*king), Pete Burrell (hospital appointment), Chris Corps (w^rking)

Leader: Rooney Diarist: Dearsley

Starting point: The lane opposite the Monsal Head Hotel, Derbyshire

Starting time: 9.55am. Finishing time: 2.40pm

Monsal Head

The BBC weather forecast was wrong and the predicted sunshine did not arrive until later in the day.

But leader Jock’s timing was perfect and we were tucked away in the pub during the only substantial rainfall of the walk.

The walk itself acquainted us with more Dales than they have in Ambridge.

Cressbrookdale, Deep Dale, Hay Dale, Upperdale and several others.  All we needed was Jim Dale and Dale Winton.

The walk was also the longest I personally can recall as a Wednesday Wanderer at 12.3 miles. I am indebted to M’learned friend Mr Davison for providing the proof (see the map below) via Google Earth.
(I think we need a steward's inquiry into these calculations. Ed).

But we must thank Mr Rooney for a most pleasant journey through some picturesque Derbyshire terrain.

We left the cars and went through the village of Little Longstone.

We passed a chapel (pictured below) on our left, built around 1870 from coursed, squared limestone with gritstone dressings and a Welsh slate roof.

I’m sure, like me, the other Wanderers marvelled at the rock-faced quoins and moulded kneelers, not to mention the deeply chamfered round-arched doorway. Awesome.

Just before the Packhorse pub we turned left, went over a stile and across a field diagonally towards the right.

We went over a wall on the right, then over a second wall and started up an incline.

We crossed a stile, then went through a gate and came to a T-junction where we turned right.

After about 300 yards we turned left up a path, crossing a stile and began a modest ascent.

A catchpond was on our left.

We went over a stile on the left.

There were two paths in front of us on land that sloped downwards from right to left. We took the higher path.

A road was below us on the left and beyond that a trig point called Wardlow Hay Cop.

We crossed a stile on the left and crossed the road we had seen earlier.

Our walk

A quick check of the flappy thing

Chapel in Little Longstone…lovely quoins.

We turned left onto a metalled road. This was Hay Dale and we headed downhill.

The Monsal Trail hove into view. We went towards a crossroads and Pie Time was declared at 11.16am.

We took it on some benches near the River Wye a few yards to our right.

We were now in Upperdale.

We left at 11.30am, retracing our steps back to the crossroads where we walked straight on, parallel with the Monsal Trail in the distance to our right.

Riverdale Farm was passed on the right.

The sun came out, albeit very weakly.

We turned right down a path towards the river, which we crossed via a footbridge.

Then we turned left and went under a viaduct.

Bridge over the River K’Wye

We walked alongside the river (to our left now) and passed a waterfall.

The three ex-jounos on the walk discussed the derivation of the word “hack”.

A hack writer, as we know,  is a colloquial and usually pejorative term used to refer to a writer who is paid to write low-quality, rushed articles or books "to order", often with a short deadline. In a fiction-writing context, the term is used to describe writers who are paid to churn out sensational, lower-quality "pulp" fiction such as "true crime" novels or "bodice ripping" paperbacks. In journalism, the term is used to describe a writer who is deemed to operate as a "mercenary" or "pen for hire", expressing their client's political opinions in pamphlets or newspaper articles.

The term "hack writer" is first recorded 1826, though hackney writer is at least 50 years earlier, when publishing was establishing itself as a business employing writers who could produce to order.

The term "hack" was a shortening of the word hackney, which described a horse that was easy to ride and available for hire.

It originally referred to a "person hired to do routine work,"  probably from the place name Hackney, now a London borough.

Interestingly back in 1n 1728, Alexander Pope wrote The Dunciad, which was a satire of "the Grub-street Race" of commercial writers who worked in Grub Street, a London district that was home to a bohemian counterculture of impoverished writers and poets.  Private Eye, of course, now use the term Grub Street.

We went over a stile and through a gap in a stonewall.

We crossed a main road and went up some steps.

We passed a sign saying “Wye Valley” and onto a path on the right.

We went through a kissing gate.

This was Deep Dale.

We went up a moderately steep path with water gushing down and over a stile.

This led us to a steep ascent which proved a real conversation stopper.

Tips began fighting with a huge branch but eventually admitted defeat and rejoined the Wanderers as we headed through Great Shacklow Wood.

As we passed a disfiguration in the hillside to our right Jock explained the phenomenon with a story about Magpie Mine which blew up through underground pressure, sending a torrent of water into the river below and ultimately flooding Ashford in the Water. Never was a village more appropriately named.

Magpie Sough became blocked when a shaft collapsed into it in the 1960s, and a tremendous volume of water built up behind the blockage. The result was a tremendous explosion of water in April, 1966 which swept away several hundred tons of shale and scree and partially blocked the River Wye. The sough was cleared and re-opened by members of the Peak District Mines Historical Society in 1974.

The mine has an interesting history. The earliest recorded workings of the mine date from 1740, and the Magpie Mine was one of several such ventures working different veins in the same area. Right from the start, the miners had difficulty in keeping the workings free from water, but by 1824, a Newcomen type pumping engine had been erected on the Main Shaft. This led to the production of 800 tons of lead being mined in 1827, a record that remained unbroken until 1871.

Magpie Mine was also troubled by disputes with neighbouring mines over who had the right to work each vein. Miners from Magpie Mine and Maypitt Mine were both working the Great Redsoil Vein, and would light fires underground to smoke out their opponents.

The arguments raged for years, both underground and in the courts. In 1833, three Maypitt miners were suffocated by the fumes, and 24 Magpie miners were put on trial for their murder. Several were freed immediately, and eventually all were acquitted because of the difficulty in identifying the individual culprits, and the provocative actions of the Maypitt miners themselves. It is said that the wives of the "murdered" men put a curse on the mine, and the effect of the disputes was to ruin the mine, which closed in 1835. Blimey, all that aggro even without Arthur Scargill.

