Goyt Valley

QUARRY CAR PARK AT STAKESIDE IN THE GOYT VALLEY, WILD MOOR, OLD CHPR RAILWAY LINE, OLD TUNNEL ENTRANCE, EDGEMOOR, THE DUKE AT BURBAGE, BURBAGE EDGE, BERRY CLOUGH

Distance: 8 miles                   Ascent/descent: 1520 ft

November 22, 2017

Difficulty: Moderate

Weather: Cloudy and dry with strong wind

Walkers: Micky Barrett, Peter Beal, Alastair Cairns, Colin Davison, Laurie Fairman, Steve Kemp, Chris Owen

Apologies: Alan Hart (Barbados), Jock Rooney (Cyprus), George Whaites (domestic duties), Mark Gibby (parental duties), Tom Cunliffe (Achilles injury), George Dearsley (Turkey), Julian Ross and Hughie Harriman (unspecified duties)

Starting point: Quarry car park at Stakeside, Upper Goyt Valley

Starting time: 9.50 am                      Finishing time: 2.06pm

Today's walk featured a new starting point, a stretch of historic former rail line and a welcoming reopened pub not visited by the Wanderers for years.

Considering the dire weather forecast of continuous heavy rain and near-gale force winds, the seven-strong turn-out was a credit to the fortitude of our walkers.

And in the event, although the wind was very strong, the predicted deluge failed to materialise, resulting in an enjoyable walk in and out of the beautiful Goyt Valley.

Our departure point was a car park off the one-way narrow road winding up the higher reaches of the Goyt. This was the spot where the giant Pickford's removal company was born.

My Peak District Companion records that it was first worked by Thomas Pickford in 1670. He was in the road-mending business and used teams of fifty packhorses to carry gritstone and paving slabs to London.

The panniers emptied, Pickford arranged to carry other goods on the return journey. Stone eventually became less profitable - the removal business more so. But the packhorse has remained the firm's symbolic trademark.

We turned right out of the car park up the narrow road and soon reached a path leading left down to a packhorse bridge over the swollen small river. Goyt's Bridge has only been here since 1967. It was orginally a mile downstream in the hamlet of the same name, and familiar to tax-dodging smugglers of Cheshire salt.

When the settlement was submerged by the Errwood Reservoir, 30 years after its northern neighbour Fernilee was built, the bridge was dismantled and moved upstream.

We descended the narrow path and crossed the stream, immediately turning sharp left to follow the path with the stream below us on our left. The path here was boggy and wooden duckboards placed to help were treacherously slippy.

The Errwood Reservoir came in to sight ahead of us (30 minutes) and the path swung right to reach a footpath sign to Errwood. Here the path improved and became a track taking us downhill through a gate. At the bottom of the incline we crossed a brook and turned right before immediately taking a fainter path up the hill to the left.

A steep climb up the fellside brought us to the former route of the Cromford and High Peak Railway, with a car park on our right and a pond in front of us (50 min).

The CHPR opened in 1830 and connected Cromford Canal near Matlock to the Peak Forest Canal at Whaley Bridge to transport heavy minerals. At first horse-powered, steam engines were later introduced to pull wagons up the inclines on the route. The last part of the route, at one time the highest rail line in Britain, only closed in 1967, although the section we were on ceased operating in 1892.

We turned left along the well-maintained pathway, which contours around several small valleys, before reaching a sealed off tunnel entrance, marking the high point of the CHPR line at 1,624 ft (76 min).

The cutting here, which we shared with four elderly (that means they looked older than most of us) fellow walkers, was the only shelter from the winds which had been buffetting us for the past half-hour. Pie-time was declared slightly later than usual.

We retraced our steps for 20 yards and turned right at a fingerpost reading Buxton and Bishops Road. This path took us gently uphill across the fellside before reaching a small gate at the top of some woods (87 min).

We descended here and come to a fork in the path where we turned left, soon coming to a wooden set of steps taking us down to a lane. We turned right here towards some impressive houses with a  large duckpond and the lane swung left to take us on to a long straight stretch towards Burbage, an outskirt of Buxton.

We entered housing and soon forked right to emerge on the main road with our objective The Duke pub in front of us (120 min). This pub was formerly The Duke of York until its closure for some time. And despite us thinking it had only recently reopened, apparently the current management is in its fifth year.

We arrived six minutes before their noon opening time. But they could not have been more welcoming. Not only did the charming lady host invite us in to wait, but she then arrived at the table to take beer orders and delivered the drinks. A rare luxury. Wainwright's Ale was £3.50 a pint.

There is a mystery here - despite the pub being called The Duke of York previously, eagle-eyed Laurie noted that the nobleman depicted on the front of the menu now was in fact Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. Questioning of bar staff and further research failed to discover the reason for this.

We resumed by crossing the road to the right of the pub, turning immediatly left, and turning right down a residential street. This began to climb along what was the old Macclesfield to Buxton road, and soon after becoming a rough track we came to a small gate on the right, marked by a green Peak and Northern Footpaths Society sign (136 min).

We followed the bridleway uphill, bearing right, with a wall and woods on our right. The path veered away from the woods to the left at a fork (141 min) and crossed boggy land before climbing steadily in very strong wind to a gate in a drystone wall at the corner of a sparse wood (153 min).

We had a brief lunch in the lee of the wall, with excellent views over Buxton and towards Axe Edge and the ridge of Chrome Hill, before continuing through the gate and over the crest of the fell, with the summit of Burbage Edge a short distance away on our right.

Laurie pointed out that on Wild Moor to our right, about 10 years ago, there was a bid to breed the rare hen harrier after a pair arrived unexpectedly in the valley. Despite a 24-hour watch being kept on the nest it was unsuccessful. This iconic hawk is now virtually extinct in England, apparently because of the preponderance of crows and foxes, and illegal shooting by grouse moor gamekeepers.

A distinct but boggy track took us over the moor and we reached a track joining from the left, signed toward Axe Edge (160 min).  The route from here was straightforward, descending down the left bank of heather-clad Berry Clough to reach the Goyt again at a wooden footbridge (175 min).

We climbed to the road, turned right and came in to view of the packhorse bridge we had crossed at the start of the walk (181 min). We soon reached the car park (184 min).

Pictures by Colin

After debooting five of our number reconvened at the Shady Oak at Fernilee, where so-so Jenning's Cumberland Bitter was £3.60 a pint. We declared ourselves still not sure about the welcoming nature of this pub for walkers.

Despite that, next week's walk will start outside The Cock at Whaley Bridge at 9.30 am, stopping en route at the Shady Oak for refreshments around 12.30 pm and back at The Cock at 2.15 pm.

Happy Wandering!