The source of the Dove is traditionally recognised as Dove Head, a well-spring lying some ten yards below the main A53 Leek-Buxton road, It can be reached by a scramble over two rusty, rickety old gates and beneath some spiky brambles. And when you get there it’s a major disappointment - or at least it was on the day that I was there - as the water doesn’t appear to go anywhere and a much better case could be made for a separate spring some four to five hundred yards away. In reality, it’s a moot point. Any one of the many streams that fall off Axe Edge in this direction would have a valid claim. When the ground is wet - as it most assuredly wasn’t on that day - water just oozes its way downhill until it meets up with another stream, which joins another and another until it is finally recognisable as the infant River Dove. But a quest for the source is not to be scorned for all that.
It was late March when I set out with that aim in mind. I knew it could be found without undue difficulty by finding Dove Head Farm on the A53 and crossing a stile opposite; I also knew I could climb the steep lower slopes of Axe edge alongside the river and make a more interesting route of it.
The latter way was harder, but infinitely more rewarding. A fortnight of unseasonably warm, dry weather had made things a little easier, leaving the ground underfoot firm and dry - even the normally marshy areas were no more than spongy. Bees and butterflies made their first appearances of the year and would no doubt pay for their impertinence in the frosts that would surely follow (although it would be a further fortnight before winter reasserted itself, and then only briefly). The flanks of axe Edge itself were aflame over to the right - whether by accident or by design for grouse control purposes was hard to say - and the sun beat down strongly enough for me to be clad only in short sleeves for the first time since the previous October. As I climbed past pussy willows stunted by a combination of strong winds and a harsh environment a curlew flew up from in front of me, silhouetted beautifully against the deep blue sky as it circled around, its curved beak open as its song bubbles in imitation of the crystal clear stream it had just left behind. As I climbed higher I was able to watch it come out of its holding pattern and come in to land at the very spot it had left, to be immediately swallowed up by the coarse grass that had camouflaged it so well beforehand.
Over to my left a flock of lapwings performed aerial manoeuvres, climbing high before plunging, twisting and turning back down towards the ground, pulling up from their dive at the very last moment, before repeating the process time and time again. It’s an incredibly appealing bird to watch, with its rounded wings, greenish-black and white colouring and triangular crest and one which I find impossible to watch without a smile on my face.
A myriad of tiny rivulets cover the hillside, two or three of which have cut deep gashes into the gritstone, gashes in which the water runs crystal clear despite the deep red of the bedrock. It’s the very clarity and purity of the water that leads me to question one of the theories I’ve seen about the origins of the river’s name. This is the suggestion that it takes its name from the Celtic “Dubh”, meaning Black River - which could apply to many of the peaty streams in the area but I can’t see it applying here. Much more likely, to me, is the “Roman” theory which suggests that it takes its name from Deva, the Roman water goddess - in the same way that the River Dee does a few dozen miles away in Cheshire.
As I climbed higher, conditions underfoot became progressively harder, grass consisting of thick tussocks on which it would be easy to turn an ankle. And while it didn’t make for easy walking, it did lend a semblance of difficulty to the walk that would not have been there had the A53 alternative been taken - and the search for the source of any river should surely contain a little hardship. Views are limited here to the hillside above and the valley below - not a particularly attractive valley but, at this time of the year and with spring in the air, it warms the heart. A few weeks earlier, with rain falling in sheets and the wind whistling through the most technical of technical clothing, it would be a bleak and cheerless spot - the road above is almost unfailingly the first in the county to be closed by poor weather. But thoughts today were of the long hot days of summer to come; of balmy afternoons and of sultry evenings; of blue skies and of parched brown fields; of blossoming flowers and ripening corn; of cricket and canoeing and friendship in The Great Outdoors. In short, the first day when the lengthening of the day becomes inevitable once more and the need to be out and about in the freshening air becomes an absolute imperative - the first day of the year that absolutely demands your presence and won’t take no for an answer.
Beside me the water continued to trickle downhill, in a groove that has been carved out over the years by volumes way in excess of today’s meagre offerings. At one point the path drops sharply to cross the stream as it cuts a deep canyon through the peaty soil and heads off across the slope. It’s easier to carry on uphill though, than to try to follow too close to the water itself - sooner or later the river will come back to you and to try to follow each meander would be to double the distance you’ve walked - and however pleasant the afternoon, there is always the desire to conserve energy.
The curlew flew up again, almost from beneath my feet on this occasion and I was reminded of the reasons for this Winter’s increase in the numbers of nesting birds. In the Foot and Mouth spring of 2001 the eggs of birds such as curlew, plover and lapwing were pared the normal trampling that they would receive from people such as myself and (more importantly, for they are bigger and less aware of the damage that they do) cattle. As a result the normal ratios of successful fledglings were exceeded. Birds of prey also prospered and fed well on Nature’s largesse but in spite of this the numbers were up for the first time in years. Only time will tell if the tide has truly been turned for these delightful birds but the old phrase about an ill wind is once again shown to be true. Farmers would quibble at this, as well they might for the epidemic was but another nail in the coffin of agriculture up here n the high moors. It’s always been a subsistence industry - on-one gets rich on the pickings from this harsh and infertile land - but with imports and falling milk prices and BSE and so on most farms hereabouts have been loss-making for years, surviving only on grants and overdrafts. Many have taken the chance to become more environmentally friendly or organic or have diversified completely. Within a couple of miles of here are at least two llama farms, a mushroom farm and many that receive grants to leave land uncultivated and free of herbicides and so encourage wildlife.
