Rambles in Peakland : Wildboarclough to Danebridge

Three years ago, I read a book called Rambles in Peakland, by Roger Redfern and said that I'd like to walk the routes he described and see how much has changed since the 1960s when this book was published. On Saturday, I finally walked one of the routes from this book, Walk 15, which was a nine mile route starting in Wildboarclough.

I will be using Roger Redfern's words to describe this walk, alongside the photos I took. The text in italics in this post are Roger's words, the rest are my own.

Wildboarclough is something of a unique village, sheltered in the valley bottom and sheltered to the west by that finest Peakland hill, Shutlingsloe and the shoulders of Birchenough Hill and Wood Moss on the east. High deciduous trees wind along the base of the clough and hide the scattered houses.

I watched a grey wagtail on Clough Brook before beginning the walk, which starts by crossing the bridge and walking up the lane towards Crag Hall. On this lane stands the former post office. It was the post office when Roger Redfern walked this route and he described it as surely one of the most elaborate country post offices in these islands, a Georgian remnant of mill days.

I believe it was built around 1770 and was once the largest sub post office in the country. It is now a private residence.

Just a little further up the lane is the church of St Saviour, pink with local gritstone and well sheltered by mixed trees. The church was built between 1901 and 1909 by the 16th Earl of Derby, Frederick Stanley, to celebrate the safe return of his sons from the Boer war.

Before the church, there is a lane which leads off to the right, passing some cottages. This was the route, walking along the grassy lane and then across a couple of fields heading for the corner of Berrybank Wood.

Redfern advised the walker to look back from the corner of the wood as the view of Shutlingsloe with Wildboarclough is really wonderful from here on a clear day ...

At this point in the walk I noticed a strange looking red thing down the field and wandered off to see what it was. I was surprised to find three lambs, dead, still in their amniotic sacs. There were two together and one a little further along and they looked very fresh. I wondered if a ewe had been carrying three lambs  and couldn't carry them all to term so miscarried or aborted the lambs. Perhaps a couple of ewes dropped the lambs after infection or something aborted them. It's possible a dog that was not on a lead worried a ewe or two as well I guess and caused this. It's not something I've ever seen before anyway so I'm curious as to what might have caused this. Sorry if anyone objects to the gory photos, but well, that's nature.

Continue, skirting the topside of a plantation of Norway spruce. Nothing much has changed so far in the route, except for the addition of a little honesty box shop by the spruce trees...

I heard the song of skylarks along this stretch of the route.  

Contouring brings you through the farmyard of Tagsclough, the farm with a ruined house but outbuildings in good repair and still in use.

The outbuilding is still in good repair, though doesn't look regularly used now, and the house, well, that's still a ruin, probably slightly more ruined than it was when RR walked here...

The lane, often waterlogged, soon brings one out onto the Buxton-Congleton road (A54) a mile above Allgreave. The lane is definitely still water logged.

I turned to look back...

before continuing. Cross the main road and up through rough pasture for a few yards to join a lane running over the should of Birchenough Hill to Burntcliff Top on the Flash road. Very soon along the lane fork left onto a poorer, grassy lane where you will soon have fine views westwards looking out over the Cheshire Plain.

Well, the left fork (above) was certainly poorer, and no longer grassy.

But the views over Cheshire to the west were, of course, the same. I turned around for another look back towards Shutlingsloe.

By this point in the day, the clouds were rolling in. It had felt warm and spring like in the sunshine but it was cold in the shade. The wind over this section of the walk, a little under 1500 feet, was very strong and oh so chilly.

There were a few lapwings in the fields here.

Looking ahead towards the back of the Roaches in the distance, that's where this walk will take me.

There is an old farmhouse at Burntcliffe Top, on the roadside. Teas are served here and you can sit in comfort in the old world parlour surrounded by rural Victoriana and served by a mop-capped farm wife. If only that were still true! I've love to have a look inside this building.

Until 1919, this farmhouse was a an inn called The Eagle and Child. The Eagle and Child was the family crest of the Stanleys (the Earls of Derby, one of whom built the church in Wildboarclough) who owned much of the land around nearby Macclesfield Forest once.

