North East Derbyshire

In my ongoing exercise to walk all of the rights of way on my local OS 1:25000 map, I headed to Unstone to walk in the South East corner of the map. I designed a marathon-length circular route to include a range of terrain and opportunities to take a break at a village pub or cafe.

A few kilometres at the map's edge were along the Chesterfield canal path, or Cuckoo way, which I've written about previously. Turning away from the canal I found that bridges over the river had been dismantled and so my intended path, and an alternative, were not possible.

 

This part of Derbyshire is quite different to the Peak District. Much of it is post-industrial, some agricultural and a fair proportion is suburban. The borders between the zones sometimes have surprises, for instance an area of HGV storage in a derelict farm.

Some of my route was along the Sheffield Country Walk which I'd like to complete as a single route one day. It included some very pleasant woodland that took me to the village of Ford where I was able to buy a long overdue coffee.

Every small town used to have a garage with a petrol station and the remnants of one were still in place in New Whittington.

Due to route changes on the go, I didn't quite cover the intended mileage but I was happy with 42km in 6:34hrs. Incidentally, the route included almost 900m of ascent as it literally went uphill and down dale.