Life is hard here but by working with Nature rather than fighting it, it’s possible that there is a future as well as a past for these lonely buildings.
Having said all of which, Dove Head Farm is scruffy, unreconstructed and completely uninspiring. Unfortunately, it’s situation right alongside the main road is frankly depressing - the cathedral of Notre Dame, the British Museum, Edinburgh Castle, drop any of those so close to the A53 and they’d struggle to look their best too. But I can’t help feeling that they’d have made a bit of an effort to tart themselves up, which the farm doesn’t seem to have done. Instead it’s let itself go big-time and there’s probably no going back now. To think that one of England’s most aesthetically-regarded rivers emanates form a spring just the other side of the road from here seems a little out of place somehow. The Nile rises from Lake Victoria; the Ganges from high in the Himalayan foothills; even locally, the Lathkill pours from a delightful little limestone cave before flowing away through a landscape not dissimilar to parts of Dovedale. But if every great journey starts with a small step, the Dove’s first faltering strides are in fairly unprepossessing surroundings.
And then you pick up your eyes form the ground beneath your feet and take in the bigger picture and you realise that this land is a land worthy of not just one but of five wonderful rivers; a land worthy of the enormous affection in which it is held; a land that inspires devotion from those who know the area well and that will inspire the devotion of those yet to come. Big, wide skies; the wind in your hair; and a journey stretching ahead of you into the distance. It may not be the perfect beginning but believe me it’s a damn good one and although things go downhill from here (as rivers inevitably must) it’s going to be a while before you see a road with more than one track, which as good a recommendation as you can get for any journey in this over-populated country we call home.
A fortnight after my walk to the source, Axe Edge went up in flames as a result of the combination of a lack of rain in the atmosphere and a lack of intelligence in the idiots who thought it a good idea to drop a match or two. Over the course of one Good Friday night so much of the good work in habitat preservation was undone by an act of sheer stupidity.
I was always a little confused about the two birds that I now most closely associate with the wild and windy moors of Axe edge - the curlew and the lapwing. The reason being their common inclusion in the estuary/waders section of bird books. If they were waders, or if they lived on estuaries, then why should I look out for them in the higher lands of the English Midlands, as far away from the coast as it’s almost possible to get in these islands of ours. The truth is, of course, that they vary their habitats and are often to be found wintering at the coast where tidal flows ensure a regular diet of worms and (in the curlew’s case) small molluscs.
But if they do have coastal tendencies it is in this moorland environment that they most soar - both literally and metaphorically; here that they are most truly at home. This achieves recognition with the inclusion of a curlew in the coat of arms of Leek and the Staffordshire Moorlands, seen at its best on the beacon below the Mermaid Pub on Morridge, two or three miles away. And if it seems strange for estuarine birds to be found here, how strange it is to find a mermaid as one of the five pubs in the country highest above sea-level. It takes its name for Mermaid Pool a few hundred yards away, an apparently bottomless pool that eventually becomes saltwater and joins the sea and has provided shelter to the eponymous sirens over the years. Across on the Roaches is to be found a twin in Doxey Pool, home to a water monster if Victorian tales are to be taken as fact. If true, of course, this gives the birds a short-cut when they tire of paddling around wave-ridden beaches and yearn for the wind and rain of home.
Home, for both lapwing and curlew, is a nest on the ground which obviously has consequences for the eggs that they lay and the displays that I described earlier are part of their protection policy - by creating a diversion, attention is distracted from the nest to the parent and if it works with humans, it can work with their more natural predators - foxes, weasels, stoats and so on. Both utilise small “scrapes” in the ground and have suffered as a result of changes in farming practice - specifically the change from spring sowing to autumn/winter planting. This results in longer grass over the important nesting period and not the short stubble that they prefer and have grown used to over many hundreds of years. Happily, awareness of this has grown and with payments for environmentally friendly agricultural practices becoming increasingly available, numbers which had fallen by 50% over the last fifteen years are starting to show signs of recovery. A similar fall in numbers of lapwing in the 1800s was due to the fashion for their eggs as a delicacy - those days are long-gone thankfully, helped in no small part by the Lapwing Act of 1926 in which Parliament gave them special protection.
One of the reasons for the popularity of the bird is their ease of identification. Each has a particular characteristic that means it stands out from the crowd and even the least competent of ornithologists (and I include myself in this) can point them out with confidence. The curlew’s long, drooping beak means anyone struggling with its unshowy brown and white markings has no excuse for confusion. Likewise the lapwing’s curious crest makes it unmistakable - there is something undoubtedly comical, too, in its strutting walk.
Surprisingly both have been linked with premature death. A number of mining tragedies over the years are alleged to have been presaged by visitations by flocks of lapwing and the eerie cry of a curlew is reckoned an omen of evil in communities as far apart as Shetland and Devon. With increasing appreciation of Nature for its own sake, these old-fashioned beliefs are now viewed as mere superstition but while the sight of a curlew in flight will always lift the heart, its call is undeniably mournful whilst the lapwing’s alternative, onomatopoeic name of peewit comes perilously close to the cry of “bewitched” with which it was oft-times linked. Whatever the history, though, today these birds are deservedly much-loved and as the first birds likely to be encountered on our journey downstream are welcome as precursors of the ornithological pleasures to come.
