Skip to main content

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 progressed. Egginton is a nice little village and not at all smelly.


I set off along a track and past a fishing lake, and ran into a loop of the Dove in a field full of sheep. These ones were quite placid. The sheep in the next field were definitely giving me menacing looks. I reached a gap in an old railway embankment which was flooded about a foot deep, but when I looked behind me there was a sheep in a threatening stance. "Not thinking about coming back this way, are you?" I dragged myself through a hawthorn bush, paddled the edge of the flood, climbed the stile... and found myself facing yet more sheep. Remind me again why this was fun?

The River Dove

Footpath. Not the River Dove

The next challenge was to cross a real live railway line. The sign said, "phone signal box before crossing" so, for the first time in my life, I opened one of those little yellow phone boxes and picked up the receiver. "How long will it take you to cross?" asked the voice on the other end. "About 10 seconds," I replied, so I was given the go-ahead. A minute after I'd reached the other side, the train came rushing through.


 

Using that crossing had left me considerably off the line of the actual footpath, which I didn't realise until I bumped into the Hilton Brook (and a bridge which I was glad I wasn't crossing!) I floundered through a couple more fields and ducked past a Strictly Private sign to finally reach the road.

umm... bridge?

After all that, I was glad to sit down on the bench by St Mary's church for a few minutes.

From here it was mostly road. Marston Lane took me back across the railway, and over the river into Staffordshire. There was a footpath on the left to Rolleston-on-Dove. Over a stream, through the village, along another footpath, and I reached a section of the Jinny Nature Trail (no prizes for guessing what it used to be).




Half a mile on the road brought me to the A38. I crossed the River Dove again with lorries thundering past at 60mph. 


Fortunately I was soon back in quieter surroundings. Someone has made a lovely job of St Wilfrid's churchyard in Egginton. There are benches, flowers, and little signs with quotes from the Bible - and Peanuts.



And I was grateful. Even for sheep.

12.4 km / 7.7 miles

23 April 2024

Walk 2: Tutbury to Marston

A week later, I was back to approach Marston-on-Dove from the opposite direction. This was a much shorter walk, dominated by the Nestle factory in Hatton. The smell of roasting coffee drifts as far as Findern when the wind is right; an improvement on sewage odours, anyway.


I set off from the picnic area in Tutbury. The path towards Rolleston was blissfully well-trodden and sheep-free. I passed a rather nice house, climbed the small hump of Shotwood Hill, and dropped down again to a mobile home site on the edge of Rolleston. 




From here I headed north up Marston Lane. Even doing the same route in the opposite direction, I noticed new things - such as this old piece of machinery, which was hidden by a building when I walked the other way. 


There must be a big project going on on the power lines, as men were perched in several pylons that I passed. It confused me the first time I heard voices from overhead!


From St Mary's church, a tarmac lane leads straight to the coloured blocks of the Nestle factory. The public footpath swerves to the right of the factory, but all the other walkers I could see were turning left, so I followed them. That took me past some art installations, under the railway, and along the southern edge of the site.




After a few minutes I reached Thistley Place Meadow Nature Reserve, with a very good view of the bridge between Hatton and Tutbury. A sign informed me that the bridge is 230 feet long and 24 feet wide.



 Crossing the bridge, I arrived back at the picnic site. It has a cute castle-themed play area. The real Tutbury Castle made a few appearances through trees on this walk, but will be more visible next time, when I head further west along the Dove.

7.5 km / 4.7 miles

29 April 2024

Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Limestone Way - the end! (for now...)

Bonsall is a pretty little village just up the road from Cromford. It was the centre point for my final Limestone Way walk. First I walked one way, back towards Ible, then I walked the other way to Matlock. I started at the fountain and climbed up to a tree in which a mistle thrush was singing loudly (helpfully identified by the Merlin app). A few fields took me across to the hamlet of Slaley. Then there was a pleasant walk through the woods, which dropped steeply to my left down to the Via Gellia. At Dunsley Springs the stream went right over the edge.  I made my way down more gradually, and then was faced with the long climb up again to the point near Leys Farm where I was rejoining the Limestone Way. Tree down! Rejoining the Limestone Way Once I'd reached the top, it was a very pleasant walk across dry grassy fields. There were signs of old mining activity, which suddenly made the ground feel less solid under my feet - how many holes were hiding under the turf? Back at Bonsall, ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Derwent Valley Heritage Way: Steep drops ahead

It's been a long time since I fitted that much up and down into an eight-mile walk! 740m of steep climbs and steps. My legs were not very happy with me the next day. Between Matlock and Cromford, the Derwent River runs through a deep valley, with Matlock Bath - a landlocked town which pretends to be a seaside resort - down at the bottom. The ridge of high ground used to run all the way round to Scarthin Rock, cutting off Cromford from the rest of the valley, until somebody blasted a hole through it to build the A6. Matlock Bath: pavilion and amusement park I started in Cromford and climbed over the ridge at Harp Edge, then followed a path along through the woods, with the ground dropping sharply away to my right. There were a few small caves among the trees. At Upperwood someone had thoughtfully provided a bench. I wasn't in need of a rest just yet, though. In fact, I was feeling so bouncy that I went down an entirely unnecessary flight of steps, instead of staying on the reaso...
Post a Comment
Read more

Limestone Way: Grangemill and Ible

It was getting mistier and mistier. As I drove past Carsington Water, the world around grew dimmer, and when I parked near Brassington, the nearby trees were hazy shadows in the murk. I was glad I was wearing a red coat as I started off along Manystones Lane. At least I had some chance of being visible. Fortunately it was a short road section. I navigated my way across a series of small fields, from one dry stone wall to the next, and crossed the old railway line which is now the High Peak Trail. I could just imagine a steam train emerging out of the fog. The next fields were larger. It was as if the landscape was being sketched around me as I walked across it. A tree or an electricity pylon would appear as a few faint lines, increasing in detail when I got closer, and fading away behind. Up ahead, the land dropped into a huge hole - Longcliffe Quarries. I couldn't see much, but the noise from the machinery dominated the next section of the walk.  I skirted the edge of the quarry a...
Post a Comment
Read more