Litton

Red Lion Litton

AUGUST 13th, 2025

 

LITTON MIRES LANE WARDLOW MIRES PETERS STONE TANSLEY DALE CRESSBROOK DALERAVENSDALE CRESSBROOK HALL MILLERS DALE RAVENSTOR TIDESWELL DALE LITTON DALE 

Distance: 6.79 miles.

Difficulty: Moderate to Easy Peasy.

Weather: Scorchio

 Walkers:  Mike Cassini, Mark Enright, Hughie HardimanRussell Spencer Cliff Worthington

Alternative walker: Jock Rooney with Milly. 

Leaders: Mark E. Diarist: Cassini

Starting point: Red Lion Litton

Starting time: 9:45am. Finishing time: 12.20pm.

 

Kieran suggested this route and published it on the Whatsapp group and fortunately Mark and also Russell were able to follow the walk on their particular apps. It is a glorious route and on a glorious day, mainly downhill and when the heat was in danger of overcoming  us we passed through cool shaded woodlands, sometimes by the River Wye, replete with fish clearly visible in the crystal-clear water.

                              Red Lion

 

We left the cars in the centre of the small village of Litton and walked  about a quarter of a mile along Mires Lane down a slight incline until we came to a well signed footpath on the right down into a valley. This later became the various Dales that we walked through, initially walking down in the same direction and after a few hundred metres turning back on ourselves along the floor of the valley towards Peter’s

 Peter's Stone (named after its resemblance to the dome shape of St Peter's Basilica in Rome) is the prominent limestone knoll at the northern end of the valley (the Wardlow Mires). It used to be called Gibbet Rock where the last gallows in the county once stood. The gibbet was an iron cage holding the dead bodies of executed criminals as a deterrent to others. One of the last cases of gibbeting was of Anthony Lingard from Tideswell in 1815. He was convicted and executed in Derby for killing Hannah Oliver, the toll-keeper at Wardlow Mires, for a pair of red boots. His corpse was hung in chains on Peter’s Stone.

We were now in Cressbrook Dale, which is part of the Derbyshire Dales National Nature Reserve, with a broad variety of plants shrubs and trees it is a site of special scientific interest due to the lichens growing on the Limestone. The sequence of limestones in Cressbrook Dale make it an important geological site. The layers were deposited in a warm shallow sea in the Brigantian stage of the Carboniferous period (around 330 million years ago). The Carboniferous Limestone contains important fossils. Several layers of volcanic rock show that volcanoes were once active in Derbyshire, Cressbrook is also an important area in Industrial History with mills from the inception of the Industrial Revolution, and earlier lead mines.

We continued through the valley where the temperature with little wind must have been 30 degrees but then the path took us into the woods where the air was much cooler making the walk much less arduous, eventually coming out onto a road by Ravensdale cottages.

 

 

These are two terraces of cottages built by William Newton to house the workers at Cressbrook Mill. They date from 1823 and are Grade II listed buildings.

Further down the hill was Cressbrook Mill now ‘exclusive’ apartments. The cotton mill was built in 1814–15 by William Newton on behalf on J L Philips. It replaced the original mill built in 1779 by Sir Richard Arkwright, which burnt down in 1785. The clock on the pediment and the octagonal cupola were added in 1837 to commemorate Queen Victoria’s coronation. The mill closed in 1965. It is a Grade II* listed building. 

Following the footpath at the bottom of the hill- (actually by Bottom hill road which would have taken us directly via a steep slope(!) into Litton) we followed the course of the River Wye past weirs, overhanging rock climbs and the clear water of the river illuminated by the bright sun showing several large fish.

This took us through Cramside wood and Millers Dale before exiting through more ‘exclusive’ apartments and climbing the road towards Tideswell. Obviously we passed Tideswell Sewage Works on the way before returning to the Red Lion for after walk refreshment, where a significant number of Austin 7s of different vintages were parked, presumably on a day out to the peaks. Although probably a bit too hot for walking the route was not hard mainly downhill with beautiful scenery and those of us walking thank Kieran for his suggestion and efforts on our behalf.

From the archives 

Litton Mill, set up in 1782 by two local farmers, became notorious during the Industrial Revolution because of its unsavoury employment practices. Because of the lack of local labour the owners scoured the country’s workhouses so they could turn paupers into apprentices. It was virtual slave labour and many children died as a result of mill accidents, illnesses and malnutrition.

The mill was destroyed by fire in 1874 but rebuilt. It closed in the 1970s and was converted into flats in 2003.

Conversation turned to the derivation of the phrase “to pull someone’s leg” 

It would appear the term has rather sinister connotations. Despite its humorous associations the origin of the expression has its roots in the criminal world of 18th and 19th century London. In those days street robbers often worked in gangs of two. One would trip up the unsuspecting victim and the other would remove his money and other valuables while he was lying on the ground. The robber didn’t literally pull the victim’s leg but caused him to stumble and fall and then lose his valuables.

Next week's walk comes from a diary in 2023 - the start point is a quarry near start of Monsal trail, assemble ar 9.45 as close to the Quarry entrance as possible.

 https://wwanderers.blogspot.com/2023/08/topley.html?m=1