A week after the walk to the source described earlier, I was back, making the most of the continued dry spring weather. Again I parked by Flash Bar stores and dropped sharply downhill to the single-track road that serves the two or three farms hereabouts. Just before the road turns uphill again the stripling Dove flows underneath, neatly contained within a couple of largish drainpipes, and strikes out in a vaguely south-westerly direction heading unerringly for a narrow V-shaped passage through the hills. Of course if you stop to think about it you realise that the reason for the valley being there is the many millennia of hard work the Dove has put in eroding its way down through the gritstone bedrock. This bedrock ensures that the land to either side of the river retains the acidic character of Axe Edge - although the land is nominally agricultural, no crops grow here. Sheep and cattle fight a constant battle to eke out a living for those farmers too stubborn to realise the long-term futility of their efforts - if the land doesn’t defeat them, it seems the forces of the market economy will. When that happens it will be a sad day for the county but there appears to be a certain inevitability to what I suppose we must call progress. Even now the umber of derelict farm buildings is an inescapable fact - given a greater poignancy by the manner of their construction. Stone barns, cattle byres and sheepfolds stand testimony to the care and pride with which their owners built them - building for a future that is now long gone. These buildings are a part of the landscape, almost a part of the land itself in a way that modern buildings only rarely aspire to. Our loss.
The public footpath here crosses a number of fields, occasionally drifting away from the river itself but always following a near parallel course. At this stage in its existence the valley is so narrow as to make a path immediately alongside an impossibility - in places the gritstone has been eaten away to create little gorges through which only water can pass; in places mud lies thick and willow and ash grip tightly to the banks, creating thickets so all-encompassing that light and heat are excluded and forming their own tiny microclimates.
A harsh land, then, a desolate land; a land of bracken and gorse; of stunted hawthorn and coarse marsh grass; a land where even the trees carry a thick covering of lichens and mosses; a land where survival depends upon the ability to make the most of what meagre sustenance can be found. But nonetheless a beautiful land, peaceful and calming; a land of birdsong and stillness; and of a silence you can almost hear. (As I sat writing this I was disturbed by - successively - a dog, a young boy, and his parents. Within seconds they had gone and I was alone again, miles from anywhere, with only my thoughts, my pen and my paper for company. A wren chirruped in the dry stream-bed below me; a rook cried out from the trees across the river; and a skylark trilled overhead. But for the plane flying high above, nothing had changed here for years it seemed.) In the lee of one of those farm ruins that I mentioned grew a clump of daffodils, whilst inside what was once the main room birch trees sprouted - nature taking back what it had once lost - and I sat and thought that this must mean something but could think of nothing beyond that it was beautiful.
After a much longer pause than I had originally intended I set off along my route once more. In a short while the path drops sharply, steeply downhill, the temperature dropping in sympathy. The water cuts its way through one of those rocky gorges, revealing the different strata as it does so and thereby revealing its age - for a relatively young river it has flown since the time of Methuselah and beyond. Roman warriors strode the hills and saw the same scene spread before them. Angles, Normans, Saxons alike. This river has flowed throughout history and will continue to flow, long after you or I have gone.
The valley itself is choked with woodland, birch predominating with oak and ash as companions. The pathway itself is riven with roots, and branches tug at your rucksack as you pass. This is not a place to linger after dark if you are of a nervous disposition. Further downstream are to be found woodlands you would find in the books of Enid Blyton, woodlands where you could imagine the existence of a Magic Faraway Tree; this is a woodland of the Brothers Grimm, of the darker parts of Tolkien, of childhood nightmares rather than childhood dreams. These are not beautiful trees, not in the traditional sense. Like the people of the moorlands they are shaped by their environment. Life is hard down here, little light penetrates, there is water in abundance (often in over-abundance) but the soil is too thin and bare to sustain anything like a comfortable existence. It’s perhaps for this reason that parasitical plants and epiphytes - ivy, mistletoe and so on - seem to thrive. These plants take their nutrients not from the soil but from the parent plants on which they live - mistletoe, for instance, is particularly linked with oak; ivy thrives on many different trees; and mosses or ferns are unfussy about their habitats. Wherever they lay their roots, that’s their home.
It’s something of a relief when the path turns its back on all of the gloom and makes its tentative way back uphill. It’s not too far away from the river and it’s not for too long but when it drops to the waterside again, it is a completely different picture. The path is suddenly paved and wends its way between dry-stone walls, heading towards a low single-span bridge taking the path back into Staffordshire - the Dove is already by this point the county boundary. The bridge goes by the name of Washgate and is an old packhorse bridge dating back many, many years to the time when packhorses were the juggernauts of the day and “jaggers” the Eddie Stobarts who operated the trains of up to fifty or sixty at a time. The proximity of the Cheshire salt mines and the Macclesfield silk mills give clues to just two of the wares that would have passed over the bridge - its walls being kept deliberately low so as not to prevent the passage of the low-slung packs carried by the horses and mules. The narrowness of the bridge also serves a practical purpose, as to build any wider than a mule would have been a mere waste of energy and resources. The walls, built of whatever local stone lay near at hand, are now moss-covered and green and as much a part of the living environment as the trees and undergrowth that they hold back from the pathway itself.
