Skip to main content

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 and gradually descended to Grangemill. There was a pub, and an interesting building which now houses a holiday cottage management company. Further investigation when I got home revealed that it was built as a cheese factory; the strange contraption at the front was an old cheese press. 



 An indistinct path cut the corner to reach Grange Lane. I said hello to a couple of horses and some Highland cattle. Ible was a rather tumbledown little village perched at the top of the Griffe Grange Valley. I liked the row of spring-fed stone drinking troughs.



 

By this point I had resigned myself to a rather dull trek. I ate lunch in a damp grey field, and did a loop back to Ible to get to the point that I wanted to reach on my next walk.

And then the mist cleared and the sun came out.


I splashed down a path which alternated between stream and cattle-trampled bog, crossed the Via Gellia, and followed a track up the other side of the valley to Griffe Grange Farm. Here the path ascended through a beautiful wooded combe. 

stream / path


 Once I reached the top, I was well on the way to Harboro' Rocks. There were views in all directions, and a trig point - which of course means you have to take a selfie!




 I had to do one more short stretch on Manystones Lane. This was just as unpleasant as the earlier one - less mist, but more traffic. The ordeal was soon over, and it wasn't far back to the car. Maybe the walk hadn't been so dull after all.


Brassington - Ible, 3 February 2025

8.2 miles / 13.3 km


Comments

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, ...

Baby Language

For some reason baby equipment is an area in which American English differs markedly from British English. As well as learning how to care for a baby, we had to learn a whole new vocabulary! Fortunately we are now fluently bilingual, and I have compiled a handy US-UK baby dictionary for you. Diaper n. Nappy Mom says if you can read this change my diaper. The first time you change one of these you will be all thumbs and stick the little adhesive tabs to yourself, the baby and probably the changing mat before you get them where they ought to go. A few years later you will be able to lasso a running toddler and change them before they even know what's happened (yes, I have seen it done). You will also get through more diapers than you ever thought possible, creating scary amounts of expense and waste. Hence we are now mostly using: Cloth diaper n. Reusable nappy Cool baby. No longer those terry squares, the main drawback is that there are now so many types it can be qu...