WIth Anca. When I moved to Sheffield in 2003, one of my first purchases was a more or less randomly chosen walking guide to the Peak District. My random choice was Iain Grant’s 100 Walks in the Peak District. I soon discovered that this is in many ways not the most inspiring of walking guides. The black and white photographs are among the most lacklustre and unmemorable you are ever likely to find in a book of this kind. Or any other kind. The sketch maps that accompany each chapter are downright perverse in their complete disregard for the helpful convention of printing maps with N-S aligned to the top and bottom of the page. Instead the N-S line assumes all manner of random diagonals and in some cases is actually upside-down aligned with the page. And yet I remain fond of Mr Grant and have now walked almost half way through his book. 100 is a lot of walks and Grant knows his way around. All are interesting. Some are a little daunting, taking one down unfrequented, almost forgotten, overgrown footpaths where you may encounter dodgy cattle (I think we’re OK just letting Daisy have the field where the footpath goes for now. He’s only crazy some of the time and hardly anyone comes this way....), among other hazards, though not so much in February. And Grant is pretty dependably accurate, allowing for the almost 20 years since publication. This very satisfying walk is on pp. 114-116.
We began in leisurely style with an unfeasibly large portion of breakfast in the friendly Grindleford Station Café. The weather was beautiful when we arrived in Eyam where we had some more tea - why ever not - in the lovely Village Green Café where the lavishly iced cakes on display had me wishing it was later in the day and we hadn’t just had breakfast. Then we set of through the snow which had meanwhile replaced the beautiful sunshine, past the sombre boundary stone, down to Stoney Middleton and from there down some more into Coombs Dale, a lovely place I’d never been before or thought to go. The sun was back now and the snow had stopped. After 40 minutes or so we reached the junction called Black Harry Gate after some highwayman apparently where, in my capacity as navigator, I meant us to turn left up the hill to Longstone Edge but was so distracted by the argument we were having that we wandered a half kilometre or so further before I realised my mistake and we doubled back. Up we went to Longstone Edge only for me to have to double back again to retrieve Grant’s book which I had left on behind on a wall. It started snowing again.
From the Edge we took the road the heads WSW. Where it turned south toward Great Longstone, we took the path NNW, past some placid highland cows, and steeply up to Longstone Moor. Round about this time it started to snow again but the sun returned as we headed back downhill to Wardlow. From here we took the long way to Wardlow Mires west into Ravensdale and up this to its head. Here we paid a price for all my timewasting of earlier. Anca was quite exhausted and needed to stop at the Three Stags’ Heads. I worried that there was too little daylight left to us for that to be wise. So we agreed she would call it a day and wait in the pub while I legged it over the fields back to Eyam to fetch the car. The pub looked closed at first but the door opened and another beyond it to reveal a small dimly lit room with a huge fire full of hairy-looking people and dogs. It all looked a bit Wild West and I hoped Anca would be OK there for the time it would take me to cover another three miles on foot and four by car. I legged it through more snow to Wardlow barely stopping to savour my first visit to the magnificently named Silly Dale. And from there to Eyam, now pretty worn out myself, and the short drive back to the Three Stags to recover my abandoned companion. I needed have worried. She had loved the place to bits and not wanted to leave. We drove back to Sheffield for a well-earned curry. After I dropped her back at her digs I headed home and tucked myself up in front of a dvd of 1956 comedy thriller, The Green Man, watching Alastair Sim, George Cole, Terry Thomas and Jill Adams dance their way through its preposterous plot, a great end to a great day.
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