Skip to main content

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, I admired a shed with a mammoth collection of signs attached to it, and found a bench with a view for lunch.



A roughly paved path took me back down to the centre of Bonsall. The pub was hung with a Derbyshire flag but hadn't updated its sign from Charles II to Charles III. Do you suppose our present king has made it onto any pub signs yet?


Then it was uphill again. Technically I was on a restricted byway, with some quite nice stone wheel tracks, but a fallen tree and some wall collapses meant it would have been difficult to get any kind of vehicle up there now. 


Suddenly the views opened up to the north. I could see for miles! Up the Derwent Valley and over to the hills beyond. I was so glad I'd saved this walk for a sunny day. To the west, Matlock appeared, with the distinctive landmark of Riber Castle to the south of the town.

looking north

Riber Castle dead centre

It was a lo-o-ong downhill to Matlock. Great fun to descend, but I was already calculating how much of this I would have to go up again to get back to Bonsall. And when I reached the sign marking the end of the Limestone Way, my first thought was, "That would be a killer of a start, going up that hill!" My second thought was, "25 miles to Castleton? That's only a couple of days' walking. Tempting..." 

Matlock to Castleton was the original route; it was later extended to Rocester. I'd just walked the extension, from Rocester to Matlock, which is why I finished at the start. Does that make sense?

path through holly trees

almost there!


I now retraced a short part of the climb before heading for the Heights of Abraham, above Matlock Bath. I passed the church of St John the Baptist, built above a spring and owned by the Friends of Friendless Churches. At the Heights of Abraham, it was too early in the season for the cable cars to be running. The site stood peacefully, waiting for visitors.

spring at St John the Baptist...

...and the church above



There were some uphill stretches, and a bit of mud, but nothing too bad. At Ember Farm I came out on a small lane which I followed back to Bonsall. St James' Church boasted "Jimmy's Cafe" with an impressive array of cakes. I settled for a coffee, admiring my surroundings as I drank it. The cafe tables were squeezed in around the pews, and there were plenty of heaters to keep customers warm.


steps up to the chancel

The church is built into a hill, so the chancel is five steps up from the nave - an arrangement I'd never seen before. 



From the church it was a short distance to the car park (£2 in an honesty box) on the wonderfully-named Clatterway. I'd finished the Limestone Way. Derwent Valley Heritage Way, here I come!


(Although, if I disappear for two sunny days, I'll be walking from Matlock to Castleton. Don't worry, I'll get the train home.)

Near Ible - Matlock, 3 March 2025

8.8 miles, 14.5 km



Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Portway: Bramcote Hills to Stanton-by-Dale

I parked in the free car park at Bramcote Hills Park and set off, naturally enough, in the direction of where I'd last been. Up some steps through the woods, along the edge with marvellous views northwards, and down past a school to pick up Moor Lane again. At that point I realised I was supposed to be walking this route in the opposite direction. Oops. Well, it didn't make much difference. It just meant that the Hemlock Stone would come at the end rather than the start. Also, I was doing a figure of eight, so I could switch paths in the middle. That sorted, I pressed on along the disused Nottingham Canal. This had varying amounts of water in it. There were good views back up to the double hump of the Bramcote Hills. Nottingham Canal Also Nottingham Canal Just before I got to Trowell garden centre, I crossed a bridge and walked across a green space to a partly built housing estate. The Boundary Brook had been aggressively re-wiggled. I'm sure it will look better in a year...
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

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