Mill Hill

 MILL HILL

 

August 4, 2021

 

 

SPORTSMAN INN HAYFIELD, BOWDEN BRIDGE, HILL HOUSES, WHITE BROW, SHOOTING CABIN, MILL HILL, HOLLINWORTH HEAD, MATLEY MOOR, LANTERN PIKE INN AT LITTLE HAYFIELD, HAYFIELD, SPORTSMAN INN

 

Distance: 9.5 miles​Ascent/descent: 1,900 ft

 

Difiiculty: Moderate

 

Weather: Sunny at first, then thunder and sustained heavy rain

 

Walkers: Peter Beal, John Jones

 

Leader: Beal​​Diarist: Beal

 

Starting point: Sportsman Inn, Kinder Road, Hayfield

 

Starting time: 9.45am​Finishing time: 2.30pm

 

 

 

This walk was undertaken as an alternative outing to that of our chums who were away enjoying the delights of the Northumbria Coastal Path (aka 'the seaside'). Your diarist and John Jones instead enjoyed the loftier heights of Mill Hill (1,785 ft) above Hayfield, where we got thoroughly soaked.

 

Despite this our route let us enjoy the quieter open spaces away from the Kinder plateau.

 

With The Sportsman on our left we went up Kinder Road, soon dropping down a path to the busy Hayfield campsite.We passed the car park at Bowden Bridge, the former quarry which is the site of the rally that led to the 1932 Mass Trespass on to Kinder that paved the way for public access to the countryside.

 

We crossed the River Kinder here and continued up a lane that brought us to a crossroads with the lane leading to Tunstead Clough and Kinder ahead of us. Instead we turned left and took a track taking us to the delightful hamlet of Hill Houses (20 minutes). We carried on through a gate and reached Booth Farm.

 

Here we turned briefly left down the road before quickly reaching a path on the right that followed the River Kinder to emerge at the metal gates to the Kinder Reservoir, opened in 1912, to supply water to the valley and Stockport (31 min).

 

To the left of the gates, at a National Trust sign announcing White Brow, we went through a smaller wooden gate and took a steep path lined wth stone setts. Interestingly a National Trust notice here announced that the true summit of Kinder had been remeasured and was at a point 45 metres north west of the previous summit cairn on the plateau. This was pleasing, as it confirmed that the Wanderers' excursion to seek the summit on June 30 this year had indeed reached the right point.

We emerged at a viewpoint overlooking the reservoir dam. Here we turned sharp left uphill, following a bridleway sign, and came out on the open moor near the white-painted shooting cabin on Middle Moor (53min).

 

Behind the cabin a track, becoming fainter, took us up the heather moorland, with a line of shooting butts on our left. Near the last of the butts the first spots of rain fell and we donned waterproofs, looking behind to see a wall of rain approaching from the south.

 

We finally reached the summit of Mill Hill (88min), where the Pennine Way, having descended from Kinder Scout, swings right towards the Snake Pass and Bleaklow. Here the rain steadily became heavier and as we descended the flagged path to the left the first claps of thunder were heard. Any thoughts of pie-time were abandoned.

 

We followed the clear route along the stone flags, recovered from the Lancashire mills, that eventually brought us to the Hayfield to Glossop road at Hollinworth Head above Chunal (138 min). By now we were soaked and even our waterproofs were offering little protection.

 

We crossed the busy road here and went straight ahead to take the Monks Road, named because in medieval times it was a tax collecting route for the friars from Basingwerke Abbey.

 

A short distance along here we took a track on the left. After 200 yards we turned on to a track on the left that brought us to a stile leading on to the open pasture of Matley Moor. The path rose and then descended to another stile, where we turned right to the Matley Moor farm house (152 min).

 

A track to the left brought us to a signed six-way junction where we went through a gate and bore left with Lantern Pike rising to our right. We crossed a stile and descended a narrow and overgrown path that brought us to a stile at a cottage. Here we went through a gate on the left that took us down through a field to emerge at a bridge below the converted residential Clough Mill, once the home of our esteemed blogger diarist George Dearsley.

 

We followed the lane to soon reach the Lantern Pike Inn(165 min), whose former mine host was of course our equally esteemed companion Tom. Despite our appearance giving a passable impersonation of two drowned rats we were given a warm welcome and pints of Taylor's Landlord at £3-75.

 

After a convivial half-hour, chatting to two similarly drenched walkers and their collie dog we left, the rain having ceased, and took the main road towards Hayfield, turning right into Slack Lane and soon turning left along a path that brought us to the former Slack Mill on the outskirts of Hayfield. We turned left along a road, then left, than down through what is known as the May Queen field, where we had a belated lunch stop, to emerge opposite the Pack Horse Inn. The road to the right led us in to Kinder Road and back to the Sportsman, where Thwaites IPA and Original were consumed at £4 a pint.

 

Next week's walk, led by JJ, will start at 9.40am from the Navigation Inn at Bugsworth Basin. After ascending South Head refreshments will be taken at the Lamb Inn, before crossing Cracken Edge to return to the Navigation.

 

Happy wandering!