In 1839, John Taylor, the famous Cornish mining engineer was brought in to re-open the Magpie Mine. He introduced a number of innovations, including steel borers, safety hats, safety fuse, and iron winding ropes. He also introduced a more regular pattern of shift working and payment for his workers, some of whom had come up from Cornwall with him. He deepened the Main Shaft to 208 metres, and also installed a 40-inch Cornish pumping engine. When this proved inadequate, he proposed to replace it with a 70-inch engine, but the proprietors could not agree. Some felt that a sough (a drainage tunnel) would be a better solution, and appeals to the Duke of Devonshire to adjudicate fell on deaf ears.

Various attempts were made over the next 30 years, but it was not until 1873 that construction of the sough started. It took eight years to drive from the River Wye near Ashford-in-the-Water to meet the Main Shaft, a distance of 2km.

Production of lead continued on and off into the 20th. Century. An optimistic report in 1913 promised reserves of four million tons, which attracted businessmen from Sheffield and Glasgow to join forces with Edgar Garlick, the owner. Their venture closed in 1919, and although Garlick re-opened the mine in 1923, he went into liquidation the following year. Nothing happened until after the Second World War, when Waihi Investment and Development Ltd attempted to work the mine using submersible electric pumps. A new winder - in reality a ship's winch fitted with a diesel engine - and a steel headgear were installed. Despite this more sophisticated equipment, no large body of ore was found, and with the end of the Korean War and the fall in the price of imported lead, the mine closed for the last time in 1954.

The mine is also said to be haunted, maybe due to the aforementioned curse. In the 1940s survey team in the mine spotted a man holding a candle who vanished down a shaft. A photograph taken by the team reportedly shows a ghostly figure standing on top of a deep pool of water.

At 12.45pm we felt a spot of rain.

We reached a main road, passing a sign for “Sheldon” on the right.

We crossed the main road and went left about 50 yards before a big green traffic sign.

We cleaned our boots on the edge of the River Wye.

We crossed a bridge and turned right towards the church. The church clock chimed 1pm just as we passed.

The church – Holy Trinity – carried a sign outside saying it was “protected by smart water”.

So once upon a time you had water poured over you as part of baptism to prove you were a Christian.

Now you have water poured over you to prove you’re a criminal.

The march of progress.

A minute later we reached the Bull’s Head where we had to put blue plastic covers over our boots like consultant surgeons. Hartley’s XB was £3.10, Unicorn was £3.20 and Dizzy Blonde was £3.

We had walked 8.2 miles to the pub.

Derbyshire vista…this is Wardlow Hay Cop

We set off again at 1.53pm. We came out of the pub and turned right, we passed the church again and turned right into Fennell Street and then down Vicarage Lane, where we spotted a bust of a cavalier on the side of a house (see picture below). Apparently the area was a Cavalier stronghold at the time of the civil war. But I could find no other reference to the bust.

Cavalier attitude

We turned right at a sign for “Monsal Head”. Now the sun was shining brightly.

We went through a gate, over a road and down a track.

We passed Ashford farm Cottages on the right.

We went through a gate and passed a pond on the left, crossed a road and headed straight on.

We went over a wall and came to a sign saying “Wyedale” one way and “Bakewell” the other.

We turned left.

At 2.21pm we stopped for lunch, setting off again at 2.29pm.

We turned right over a wall, went through a gate and onto a main road.

We turned left. Little Longstone Barns were on our right.

At 2.40pm we reached the Packhorse pub (built 1787) and nipped in for a libation.

Wild Swan was £3.15 and Black Sheep £3.10.

We reached the cars at 3.17pm, debooted and headed home.

B Walkers' diary

Walkers:  Ken Sparrow, Tony Job, John Laverick, Terry Jowett.

Apologies:  Wally (w*<K)

Start and finish:  the Bleeding Wolf, Hall Green

Route: Cross A34, Macclesfield Canal to Ramsdell Hall, left along very deep muddy tracks towards Little Moreton Hall, cross A34, take first path on right to Boarded Barn (the scene of a murder most foul in the 80s), Moor's Farm, Rode Mill, join road round Rode Pool to Rode Heath, Trent and Mersey Canal to Lawton Locks, cross bridge to Bratt's Wood, turn right in front of Brick House, and path back to Bleeding Wolf.

 

Comments: Late start (10.30). John photographed notices about the railings in front of Ramsdell Hall. Tractor ruts made progress towards Little Moreton Hall wet and muddy, and a hawthorn branch plucked your scribe's glasses fro his head and deposited them in six inches of muddy water. They were easily found, but difficult to see through, which is my excuse for missing a left turn to LMH. Lunch in the NT carpark 12 noon. A brief but heavy hail storm hit us after The Boarded Barn, but no more problems as we followed the road into Rode Heath. We reached the pub at Rode Heath at 1 pm, and enjoyed good pints of Marston's at £2.64. The web site for The Bleeding Wolf appeared to suggest early closing at 2.30, but it turned out that this was the kitchen. Anyway, we hurried back with one or two deviations, and found the bar open and serving good Robbies at £3 a pint.

Distance walked guessed at between 5 and 8 miles - it felt like 8, but John had forgotten to switch on the magic phone.

 

Next week: TBC

River Wye

Waterfall

Just after Pie Time

The Packhorse

We will follow HIM...follow HIM wherever he may go

Next week’s walk will start at 9.40am from a car park just off the A6 out of Buxton at Topley Pike, just under a railway bridge. Where Miller’s Dale car park is on the left we will park on the right at an entry to a quarry.

Happy Wandering!