Lumsdale Valley

This week's walk was my last one as a 59 year old and we marked it in style with a visit to the Arkwright Society's excellent Lumsdale project. This is a beautiful old industrial valley with ruined mills, waterfalls, and ponds.

We started in one of my favourite Derbyshire villages - Ashover. Regular readers of this blog will recall that it was known in Saxon times as Essovre ('beyond the ash trees') - it is interesting to note that Stuart's Satnav uses the Saxon pronunciation for the village's name. 

This was our group's third visit to the area and this time we came across remains of the track from the Ashover Light Railway (ALR). The Railway arrived in 1925 and carried passengers until 1936 before reverting to its original use as a mineral line to Clay Cross Works.

The ALR was a 1 ft 11 1⁄2 in (597 mm) narrow gauge railway. It was built by the Clay Cross Company to transport minerals such as limestone, fluorite, barytes and gritstone to its works at Clay Cross and for transport around the country by the LMS. The line closed in 1950.

View from below Cocking Tor looking towards to Ogston Reservoir and beyond

New member, Keith, showing us his Riverdance moves

Martin is impressed but I'm not so sure about Brian

Heading towards our lunch stop in Tansley - with a view of Riber Castle

Nearing Tansley, Chris and William stop for a breather - then on to our lunch spot on the village green.

Tansley is recorded in the Domesday Book as Tanslege, and its name comes from the combination of the Old English words lega, meaning "wood or glade" and tan meaning "a branch of a valley". It grew during the Industrial Revolution, its main industry being the quarrying of millstone grit. 

In more recent times, the Tansley Village Hall was used in Channel 4's How to Look Good Naked in 2009. Tansley was also used as a filming location for Shane Meadows' 2004 film Dead Man's Shoes – starring Paddy Considine and Toby Kebbell

Tansley also used to have three mills, two of which still remain but have been put to other uses - this one is now accommodation.

We then headed to Bentley Brook which once provided the power for a series of mills manufacturing a range of different products: gunpowder, cotton spinning, bleaching, grinding corn, bone and minerals for paint manufacture. It is now the home of ...

... the Arkwright Society's excellent Lumsdale Project - see link Lumsdale Project for more details.

Other useful links are Lumsdale trail map and Lumsdale Trail

The group seemed impressed by what they saw

Leaving Lumsdale Valley we crossed the Brook and headed back towards Ashover

This field of black sheep led to Martin showing us his favourite T-shirt

Then through long fields of barley and of rye 

... and oats

I called him "Tiny" because he was my newt! (You are allowed to groan now)

Around 3pm, Ashover came back in view ...

... and a super pint (or two) at the Old Poets' Corner