Derbyshire Bridge

 DERBYSHIRE BRIDGE

November 17, 2021

CAR PARK (FREE) AT DERBYSHIRE BRIDGE AT THE HEAD OF THE GOYT VALLEY, OLD BUXTON ROAD, AXE EDGE MOOR, DRYSTONE EDGE, AXE EDGE END, WALLNOOK, BRAND SIDE, FAIRTHORN, HEALTH AND SAFETY RESEARCH SITE, PARKS INN AT HARPUR HILL, SOLOMON’S TOWER, BUXTON COUNTRY PARK, OLD MACCLESFIELD ROAD

Distance: 11 miles Ascent/descent: 2,080 feet

Difiiculty: Fairly strenuous

Weather: Thick mist and drizzle at first, brightening later

Walkers: Peter Beal, Micky Barrett, John Jones, Chris Owen, Dean Taylor and Tommy, Dave Willetts,

Apologies: Alan Hart (caring duties), George Dearsley (Turkey), Jock Rooney (Cyprus), Keith Welsh and Tom Cunliffe (both domestic duties)

Leader: Jones Diarist: Beal

Starting point: Car park at Derbyshire Bridge at the head of the Goyt Valley

Starting time: 9.50am Finishing time: 3.20pm

Today’s rendezvous point was probably the highest on the Wanderers’ itinerary, at more than 1,350 feet. Accordingly, on our arrival it was shrouded in mist that was to stay with us, accompanied by drizzle, for well over the first hour of our high-level walk.

Sadly, for the second time in three weeks, the walk was marked by an inferior beer scandal, this time at the Parks Inn at Harpur Hill.

Our numbers were depleted by the shock news as we gathered that Julian Ross, seeking an earlier finish, had reportedly decided to lead an alternate walk up Shutlingsloe. Not only this but he had managed to entice (allegedly) Hughie Harriman, Andy Blease and Cliff Worthington to accompany him in his insurgent wanderings. One can only hope this (alleged) mutinous behaviour will be an isolated incident.

Most of the car parking spaces at Derbyshire Bridge had been occupied by a 12-strong party from the East Cheshire Ramblers, but leaving us enough space to squeeze in before they departed twenty minutes before us.

We turned right from the car park and trudged in to the thickening mist along the rough, stony track of Old Buxton Road, which at one time was the packhorse route between Buxton and Macclesfield, before the construction of the A537 Cat and Fiddle road.

We climbed some 200 feet before turning right onto the open moorland at a sign pointing to Axe Edge Moor (17 minutes). We were heading due south in to the mist now and soon reached the minor, unfenced road, that links the A53 and A54 roads.

We turned left here along the road for a short distance before taking a signed footpath on the right, again heading south across the moor. This saw us skirt on our right the indistinctive height of Cheeks Hill, which has the minor claim to fame of being the highest point in Staffordshire.

We forded a stream and crossed some very boggy ground before climbing gently for a short distance and then descending out of the worst of the mist to reach a farm at Axe Edge End (74min), from where we could see the A53 road just below us and our route ahead to the north-east. Pie time was declared here at a sheltered hollow.

Resuming, we descended to the road along a track, and crossed the A53 at the farm building of Wallnook, from where we took a grassy path steeply downhill. Stiles and gates over the next two miles were too numerous to describe in detail. We climbed briefly to a tarmac track, turned left and took a path on the right down Brand Side to cross a stream at the bottom. From here we climbed to emerge at the smartly-restored buildings at Fairthorn.

A steepish climb up a track here brought us out on a minor road, where we turned left uphill. This brought us to, on our right, the entrance to the Health and Safety Executive’s Laboratory and Research centre, a sprawling 550-acre site where 380 scientists, engineers and lab staff work and safety initiatives and testing (122 min). It started life in 1947 as the Safety in Mining research centre before coming under the HSE in the 1950s.

Older maps mark it as the far more exciting-sounding Explosion and Flame Laboratory. Your diarist was laughed at as we entered the site and wondered whether an explosion might be laid on for us. But minutes later as we made our way along the right-of-way that runs through the site we came across a man in a hi-viz jacket who asked if there was anyone behind us.

We said no (guessing, really) and not long afterwards a siren sounded and there was a moderately loud explosion. What was blown up will remain unknown but as we made our way towards the exit hi-viz man drew alongside in his van and asked if we had enjoyed it.

The public footpath through the site is prominently signed – presumably so the likes of us do not wander in to danger and places where we should not be. We emerged at a track leading out of the establishment and turned left down a footpath. A small path on the left brought us in to Fiddle Street in the former quarry village of Harpur Hill, where we turned right to reach The Parks Inn (162 min).

Some crisis involving their electricity supply was unfolding, but whether this was responsible for the dire state of the Wychwood Hobgoblin beer was not clear. Being midweek and between 2 and 5 pm a sign told us it was Happy Hour – so beer was only £3-50 a pint. The normal price in unhappier hours was not revealed.

Much grumbling seemed to have little effect on the otherwise pleasant barmaid, until

shortly before we were preparing to leave she arrived with the offer of complimentary pints, Hobgoblin having been restored. Three Wanderers took up her offer and pronounced the beer OK.

These proceedings were being watched by the pub dog, a massive beast which made our canine friend Tommy (formerly aka World’s Largest Dog) look like Snoopy. We were told the animal was a Romanian Bucovina Shepherd, apparently used as a guard dog to scare away wolves and bears from the sheep in the Carpathian mountains. Occasional growling showed he wasn’t too happy at Tommy invading his territory. Tommy looked suitably nervous and who could blame him?

We left the pub, probably best-described in Chris’s words as ‘a weary place’, turned left down the road and after a brief climb uphill on a narrow pavement, took a stile on the right to climb across grass towards Grin Low and Solomon’s Temple (187 min).

The 20-foot Temple, otherwise known as Grin Low Tower, is a Victorian folly built in 1896 by farmer and landowner Solomon Mycock and serves no real purpose. It is however Grade 2 listed and marked the site of a neolithic burial mound discovered during excavation for its foundations.

From the 1,430-foot top of Grin Low, we descended on grassy tracks and then took a path on the left that emerged near a filling station on the A53, We crossed the road and entered a new housing development, soon taking a path on the left between houses that skirted the buildings and emerged on an older road. We turned left here, took a path on the left and followed a stream below us that brought us to a waterfall.

A steep climb here and an unpleasant ascent on a steep slope that led to us scaling a barbed wire fence, saw us emerge on the Old Macclesfield Road, the extension of the route on which we started our journey.

A climb to the high point at which we had turned south for Axe Edge Moor then saw us retrace our steps for the short descent to Derbyshire Bridge (252 min).

Next week’s walk will start at 9.45am from the road near The Sportsman Inn in Kinder Road, Hayfield. Depending on the weather we will either climb Kinder or do a route across Middle Moor, returning via Rowarth. Allow 5 minutes extra for the journey there because of roadworks at the Hayfield relief road junction.

Happy Wandering!

                                            Pic by John Jones, who says this dog (at the Parks Inn)

                                            is "the largest dog I have ever seen"