Here the route goes down a path just opposite the former inn, heading down past a farm. Eventually, a short section of wall protecting four old stone troughs is seen on the left. These troughs are filled with spring water and were placed here for the use of pack-horses employed in the carrying of wool and woollen goods to and from Gradbach Mill on the valley floor below.

The walk follows the old packhorse route, steeply down to the mill, crossing the River Dane and the county border, from Cheshire into Staffordshire.

Gradbach Mill was used as farm buildings in Roger Redfern's time but has more recently been a youth hostel and is now an outdoor education base which has undergone a lot of work in the last couple of years. I think it's still available for accommodation too. It's looking pretty good now, so different to the last time I was here.

The walk follows the riverside path, passing the house where the mill manager once lived (that's to the right in the above picture, though the house has been extended and modified since those days) and then over a stile leading into pasture fields.

The stile is now a gate and the footpath runs between the river and the fields now, rather than through the fields, to a footpath over the Black Brook.

Straight ahead is a steep slope covered in mixed woodland - oak, larch and Scots pine predominating. Climb for 50 feet then turn up right along a good path through the trees.  

Redfern says we are near to the secret held by these hill-angles and, at Castle Cliff rocks, to look for a footpath running back to the left. These days there is no secret. He was talking about Lud's Church, a place that is much more well known now I suppose. I like Castle Cliff rocks. It's a small outcrop, but a pleasant place to sit with a winter picnic (as I've done in the past).

Today I only had some sparkling apple juice, not a picnic, but I was saving it to drink sitting on these rocks!

The view from the rocks.

I've been visiting Lud's Church my whole life, the last time I walked there being around six months ago (see this post) so I didn't follow that bit of Roger's route. His route walks up into Lud's Church for a bit of exploring and then leads you back to Castle Cliff rocks and carries on from there, so I missed Lud's Church out completely and just resumed the route from the rocks.

There were five or six ravens overhead, which seemed to follow me as I walked, almost constantly overhead!  Here are three of them. I saw a couple of kestrels too, as usual.

Along the rougher lane ahead notice the bold Hanging Stone upon the right-hand skyline.

Last time I walked to Lud's Church I also walked above the church, along the ridge and down to the Hanging Stone. See more of it in this post.

Walk down the rough bank where young conifers have been planted - be careful not to tread on these while making down to the main path contouring above the River Dane.

No danger of treading on any young trees now, over 50 years later!

This path emerges in Danebridge, at a spot that has featured on my blogs many times. A favourite spot for a paddle.

I couldn't resist having a little dip before continuing. The water level was higher than usual and the current much stronger after all the recent rain.

From here on, much of this walk was following the lane, from Danebridge and up through Wincle.  This is a view back towards the Hanging Stone from Wincle.

At the church, I turned right, still following the road.  I could have taken an earlier path, leaving the road and cutting off a corner to join a later point in my route, but I wanted to keep the walk at 9 miles and follow Roger's footsteps, so I stayed on the lanes.

It began to rain at this point.

The sun attempted to break through again.

But the remainder of the walk (about two/three more miles now) was damp and gloomy. Leaving the lane for a little while to head across pasture and along an ancient routeway through Allgreave Pastures.

Then the final stretch was a mile and a half back on the lane, following Clough Brook back to Wildboarclough.

I spotted a Peak poetry bench beside the brook! There are 50 of these around the Peak District, installed in 2004 to commemorate 50 years of the Peak District Ranger Service. A few years ago I made it my mission to find and photograph all 50 but I've sort of not bothered for the last couple of years, often forgetting, and haven't seen a new one for some time.  I'd walked along the road here before and have driven along it so many times, never knowing there was a bench there!  Another one to add to the collection, I should get back on to it and seek out a few more this year.

 Finally, 9 miles and 4.5 hours after I started, back at the bridge where I'd seen the grey wagtail at the beginning. I also saw a dipper on the brook towards the end of the walk.