Skip to main content

Cake, canal and cotton: A walk near Cromford

Just before Easter, Graham and the boys received an invitation to join some friends on a canal boat for a couple of days. That gave me the chance to have a rare day out walking - and fortunately the weather cooperated with some beautiful warm sunshine. This excursion fitted all my criteria for a good walk: well-marked paths, beautiful views, interesting things to see, very few people, and even a decent cup of coffee along the way!

I parked at the High Peak Junction car park near Cromford, and started by climbing up through spring-flowered woods, with views across the Derwent valley.


When I came out onto a lane, I discovered a farm with a blue plaque saying that Alison Uttley was born there. On my bookshelf there is a very battered yellow paperback called Magic in my Pocket, a collection of some of Alison Uttley's short stories. They contain some beautifully evocative descriptions of sledging down snowy slopes and walking across moonlit meadows, but I had never connected her with the Peak District. Of course I had to dig out the book when I got home, and re-read the stories in a new context!


I continued up the hill (more stunning views), then dropped down through sheep fields and across stepping stones to reach the village of Lea.

View of Cromford


Lea Gardens was a place I'd been wanting to visit for a while. I was just a little early for rhododendron season, which is the garden's chief attraction. There were a few splashes of colour around, though, and some stately trees. Plus a cafe which served me a delicious slice of lime and pistachio cake and a proper bucket-sized cup of coffee. I'd recommend the place for the cafe alone.




 

 Suitably fortified, I continued across grassy fields, accompanied by skylarks, and along a track from which I could see the end of the tramline at the Crich Tramway Museum. As I watched, a tram nosed its way through the trees and paused to drop off its load of passengers.

From then on it was mostly downhill to the Cromford Canal, passing some old quarries in the woods on the way.

 

I found a bench by the canal to eat my lunch. A couple of ducks came up looking hopeful, but plopped into the water again when nothing was forthcoming. The canal path was nice and flat, and I was tempted to follow it back to High Peak Junction. Instead I went through a tunnel and then branched off uphill to walk past Lea Hurst, the family home of Florence Nightingale. The house is quite secluded, so I couldn't see much of it, but the parkland was pretty.


The final interesting sight was the Smedley Mill on the outskirts of Holloway village. Amazingly enough, it is still a working business producing knitted clothing today. It's been manufacturing in the same premises since 1784. The buildings are that mix of practical and historical, renovated and bashed around, that you get when a place is still being used, instead of just a museum piece.



I finished off with a much-needed cold drink at the High Peak Junction cafe. Then I had a phone call saying Toby had been sick, and could I come and pick him up off the canal boat? Oh well, I'd had my day out, and a very nice one it was too.

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Where am I going now? The Portway

I should probably explain why I am pottering around Nottingham and its western suburbs, rather than roaming the Derbyshire countryside. It's not just the abundance of paved paths, although that certainly helps - I recently went on a country walk across a cow field and found myself tiptoeing gingerly across boggy mud cratered with six-inch deep hoof holes. Then I was confronted by a sign which said: Private Property, Trespassers Will Be Prosecuted. I congratulated myself on being on a public right of way, then, a few steps on, consulted the map and realised I wasn't. The path was across a completely different field. nice scenery, though I digress. Apart from the absence of cows and angry landowners, the reason I am walking around Nottingham is that it's the start of the Portway. There is a blog called The Old Roads of Derbyshire , written by a man named Stephen Bailey, who has also published a book of the same name. I can't remember now whether I came across the book fir...
Post a Comment
Read more

The Portway: Lenton to the Bramcote Hills

It was cold. My fingers were cold, and my phone was cold too. The OS map was totally failing to find my location, and the more I prodded it the less feeling I had in my fingers, so I gave up, shoved both my phone and my chilly hands into my pockets, and set off. After all, I knew where I was. This was Wollaton Park. And the path was very obvious. Just follow the avenue of trees... ...past the deer... ...and out through the fancy gates. Crossing a busy road brought me into a neat little housing estate with unusual round street signs. This was built when Wollaton Park was sold to Nottingham City Council in 1925. The old gatehouse, Lenton Lodge, is now estranged from the rest of the park, and stands by itself next to Derby Road. The bridge used to go over the Nottingham Canal, which has now been turned back into the River Leen. The unfortunate river got shoved out of the way whenever someone came up with a new building project. This is not its original course. My hands were warming up sli...
Post a Comment
Read more

Advent 2025: Mercy

I'm going to read the whole Bible. The question came up in my homegroup recently (have you ever...?) and even though large parts of the Bible are embedded in my brain, and even though I'm pretty sure I have read all of it at some point, I have never set out to read the whole thing. My friend Dave read through the Bible several times. He was one of the most Christian men I know, in all the best ways, and he died recently. So. This is for Dave, too. Today is the first Sunday of Advent. I was going to start on December 1st, and I was going to do the obvious thing and start with Genesis, alongside the Psalms. Then I saw something that mentioned reading Luke in Advent (24 chapters: 24 days) and then I had some spare time today and thought why not? so here I am, a day ahead of myself already. Luke 1 is hardly a voyage into the unknown. In the sixth month the Angel Gabriel was sent by God,  the Magnificat and the Benedictus ... all woven tightly into the liturgies of the church. But ...
Post a Comment
Read more