The packhorse trail crosses the bridge and heads off steeply uphill, away from the ruined cottage that would once have provided the jaggers with food and possible shelter for the night. My peace was briefly disturbed that day by the appearance of a round half-dozen motor cyclists on their noisy equivalent of mountain bikes as they scrambled in and out of the valley at maximum speed and volume before leaving me to cross the bridge and left over a smaller wooden footbridge across a smaller tributary stream and away, slightly uphill along a narrow path as it clambered up the slope and around the corner to reveal a more open valley now. The river sweeps gracefully away to the left, the path now making its way through open fields towards yet another atmospheric ruin - this time the loneliness emphasised by the large birch tree that grows through the barn’s wall and will surely cause it to fall one day in the not too distant future. The way is slightly sunken and shaded by an avenue of mature trees which leads me to believe that it once had a close connection with the Washgate building - it is easy to imagine that an alliance would strike up between the families that lived out here so far from their other neighbours and that such an avenue would make their solitude a little less apparent.
As I sat and ate my sandwiches and drank from my flask I became aware of another presence behind me. Nervously - for I was miles from anywhere and was at that moment pondering on how eerie the spot would be during the hours of darkness - I looked around and saw a beautiful large snow-white carthorse loping towards me. I had had a similar experience with Mike, an old walking friend, some years previously when a horse we had named Tir Na Nog (after a horse in the film Out Of The West) had followed us for a good half-mile or so having spotted us consuming Mars bars and coffee. Conscious that I had only one chocolate bar, and had been looking forward to it, I hurriedly packed up and left, glancing over my shoulder as I did so to make sure that I wasn’t followed. The horse had come to a halt and followed me only with his eyes, a slightly hurt look on his face as though he were disappointed in me. Feeling slightly guilty I did my best not to meet his eyes and turned my gaze instead to the views ahead.
I shall talk of Chrome and Parkhouse Hills as we make our way downstream but will only pause here to say that they attract the eye from miles around but - forming the far side of the now-wide valley - in profile are a fine sight and demand your attention. Rowan trees provide a fine foreground and birdlife trills and sings but are unable to distract you for more than a second or two at a time. It is fortunate that the way soon heads for a clump of trees and forces you to duck low to avoid a nasty poke on the eye, or you would soon be tripping over your own feet for all the attention you are paying to the path ahead of you. More horses appear, and cattle drinking from the myriad of tiny springs that come to the surface here - something to do, no doubt, with this being the end of the gritstone above and to the right and the start of the limestone to our left. Indeed, the land to the left and below was once the bed of an inland sea; Chrome and Parkhouse Hills, coral reefs that lay below its surface. Of all the little snippets of information that I’ve picked up about the area over the years, it is this one that I find the most mind-blowing and that makes me feel the most insignificant.
Thinking on this little detail I made my way to the open gate above me and the one-track road into the village of Hollinsclough. Daffodils were in bloom and tiny goats wandered in front of me as I reached the main square of the village. The Methodist chapel, a rather plain square building in keeping with the religion, brings a grandeur to the place that would otherwise be missing. It’s a quiet, undemonstrative spot- gritstone stolid rather than limestone pretty - and I rather like it for that. The abundant daffodils soften the edges a little but it’s a village that will never feature on the front of a chocolate box. But lift up your eyes and look around you. You haven’t seen a sky this big since you left the source of the river; you haven’t seen a skyline like the one opposite this side of the Dolomites; and you haven’t even scratched the surface of the delights this river will provide you with. Time to take a breath, enjoy the spring sunshine and look forward to the joys to come.
Having a big sky to look at once more, my eyes were caught by the sight of a kestrel, hovering high above a field over towards Longnor. Whilst it is the most common of Britain’s birds of prey - at least of those that fly during daylight hours - and even a short motorway journey will bring a glimpse of one if you’re looking, the sight of these beautiful falcons is still greatly to be enjoyed. Whether perched on telegraph pole of tree branch, shoulders characteristically hunched; in soaring flight with wings outstretched; or hovering to draw a bead on its unwary prey, there is a natural grace to the bird that makes you root for it even as it drops like a stone to grasp a cute little vole or mouse in its cruel talons.
It isn’t a large bird - little longer than a lapwing - and like other falcons hasn’t a particularly long wingspan either. When hovering, these pointed wings beat in a bur of activity, its long tail providing stability, acting as a rudder to steady it against the wind’s buffeting. The commonly used alternative - windhover - is a more poetic name that accurately describes the bird’s chief characteristic, whereas “kestrel” is an allegedly onomatopoeic description of its “ke-ke-ke” cry. If this is true it is strange that the more common name describes a much less obvious characteristic - those of us who love and admire kestrels do so for their appearance rather than their “song”; it is like calling a woodpecker a “tchich” for the call note that it makes. Whilst it is difficult to tell when viewing from below, looking up at the bird silhouetted against the sky beyond, the wings of a kestrel are of a glorious reddy-brown, with a body of grey in the male and a duller brown in the female. Stand high on a hillside, though, and look down on them from above and their beauty is more apparent still. As they exist on a diet of small mammals in the main, kestrels have never featured greatly in falconry circles - “a kestrel for a knave” signalling the low esteem in which they were held in the hierarchy of these things. Nonetheless, in common with other birds of prey they have attracted the ire of farmers and gamekeepers over the years and have been persecuted for their supposed taking of game birds and other small livestock. However their high visibility is testament to their ability to adapt to circumstances and with the use of pesticides and poisons in decline, it is possible that we shall see a rise in their numbers in the future.
