Parwich - High Peak Trail - 8.5 Mile Circular

A circular walk with many surprises.

It's always difficult to foresee just how good a planned route in the countryside will be until you actually walk it. Our map only gives a hint of likely experience and the types of landscape, paths and climbs we might endure or enjoy. And so it was with this route. Knowing a little about the area in general I thought this route would have been a simple one with little new to see over our other walks in Derbyshire. Boy was I wrong. This route had many surprises waiting for us all the way round!

We start our route in the picturesque peak village of Parwich with it's stone houses and hints back to a thriving self-contained community having various local shops and a post office now long gone. Having parked next to the village playing field we made our way past the village pub to join the Limestone Way and to follow, mostly, it's route eastward. A steep climb out of the village and we drop onto a lane on the other side before taking a left across a number of fields giving a great view of rising ground to come.

A progressively steeper climb meets us adjacent to Ballidon village, passing an old church to our right, and the path takes us up and over the next hill before dropping into the valley hosting the B5056 on it's journey between Grangemill and Fenny Bentley. A moderate climb up Pasture Lane follows and onto Lots Lane bridleway which rewards us with excellent views to the west. Passing above Brassington we then drop onto another country lane to follow Coach Road into Longcliffe where we join the High Peak Trail for the next 1.5 miles.

This section of the High Peak Trail (HPT) sits high in the countryside allowing excellent long term views over the surrounding vistas and introduces us to the many clues of the areas industrial past. The HPT railway was opened in the 1831 to transport coal and material from the mines in Nottinghamshire to the ports of Manchester and Liverpool. Now a Derbyshire County Council maintained cycle/walking track it gives us some easy walking for the next section of our journey. The HPT also gives us the first clear view of current industry; the quarry at Ballidon.

We drop off the HPT and follow a path down towards Royston Grange to discover our first of many coming surprises; a kestrel calling overhead. And we experience a superb example of local geology for the next two miles; the famous Derbyshire limestone peaks, ridges and valleys. The large old buildings of Roystone Grange hold our attention for a time before our second surprise comes into view and prompts a conversation over what it is. A house? An old church? It's a beautiful building which turns out to be an old engine shed, providing compressed air for local quarries concerned in the building of the HPT railway. After a brief stop we continue onwards between limestone ridges to turn right and up an intersecting valley.

We soon stumble upon yet another surprise. A bridge crossing between the valleys and straight through the middle of Ballindon quarry. It's hard to believe the ridges on either side of our route concealed such an operation with only a numerous, almost illegible, number of rusty signs to give us a clue. A few minutes spent watching the tooings and froings of qaurry machinery and we continue on our way.

Emerging from the limestone valleys we have a short climb up onto Backhill Lane to begin our final stretch back towards Parwich. After some easy walking we turn left to take a footpath traversing the west side of Parwich Hill before dropping back down into Parwich to enjoy the stone houses and gardens and return once again to our starting point.

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