Skip to main content

Dove Valley Walk: finding the mouth of the Dove

The Bonnie Prince Charlie Way was really just a fill-in walk until I could start my next big excursion. Gloopy though the BPC was, I knew it wouldn't actually be flooded, whereas the bits of ground I was tackling next had had ducks paddling on them for most of the winter.

 

The grand plan is to start from my house in Findern, reaching the start of the River Dove. I can then follow the Dove to Uttoxeter, making up my own route, as this section has no official waymarked path. At Uttoxeter I join the Staffordshire Way up to Rocester, then the Limestone Way beyond that. It stays near the Dove for a while longer. Then it cuts across the southern Peak District to reach Matlock. At Matlock I can pick up the Derwent Valley Heritage Way, heading south through Derby to reach the River Trent at Shardlow. The Trent has its own relatively new Way, leading back to Repton and then, eventually, home. The map shows a rough idea of the route.

If only it would stop raining long enough for me to get across all those flood plains.

Walk 1

Well, finally, it did. Sort of. I set out from Findern to Newton Solney on a day of extremely mixed weather. One minute I was considering ice cream; the next I was getting pounded by hail!

Willington
 

The rain was falling as I walked along the Trent & Mersey canal towpath, but by the time I reached Willington, the sun was turning wet streets into mirrors. I crossed the Trent on the Victorian stone bridge (opened 1839, freed from toll 1898) and dropped down to the flood plain beyond. This is a sheet of water when the river runs high, but today was just occasionally squelchy. 

Trent & Mersey

Willington Bridge


I came across a new waymarker for the Trent Valley Way. One flooded stile defeated me, but there was a passable route along the other side of the hedge. 



Sadly the only crossing of the Trent here is for a pipeline, so I had to content myself with taking photos of the mouth of the River Dove from the other side of the water. Actually, I needn't have bothered, as there's quite a nice photo on this sign!

River Dove meeting River Trent


Newton Solney is a pretty little village on the road between Repton and Burton. I stuck my head in the church, and admired a flowering cherry tree by the village green.


 

My return route took me through fields of very long grass - so long it flopped everywhere, like shaggy hair. When I reached Repton I stopped by the Repton School science block for a drink. The sun was warm and I wondered if I might treat myself to an ice cream at Mercia Marina. But an ominous dark cloud approached and threw hail at me. By the time I got to the Marina I was thinking longingly of hot chocolate. I decided I was too wet and cold even for that, though. Best head for home and get dried out.


Heading towards Repton spire

Findern - Newton Solney: 12.4 km / 9.2 miles

15 April 2024

Walk 2

I persuaded my parents (who are actually interested in such things) and the rest of my family (who thought it was a poor excuse for a day out) to join me on a tour of Claymills Pumping Station. This is a restored Victorian sewage pumping station with four massive steam-powered beam engines. They were in steam for the bank holiday weekend and were really quite an impressive sight. There was a good collection of smaller steam engines, too, and many enthusiastic volunteers.




Conveniently, Claymills happens to be situated near a path which leads to the other side of the Dove-Trent confluence. The public rights of way presumably date back to when this was a major crossing point, so I warned the rest of the family that we might need pith helmets, and we set off on our expedition to the mouth of the Dove.


 Actually, it turned out to be a clear track for most of the way. We encountered a bit of mud, lots of swans, and a WWII pillbox. Helmets were not required, but sunhats were - it was surprisingly warm.

Theo in a pillbox

 
big house in Newton Solney

We reached our destination successfully, and admired the view back across the Trent to Newton Solney, then followed our tracks back to the car park.

Claymills - Dove mouth and back: 4.3 km / 2.7 miles

5 May 2024

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dove Valley Walk: Marston from both directions

Marston-on-Dove consists of about three farms and a church. If you live more than ten miles away, you've probably never heard of it. Bizarrely, the church is the parish church for Hilton, which is now many times Marston's size after a bunch of houses were built on an old MoD base. Marston Lane bridge  Marston also has a bridge over the River Dove. I walked from Egginton and crossed it north to south, then walked from Tutbury and crossed it south to north. I think I can now consider that bridge pretty well crossed off my list! Walk 1: Egginton to Marston Having visited Claymills Pumping Station , I now know that Egginton used to be dominated by the stench of Burton's sewage, which was pumped up here to be spread across some fields in the hope that it would magically disappear. It didn't. It sat there and stank.  We don't seem to have learned many lessons about making bad things magically disappear (see also: plastic, nuclear waste) but at least sewage treatment has p
Post a Comment
Read more

A Place at the Table: Spiritual Formation Book 12

"God has ordained in his great wisdom and goodness that eating, and especially eating in company, should be one of the most profound and pleasurable aspects of being human." Miranda Harris had been intending to write a book for years. She'd got as far as a folder full of notes when she died suddenly in a car accident in 2019. When her daughter, Jo Swinney, found the notes, she decided to bring her mum's dream to fruition. A Place at the Table was the result. I thought this was going to be a nice friendly book about having people over for dinner. In one sense it is, but it's pretty hard-hitting as well. Miranda and her husband Peter co-founded the environmental charity A Rocha, so the book doesn't shy away from considering the environmental aspects of what we eat and how we live. They also travelled widely and encountered hunger at close quarters; the tension between seeing such poverty and believing in a generous God comes out clearly in A Place at the Table.
Post a Comment
Read more