Introduction
A clear, sunny day greeted me as I arrived in Hartington for this classic White Peak walk.
Hartington is about an hour’s drive from Cheadle Hulme.
The walk is 8.5 miles with 750 feet of ascent.
It took 3 hours 45 minutes to complete, plus a 15 minute lunch break.
The walk is pretty good for dog walking, as long as you omit the first field section, and just take the road on which the walk starts. Thereafter, there is a lot of track walking, the Tissington Trail, and the riverside section to finish. There are some docile cattle in the dales, but few and far between.
I walked in a clockwise direction.
The walk is on OS Explorer Map OL24.
I parked on the roadside in the centre of Hartington, postcode SK17 0AL, What 3 Words //disbelief. traders.precluded
Hartington To Tissington Trail
A smart 2026 mural has been erected in the village.
I set off along Hall Bank and a short path took me to Reynards Lane. The village looks lovely as the vista appears.
The cattle round here seemed very sleepy as I detoured through some fields.
At its end, Reynards Lane becomes a track, where song birds are feasting on thistle heads.Goldfinches love them, and this meadow pipit was also looking for food here.
The lesser black-backed gulls, meanwhile, were happy to take a lead from the cows!
The track becomes a path and drops down into and over Biggin Dale. The Hawthorn berries give the hawthorn bushes a rust-coloured hue.
A minor lane section follows. Two lovely cows posed for a picture in a roadside field.
The equinox has passed, and the days are now shorter than the nights. A hint of autumn appears in some of the trees.
The road took me to the Tissington Trail, the converted former railway line between Buxton and Ashbourne.
Tissington Trail
The first section south took me through quite a deep cutting, and under this substantial bridge.
Beyond the cutting is a big curved embankment, with a road beneath its far end,. I took the path down to the road.
River Dove
From the road I quickly turned into Bradbury’s Bank. This is a lovely, and little used dale. It has woods down one side, and became quite overgrown as I neared the river at the bottom.
On reaching the river in Wolfscote Dale, I sat on the bank for lunch.
A pair of kingfishers whizzed upstream as I sat quietly, and bedazzled!
Further along, I briefly caught sight of a great spotted woodpecker, disturbed by me as I passed its lunchtime in a decaying ash tree.
Wolscote Dale is relatively busy with walkers regularly passing by. It’s busy because it’s beautiful.
The upper section of the dale has a vast sloping scree slope.
I spied something unusual halfway up the slope. I didn’t expect a heron!
Meanwhile, a raptor was gliding high above me. A marauding red kite!
Wolfscote Dale ends at Frank-I-Th-Rocks bridge.
Beresford Dale leads me to the fields and back to Hartington from here.
It was a glorious day for weather to walk in, and there are few better places to walk than here. A great day!
And Finally….
Well, the walk was certainly “Something Beautiful”. So Miley Cyrus had an album of that name out last year. This track is End Of The World.
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