We drove to Tideswell, apparently famous for its church which is called the cathedral of the peaks, and parked a little way out of town at the top of Tideswell dale. Our route took us first along the road which climbed quite steeply until we reached a stile where we headed off through fields, with good views into Millers dale. We soon reached a steep track which we followed down into the dale and the village of Millers Dale itself.
Millers Dale was once an important railway junction and the track and viaducts are now used as part of the Monsal trail. As we entered the village we crossed a bridge over what turned out to be the end of Monks dale ware was flowing over the grass and Mallard were swimming on the water, Blue tits flitted across the water and the sun was shining, it was a lovely morning. We walked a few yards and came to the smallest church, complete with tower that I have seen, it was set against a rock wall and we now climbed a path beside the church to reach the top of the rocks and the entrance to Monks dale
Monks’s Dale, which is a national Nature Reserve, is described in the book as a glorious mile which is more wooded at the end. The author has obviously never visited. The first part of the dale was fairly easy going albeit a bit muddy underfoot and the path followed the stream that flows down the dale and we soon crossed a small bridge to continue into the dale. Limestone outcrops were on the sides and gradually the dale narrowed and became more wooded. However the path started to fade and we found ourselves picking our way over rocks, the line of the path only being indicated by the lack of moss on some of the rocks, the route climbed and fell amongst these rocks and the going was quite tricky (pictured).
After about half a hour of picking our way gingerly, we began to wonder if we had taken a wrong turn as we hadn’t seen anyone else for quite along time, fortunately a couple of people appeared walking the other way and we at least knew we were on the right track. As well as the rocks we had to negotiate fallen trees and over hanging branches, this must be quite a problem in summer. Eventually the way became easier and eventually we exited the dale into a broad sunlit field, I felt like a character form Lord of the Rings emerging from Moria. Looking back the entrance to the dale looked quite foreboding with the entrance being quite forboding between two rock walls
We had now walked about 2 miles but it had taken us 2 and half hours, so we took a break and we discussed what to do. Having looked at the book and the OS map we decided that following the route would be a bad idea as it could be dark before we finished, so having seen the limestone way marked on the map not too far away we headed for that as it would take us back to Millers dale. A half mile walk up a minor road saw us reach a bridle path which was part of the limestone way and we took this path. This part of he walk was not particularly noteable except for the mass of rabbits we saw, the hillsides seemed to be riddled with warrens.
Once back in Millers dales we set of again on what would have been the last part of the original walk and followed the river Wye. This was a pleasant walk along quite a broad river for the area. The river alternated between weirs and stretches of calm water, we watched mallards aand a heron and spotted a big frog on the verge of the path. We passed the limestone cliffs Ravenstor,and finally reached the bottom of Tideswell Dale, a mostly old quarry. We walked up the dale and at last wearily reached the car park.
I worked out that we walked around 6 to 7 miles in 5 hours which was very slow going even for us. The 6 miles mentioned in the book was actually more like 9 (bad conversion from metric to imperial) and we still have Clee dale to visit which was the actual main aim of the walk, we can probably plan our own route to do the bit some other time, but it wont involve Monkdale thats for sure.
No comments:
Post a Comment