Already showing a sharp rise in numbers is the buzzard. Larger than a kestrel, with a much larger wingspan, this is a glider rather than a hoverer. You are increasingly likely to see their broad “finger-tipped” wings circling on thermals like microlite aircraft, often in pairs or small groups for they seem more sociable than the individualist kestrels. For many years my first sight of these glorious soaring raptors (wheeling high above Eskdale in the English Lakes) was also my last but in recent years the population has recovered from its sharp decline following the myxamatosis outbreak during the 1950s, which had such an impact on its main foodstuff. It in sow much more commonplace and probably second only to the kestrel in its visibility. I have particularly strong memories of playing cricket in Newtown, Powys and Ludlow in South Shropshire and having already fine matches being wonderfully enhanced by the presence of four or five large adults regularly circling overhead, almost as if they were enjoying the cricket as much as I was - my fielding on those occasions may not have been all that it should be, although memory tells me that I still batted OK.
Like kestrels, though it is in flight that they are truly graceful, to see them at rest is also to be treasured. Whereas the kestrel is often seen on telegraph poles or wires, a buzzard is more at home within a tree (they nest in broad-leaved woodland; a kestrel does not make a nest, choosing instead to lay its eggs on cliffsides or ledges, or in a nest abandoned by other birds). When silhouetted on a large branch you can readily appreciate just how large they really are - perhaps two feet from tip to toe - and can understand how they manage to pluck rabbits and other small mammals through sheer brute force rather than the rapid “stoop” of a falcon.
Two quite different birds of prey, then, but alike in their ability to entrance. In living in the early twenty-first century, we are more fortunate than our grandparents, during whose childhood they would have been well on their way to extinction. We must never get complacent about their recovery - and have seen other, equally beautiful birds disappear from common view - but should be grateful that circumstances have conspired to restore these graceful fliers to our skies and to our hearts.
Back in Hollinsclough, we’re something like a quarter of a mile from the river itself so the sooner we get back to the waterside , the better. However, as soon as we do I propose a little detour away again - although the river remains in sight for the vast majority of the time. It will bring us back to Hollinsclough, which may seem like a complete waste of the (not inconsiderable) effort expended but believe me when I tell you that it will be one of the highlights of the journey downstream.
Chrome and Parkhouse Hills are - as I’ve already indicated - the major landscape features in Upper Dove country. The local nickname - the Dragon’s Back - is a descriptive one and gives a fair impression of the lie of the land. Each rises in a vague arc to a knife edge ridge before drifting down to river level and each is covered in knobbly limestone outcrops which give them their unique appeal. There is at most a quarter mile between the two of them; Parkhouse, the lower of the two, being the further downstream. Both are privately owned, although Chrome (pronounced Croom) has a concessionary path along its back - and it is this path that is the subject of the proposed detour.
It was Good Friday when I awoke early with the intention of climbing Chrome Hill. I was a little nervous as I’m scared of heights and a single glance at the profile is more than enough to know that this is a place to be wary of in high winds. The left hand side has a slightly convex shape, but falls all the way down to the river; the right side is concave - indeed there is even the impression of a slight overhang - and drops into Dowel Dale, which wends its way steeply down from High Edge above Buxton through the gap between two hills and down to the main valley floor. At its end is the tiny hamlet of Glutton Bridge and from here it is clear that the dragon’s back is not the only valid description. From this angle it resembles nothing so much as a shark’s dorsal fin - a more appropriate simile than the dragon, for as I’ve already mentioned, this is not your typical White Peak limestone but an ancient coral reef from the area’s days as a tropical sea - a Great Barrier Reef of its day, which I’ll grant you was a good few years ago now. Imagine standing on the top, looking up and seeing thousands upon thousands of fish looking back down at you - it defies belief really and few of us can make the imaginative leap required to put the two pictures together. These days it stands proud as one of the few real peaks in the district - ironic, given the modern name for the area but in truth “Peak” is reckoned to come from the Old English, meaning hill, whereas “low” (as in Arbor Low or Caldon Low) means “high point”. Confused? Then don’t give too much thought to the reasons behind the landscape, just appreciate the way it looks today.
Now although it is “only” a hill, the scramble to the top from this side is not without effort, but at least the regular pauses for breath are rewarded by an ever-increasing panorama. Behind you the slopes of Parkhouse Hill benefit from this fresh perspective and to its right the Dove itself snakes its sinuous way into the middle distance. In the mid-morning the sun is directly beyond Hartington a few miles distant and prevents a clear view but the mystery it creates is enough to tempt you still further downstream - at least once you’ve finished with the detour. As you look longingly up towards the summit, down to your left the Dove wends back towards Hollinsclough in tight little meanders. From up here I could have sworn one of these had developed into a classic oxbow lake but I’ve yet to identify it on the ground. Over time the river will batter away at the inside of each meander and erode the bank away, depositing the sediment on the outside of the bend where the current is slower, until the meander itself is straightened out and the apex left as a little semi-circular lake - the “oxbow”. The whole process will then start all over again - erosion where the current runs fastest, deposition where it runs too slowly to carry the soil and a new meander will be created. In this way the course of the river runs hither and thither all over the valley floor - over an incredibly long period of time, granted - and hence carves for itself a floodplain many times wider than the watercourse itself.
