I have rather neglected this blog, not because I have not been walking, I have, when golf have not got in the way, but I never seem to get around to updating it.
Since the last entry about a year ago, we have done some really nice walks. We finally walked the real Froggatt Edge, this was a walk we did a couple of years ago but by mistake we walked White Edge instead. How we could have confused the two s a mystery to me as they really are completely different.
We have walked round Mow Cop, a village on the Staffordshire Cheshire border, Darwen Moor, n Lancashire and Waddington Fell in the Forest of Bowland, We have walked from Bakewell to Chatsworth House and back and Formby beach and woods, as well as also several canal walks as my walking partner as found an interest in canal travel. They were all lovely walks however the best and most surprising of the walks was over the Roaches and through Lud's Church in Staffordshire at the Southern end of the Peak District.
Mow Cop, not a run but a folly but in the 18th century
Ingleborough from Waddington Fell
The Roaches are a series of rocky ridges that run from Hen Cloud, which itself stands apart from the Roaches and its rock faces are popular with climbers .
We parked on the road side, and set of on our walk. The track took us between Hen Cloud and and Roaches and we were soon walking uphill as we neared the first of the climbing sites. The route took us along the bottom of some of the climbs before we picked our way up and onto the top of the ridge.
These ridges command some great views, from the Malverns in the far south to Winter Hill ,and from the Welsh hills over to various heights of the Peak district.
We walked along the top of the ridge and came to Doxey Pool, a small pool on the very top of the ridge. The Roaches used to be home to a small colony of Wallabies, that were released into the wild during the 2nd World War. Sadly there are no reports of any being seen over the last 15 or so years although they did successfully bread here for a number of years.
We continued from Doxey Pool and when we reach the point where we had to descend, we stopped for our lunch. After a break we descended form the ridge and then followed a path down until we reached a wooded area and we set off to find Lud's Church.
After a nice walk through sunlit woods we fnally arrived at Lud's Church, this is not a real church, but is infact a deep cleft in the rocks and owes its name to the fact that it was used as a secret place of worship by the Lollards n the 15th Century. It also has legends surrounding it claiming the likes of Robin Hood and Bonnie Prince Charlie used it as a hiding place to escape capture.
The entrance to the church is almost a pothole, a small hole n the ground where you scramble down to reach the floor and find yourself n a narrow passage with lichen covered rock faces rising around 50 feet above you. It is certainly an atmospheric place and well worth a visit.
The entrance to Lud's Church
We walked the length of the "church" around 100 yds before continuing on to the far end of our route, we were now out of the wood and back onto a sandy path. This is where we first encountered the flying ants and there were thousands of them, the path was just covered and they filled the air as were started out homeward leg of the walk. This part of the walk was along a low ridge covered in heather.
We eventually reached the path we had taken when descending from the Roaches and instead of climbing back onto the ridge we followed a road that ran at the base of the rocks and after a couple of miles we arrived back at our starting point.
