The day after we’d been up to Blackwell and Windermere Jetty I was off out again. I’d arranged to meet up with Graham, a friend and former colleague who lives over in Stockport these days, to get out for a walk in the Peak District. He’d suggested a few routes, but when we set off for the one we’d originally chosen, we had to rethink due to a closed road. So instead we decided to drive over towards Peak Forest for a walk through the “Peak District Dales” in the White Peak. This was a gentler walk than the one we’d originally chosen, although it ended up being much longer than we intended!
At peak Forest we turned down a quiet lane and parked up, booted up and set off.
We joined the Limestone Way route which would take us through three limestone dales, starting with the very pleasant Hay Dale.
It was a typical White Peak landscape with steep limestone cliffs on either side of the grassy meadow
At the end of Hay Dale we passed a small DoE group with their adult leaders preparing to set off. We crossed a minor road and hopped over a stile into Peter Dale, which was quite similar to Hay Dale. Then there was another road to cross and we were into Monk’s Dale. This was a different kettle of fish. At first it was narrower, heavily wooded and very rough and rocky underfoot with some clambering over or under fallen trees required in places. There was a dried up stream and if water was flowing there was a chance of getting wet feet.
Towards the end the Dale widened out and the path became grassy. We climber up the path
We climbed the hill emerging on the hillside overlooking the River Wye at Millers Dale. Ready for some refreshment on a hot day we made our way up to the former railway track, now part of the Monsal Trail, at a disused station where there was a car park and a cafe in the station buildings.
After a brew and a cake we made our way back down to the rioverside path, initially walking along the road
before turning off down a minor road that ran alongside the river in Miller’s Dale.
We had intended to turn off the road after about a kilometre and head up Tideswell Dale but we were too busy yapping and missed the turning and after another kilometre found ourselves at Litton Mill
This former cotton spinning mill, opened in 1782 to take advantage of the River Wye to provide water power to run the machinery. However, in this sparsely populated area it was difficult to recruit enough workers, so the management took advantages of the provision in the Poor Law Act of 1601 for “the putting out of children to be apprentices”. Children as young as 8 from the Workhouses as far away as London were indentured and had to endure, long hours, terrible conditions and corporal punishment for even the most trivial “offences”.
Today the buildings have been converted into flats.
Helen Mort, a poet from Sheffield has written a poem about the mill
LITTON MILL
Hold me, you said,
the way a glove is held by water.
Black, fingerless, we’d watched it
clutch a path across the pond,
never sure if it was water or wool
that clung fast. The mills are plush apartments now,
flanked by stiff-backed chimneys
and you ache for living voices,
the clank and jostle of machinery,
for something to move in this glassy pool
where once, you were the waterwheel,
I, the dull silver it must
catch and release
as if it can’t be held.
© 2007, Helen Mort
From: the shape of every box
Publisher: tall-lighthouse, London
Still too busy talking to realise we’d missed our turning, we carried on along Miller’s Dale
Until we reached the impressive looking Georgian building of Cressbrook Mill. Another former cotton mill that’s been converted into gated apartments. Built in 1873, it was originally owned by Richard Arkwright but was sold to a local man, William Newton. Like Litton Mill it relied on indentured apprentices for labour and it is likely that they were treated just as badly as those at Litton Mill, but the employer was a bit more savvy about his reputation and, employing the Georgian equivalent of PR, was able to make out that the apprentices were treated better than at Litton.
At Cressbrook we finally checked the map and realised that we’d walked a couple of kilometres further than intended. However, rather than retrace our steps back to Tideswell Dale, we ammended our plan and decided to head up Cressbrook Dale and then loop back to the car via Litton Village, Tideswell and Wheston.
Up a quiet lane, about halfway up the Dale we passed a small isolated group of former former lead miners cottages, Ravensdale Cottages which stand under the limestone Raven’s Crag
We carried on past the cottages taking a path through the woods, running alongside another dried up stream.
Emerging into more open countryside higher up the dale
We carried on, turning round a bend we arrived at Peter’s Stone, an impressive limestone outcrop – the photo below doesn’t give a good impression of its size.
It’s also known as Gibbet Rock, as it is allegedly the location of the last gibbeting in Derbyshire, in 1815. A local man, Anthony Lingard of Litton was convicted at Derby Assises of the murder of Hannah Oliver, the tollhouse keeper at nearby Wardlow Mires. He was executed by hanging in Derby but his body was then transported here and displayed by being hung from the gibbet.
We retraced our steps for a short while, before turning up Tansley Dale that would take us to Litton village
Litton village was a short walk from the end of the Dale. We were feeling in need of some refreshment and passing a couple of locals out dog walking we asked where we might get a brew. They directed us to the local Community Shop and Post Office which sold drinks and snacks. We made our purchases and consumed sitting on the tables and chairs on the green in front of the shop.
Litton was originally housed workers from the nearby lead mines, but today is a very pleasant “dormitory” village. There was pub just over from the village too but as neither of us drink alcohol the shop was able to satisfy our needs and we were able to support the local community venture.
We carried on down a minor road for about a kilometre, arriving in the larger settlement of Tideswell, which, although still a relatively modest size, is the second largest settlement in the Peak District after Bakewell.
We passed the impressive 14th century Parish Church of St John the Baptist is known as the “Cathedral of the Peak”.
From Tideswell we carried on along a quiet minor road before cutting along lanes through the fields and made our way to the small hamlet of Weston where I nearly got savaged by a dog!
We stopped to have a look at the Medieval cross (14th or 15th Century) on the edge of the village.
We carried on down the road until we reached Hay Dale. We retraced our steps from the morning along the dale and then down the track back to my car.
My pedometer reckoned we’d covered16 miles (14 miles according to the map) – further than we’d intended! However, walking through these limestone dales was easier than hiking over the high fells in the Lake District or the Moors of the Dark Peak or South Pennines. It was a good walk on a pleasant summer’s day and it was good to meet up with Graham, who I hadn’t seen for a couple of years. We plan to get out again in he not too distant future.

Online route here.