So the landscape before us today, one that seems so unchanging and timeless that we seek it out specifically for these qualities, is in fact in a constant state of flux. Thoughts of this nature are far way on this glorious April morning though. For now I am just appreciative of the fact that 1)I’m not at work; 2)I live close enough to get here inside half an hour; and 3)unusually for a Bank Holiday, the weather is quite lovely and I shall not be made to regret leaving my fleece at home.
But don’t get the idea that everything is perfect, for Chrome Hill contains a full set of the bane of the hill-walker’s life. Not one, not two, but three false summits which beckon you onwards with the promise of an end to the uphill struggle, before it is revealed that the real ridge remains tantalisingly out of reach. When the top is finally attained it is clear that fears of the sheer drops to either side are - whilst not entirely unfounded - at least worse in the imagination than the actuality. Surprisingly it is the seemingly shallower western slopes that give more cause for concern, largely because the path tends to skirt that side if the ridge, slightly below the actual arête itself. Views down to Dowel Dale to the right are limited to those occasions when gaps in those knobbly bits I spoke of are encountered and are both shorter and shallower than the view from Glutton Bridge would suggest. At one spot near the end of the ridge, erosion has created a window in the rock through which you can clearly see the valley on the far side - an unusual feature to find in such a place. Aficionados of coastal scenery will clearly recognise the similarities with arches such as Durdle Door on the Dorset coast. When still a tropical sea wave action will have first eroded the limestone to create a cave, then continued to work on the stone until such time as the roof becomes unstable and partially collapses to leave the arch effect that we see today. In time it would have continued to attack the weak point until the remainder of the roof gave up the ghost, leaving a stack similar to the Old Man of Hoy on Orkney. Again, easier to write about than to imagine happening in practice, for the timescales involved are near inconceivable. Nonetheless, a feature to entertain and fascinate in equal measure.
A last short, steep and muddy descent brings us to the end of the hill but not to the end of climbing for the day, as the path immediately turns back uphill and away form our ultimate destination. While your legs will feel it, it is far from along climb on this occasion and once the top is reached it is downhill nearly all the way to river level. The access road to Stoop Farm is skirted - named, almost certainly, after the dive of a falcon to take its prey - and the change to gritstone crossed as the path to Booth Farm is taken. “Booth” is an old name for a small enclosed agricultural dwelling and booths are to be found scattered across the Peak District, the best-known being Barber Booth in Edale, but there can be few better examples than this high moorland situation. It is just a pity that it is nowadays such an ugly spot, with old and rusting machinery and vehicles dotted around the perimeter. Nowhere, too, can the difference between limestone and gritstone landscapes be more clearly seen. To the east, all is white and pretty; to the west, brown and - well - gritty.
The way back to Hollinsclough is to the south-west. A steadily falling track makes its way downhill, past a lovely old farmhouse, with views gradually appearing upstream to Axe Edge and the headwaters of the river described in earlier chapters. The hill around which the path descends is Hollins Hill and the small valley between the far side and Chrome Hill contains Swallow Brook, the first of the river’s tributary stream to be named on the Ordnance Survey map. Before the hamlet is re-encountered there is another glorious little packhorse bridge to cross. Immediately upstream is a clearly delineated ford, no doubt where the packhorse trains crossed before the advent of the drier alternative. Immediately downstream is a small weir, the first of man’s efforts to control the flow of the river to be encountered, but by no means the last. Another couple of hundred yards and we are back where we started - the centre of Hollinsclough - and able to look up once more at the glories of the skyline. This time, though, we can bask in the knowledge that we’ve thoroughly explored at least a part of the view and that it has been a splendid excursion. If all detours were this good, we’d never get to journey’s end but the siren song of the river is calling us back and is difficult to ignore.
Having filed the detour away in the memory bank, our way downstream resumes. It is immediately clear that the landscape has undergone a major change. Instead of the stunted vegetation that has gone before, all is lush and green. Chestnut trees grow tall and spread wide, willows weep and verdant meadows are filled with more than the thistle and clover that has grown previously. This is partly the seasons at work of course, for it is now April rather than early march, but it is also indicative of the change in soil, of the change in altitude and of the river’s growing maturity. To a degree it is now the river that affects the landscape rather than the landscape influencing the river.
At Glutton Bridge, road crosses river for the first time since it could be contained within the two drainpipes six or seven miles previously - a feature so significant in years gone by that it came to define the hamlet that took its name. From here, though, the path leaves the riverside, favouring the Derbyshire bank but at a quarter mile’s distance. Over in Staffordshire a long gritstone ridge keeps the Manifold at more than arms’ length for a good few miles yet.
