Masson Hill 28th March 2022

 First walk I have tried from the Walks in the White Peak book by Mark Richards. 

Start point was the car park at Cromford Wharf. Leaving the car park and crossing the road there is a gate leading to the footpath past St Mary's Church and Scarthin Rocks. After crossing the A6 and walking through the town centre past Scarthin Books I picked up the footpath signposted to Bonsall and Matlock Bath. 

From there it was a steady climb along the side of the Derwent Valley before reaching Ember Farm.

At Ember Lane the footpath is signposted to Bonsall. However, to get to the top of Masson Hill I had to walk through the farm which wasn't very walker friendly (gates that wouldn't open, grumpy farm dogs etc.), Pretty soon the footpath seem to fade away, so for the final climb, we just puashed our way up through the gaps in a bank of gorse on the hillside.

View from the top

Another view from the top

Looking at the map of the area Masson Hill is the highest point around at 338 metres.  I couldn't find the path off according to the book, so I retraced my steps back through the farm to Ember Lane.

The rest of the walk was straightforward, dropping down to Bonsall and then down the hillside along the edge of a quarry back down to Cromford.

St James Church Bonsall

Bonsall - bottom of Ember Lane

Scarthin Rocks

St Mary's Church

Great to try a new walk after months of local walks around Smalley.

OS OL 24. About 4 miles.

Codnor Castle 25th March 2022

 This was the same route from last October. This time with Ben and Meg.

Short Video Clip

An excellent short walk on a hot day for March.

About 4 Miles

Broomfield - Smalley Jan 25th 2022

 Another new local walk. Anne gave Meg and myself a lift to Broomfield college where the plan was to walk back to Smalley via Stanley Common and Smalley Dam. However, part way through I made a change of direction and came back via Morley.

The first mistake was the footpath near to the Broomfield entry. The footpath entered a field and after a circuit of this field I couldn't find a way out. I could see the disused railway the other side of the fence and a brook but no way to get to it. I went back to the road and after a scary section of narrow footpath and vehicles hurtling around the bends I saw a gap in the hedge opposite which gave us access to the disused railway.

The trail up to Lime lane was nice and easy ....straight ahead.

Once I crossed Lime Lane the footpaths became less easy to follow, so when I finally got to the intersection with the Centenary Way I decided to turn left and follow that to Morley where I could pick up the trail I knew back to Smalley via Morley , Breadsall Priory Golf course, Brackley Gate and Woodside.

Brilliant walk , with lots of options to vary it, so I'll definitely be repeating this.

The walk mapped above is about 7 miles. Given I started at the wrong point and had a couple of navigation errors I covered 8 miles today.

Smalley - Denby 9th December 2021 and 13th January 2022

 This was  local walk I haven't done before , so it was nice to do something to the West of the village.

I downloaded the map as an offline map to my phone, so the navigation was quite straightforward. When I had tried this previously I had used a 30 year old paper map, and some of the initial paths are poorly maintained and signed.

Very enjoyable walk, which I repeated on 13th Jan 2022,

lovely walking stick - xmas present from Jake and Aleks

This will now be a regular walk, and I am looking forward to doing it in warmer , dryer weather.

Approx 2.5 miles