Standing proudly atop the ridge is the village of Longnor, known to millions of ITV viewers (although not this one) as the setting of Peak Practice. I’ve an enormous affection for this old market town, now greatly diminished in significance and prestige but still possessing its wonderful old market hall, with the tolls displayed above standing testament to its historic influence. Narrow passages to either side of the market lead uphill to the parish church and graveyard, with charming little alleys diverting off to left and right. The market hall itself is now a teashop, selling and exhibiting local art and craftwork and its apple pie comes with the author’s strong recommendation after a hot and strenuous walk. The village also comes with an abundance of pubs (four of them surround the square, which is ridiculous for such a population). It is, though, undeniably more the Manifold’s village than the Dove’s and it is a strange quirk that the Dove seems actively to avoid the company of towns and villages along its course. Amongst the villages and towns that it by-passes are Hollinsclough and Hartington, Ilam and Ashbourne, Rocester, Uttoxeter, Tutbury and Burton. Only Milldale, it seems, actually whole-heartedly embraces the rover and Milldale is a mere hamlet that has acquired a level of fame only as the northern end of Dovedale itself and therefore a local honey pot around which pleasure-seeking day-trippers swarm. Visit on a long summer evening, or mid-week outside of school holidays and a peace reigns that is largely absent on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.
But to talk of towns downstream is to get ahead of ourselves and although distant from the river the path is a pleasure to walk. Hedges hem you in now, not walls, and although the walls are wonderful there is a variety to the hedgerows that holds the attention. Hawthorn, wild rose, honeysuckle, foxglove, blackberry, bindweed. Every step and every season brings another species to the fore. There is a way of calculating the age of a hedge - something like a century for every species found in a thirty yard length - but age isn’t always the important thing. Britain has lost most of its many miles of hedges over the last hundred years as automation has made their destruction both easier and more economic. As with so much of the bad news I have already imparted, attitudes are changing but they are changing slowly. It is to be hoped that the change can become more radical - from stopping the destruction to active replacement - for with each mile that is lost we lose a myriad of wildlife habitat and the countryside (and the country) is the poorer for it.
After a mile or so a green lane to Beggars Bridge is reached. Across it lies a path directly to Longnor, but to take it leaves all the views behind you. Far better to approach from Longnor where all is laid out in front for your delectation and delight. For all that it has name, the bridge is little more than a plank of wood with a couple of rails either side. It will be a while yet before a bridge really worthy of the name is encountered.
Our way, though, doesn’t take this right turn, carrying on along the same track to the tiny hamlet of Crowdecote - basically a pub (The Packhorse, continuing a theme) and a scattering of houses lying below the switchback road to Bakewell. Up to the left, neatly mirroring the ridge opposite, is the limestone equivalent - High Wheeldon, the near-symmetrical terminus of the magnificent coral reef that began with Chrome Hill. There will be other, similar peaks along our way but for the time being the skyline is that of a high plateau to both east and west. It is a sharp delineation, this. Even the dry-stone walls are different - to the east, double-packed limestone showing few if any chinks; to the west, single stones piled on top of one another, defying gravity and doing their job but - when backlit by sunlight - clearly riddled with holes that the wind can exploit. If you are looking to shelter from a bitter wind whilst taking coffee or eating lunch, pick the limestone variety.
The walls separate long, thin fields that flow away uphill - evidence no doubt of a long-lost style of farming. I claim no great knowledge on this point but wonder if these fields demonstrate a system which gives each farmer a share of the land, from the wettest at the river’s edge to the valley side too steep for cultivation. Certainly the fields on the Manifold side of Longnor are so thin that it suggests to me the feudal “strip farming” that I learnt about in the first year at comprehensive school - that each manorial serf be given a number of strips dotted about the village to till, a percentage of the harvest from each to be given to the lord of the manor as rent, or “tithe”. I may be completely wrong in these conjectures but am content to ponder them in ignorance - I find it interesting to think on these matters as I wander and am grateful to Mrs Slater and her ilk for instilling that questioning mind and the minimal knowledge that I may now possess.
There is more to think about beyond Crowdecote, for it is here that we come across some of the earliest signs of human dwelling along the course of the river. Firstly, and easily accessible from the now muddy track, are the remains of Pilsbury Castle. If this suggests stone keep and battlements to you, prepare to be disappointed - all that remains is the outline of the earthworks of an ancient motte and bailey style fort surrounding a limestone pinnacle. It dates to Saxon times at the very least but may even be of Iron Age origin and is in a fine defensive position to command the river - the valley narrows again at this point and anyone approaching from the north would be clearly visible. Water is obviously easily available and shelter from the worst of the weather is gained by virtue of the steep valley sides. To modern eyes it is vulnerable to attack from above, but with the weapons available during its heyday it may just have been impregnable. High up on the Staffordshire side of the valley, sitting proudly atop Sheen Hill, is the site of another ancient castle. Perhaps this offers a more easily defended position still, but there is a distance to travel for water and it undeniably bears the brunt of the bitter winds that blow across the plateau. If you fear for your safety, pick Sheen Hill; if it is an easy life you are after, Pilsbury wins hands down.
Having said which , that “easy” life is a purely relative term. A few hundred yards beyond the castle is to be found the yeoman farm of Pilsbury itself. A collection of buildings dominated by the old three storey farmhouse, this would once have been a self-contained little community a step down from the lord of the manor but owned and operated by a still-wealthy individual along fairly feudal lines. Even into the middle of the twentieth century, I understand that hot and cold running water and electricity were still lacking. Hard though it is to believe, it may not be overstating matters to say that it had more in common with the eighteenth century than it did the twenty-first.
The first time I came to Pilsbury was a freezing February morning and I was captivated by the coppice just below the house itself, the thin boughs sprouting from the trunk near ground level allowing in ample light to the undergrowth and a beautiful blanket of pristine snowdrops. These incredibly delicate flowers, first harbingers of spring, always bring to mind Paul Simon’s marvellous phrase about “a freshly fallen, silent shroud of snow”, but never has it seemed more apposite than it did that morning, with a sharp frost underfoot and the brilliant white of the petals sat upon the glorious green of the stems and the leaves. Individual flowers may be more attractive (MAY be more attractive) but there is something incredibly appealing about the effect this blanket creates that is challenged only by the bluebells of late spring or the poppy fields in high summer. More than any other natural phenomenon the appearance of snowdrops is symbolic of the rebirth of the countryside after the harsh winter weather and anyone who fails to be cheered by their presence is in need of medical attention. It foretells of longer days, of lighter evenings, and of warmer temperatures; of the clocks going forward and the return of migrant birds; of daffodils and crocuses and an end to hibernation; of the drip, drip, drip of April showers and of the brief flourishing of the Mayfly. It is a lot of responsibility for such a small flower but one it has carried off for years and will continue to do for many years to come.
But we must drag ourselves away from the coppice and head on to the building itself. A few weeks after that first visit I was passing this way again, this time in the company of friends, and was surprised to see a handwritten notice offering biscuits for sale. Surprised for two reasons - one, because so few people pass by here that there would seem to have been minimal profit in the venture; and tow, because the three young children providing the service were splitting the e proceeds between the NSPCC and the RSPCA. It would have been churlish to have passed by and not rewarded such enterprise, and at only 10p per biscuit they seemed excellent value. The pound we spent may well have been the only pound the children took all day for there seemed to be no-one else about, but their enthusiasm and delight at the sale was easily worth the minimal expense on our part. To be quite honest, if the charities saw not a penny of our donation it was still money well-spent!
You may have noticed that we have strayed from the river, however temporarily, and it is true that for the next couple of miles the path is kept at arm’s length, with only occasional meetings of the ways. Just below Pilsbury is one of those meetings as a path drops down to what is marked on the map as a ford but is actually a bridge these days - although the “Public Footpath” sign points unerringly across the three or four feet deep water. On the far side a steep track climbs uphill to the foot of the aforementioned Sheen Hill. In years gone by this was one of the network of “salt ways”, also previously discussed. Unusually it heads straight uphill and takes some climbing - the expectation would normally be for a gently zigzagging route to ease the gradient and make matters easier for the packhorses but this is one tough twenty minutes to the top.
Happily our route lies along the valley floor.
Between Pilsbury and Hartington is a gated one-track road servicing the handful of farms along the way. It’s a quiet road with scarcely a car in sight as you pass along and views are pleasant. The walking is easy but it’s still a road and road-walking is never ideal. An alternative - acceptable under the circumstances, as the river runs largely through private land - is to climb the steep slope to the left (steep, yes, but a lot easier than the Staffordshire alternative) and make your way across farm fields with grass once more beneath your feet. This route has the added advantage of a visit to another relic of an industry long-gone. Much of the limestone White Peak bears the scars of quarries both ancient and modern where the landscape has been exploited for the minerals it contains. Whether this is a curse or a blessing depends on a number of factors - chief among them for me at least is the age and the extent of the workings. Few would now argue that the Blue John mines are anything but an asset to Castleton to the north, but the Blue Circle works at Hope just two or three miles distant are nothing but as blot on the landscape due in no small measure to the enormous chimney belching out its fumes and visible for miles around. Here above Hartington the lead mining industry is no more and shafts in the immediate vicinity are now curiosities rather than monstrosities. The buildings are now ruins, with a dewpond making them a little more picturesque than would otherwise have been the case. At Magpie Mine beyond Monyash - some ten miles as the curlew flies - buildings have been preserved by local history societies and give some small inkling of life as it would have been lived a couple of centuries ago but here there is little to stir the imagination.
Beyond, though, is a rarity for Derbyshire - a limestone pavement. Small and intermittent it may be, but it is something of which Hartington can be deservedly proud. Here an outcrop of limestone has been eroded over the years by the action of water on weak spots to leave an effect similar to that of a cobbled street. The “cobbles” are known as clints; the gaps between them as “grykes” and there are often the most delicate of alpine plants to be found sheltering from the wind and rain in amongst them.
It’s tempting to idle away time up here, enjoying the view back down the valley to the Dragon’s Back and avoiding the drop back down into Hartington and its tourist traps but if we’re true to the river it’s to the valley that we must return.
In truth it’s a gem of a village - a central duck pond and green, with lovely architecture surrounding it in a traditional market square. The town hall - now a general store - stands testament to the importance of the place in years gone by, as does Hartington Hall - now a youth hostel. The most important building in the village these days, though, is the cheese factory - producer of a large percentage of the country’s Stilton. It’s a link with the agricultural past, as is the local farmer’s market, but the majority of businesses locally now make their living from tourists. It’s a pity that the river is still held at arms’ length from the majority of footpaths but the best of the river is yet to come and - better still - starts just a half mile away, so enjoy Hartington and look forward to a Prince of Dales.
