Slip and Slide!

A short while before a national lockdown was announced in the U.K. we travelled into the heart of the Peak District for a wintery walk around the village of Cromford.

Once part of the busy industrial landscape of mills and factories, this village and its surrounding areas is now an idyllic cluster of stone buildings along narrow streets nestled around the scars of its past. Quarries still operate on the villages edges and lorries thunder through the streets disturbing the stillness you feel from its mill ponds along the roadside, but you don’t need to go far to be drawn into the wilderness again.

Our walk started in the village of Bonsall. Sat high up elevated above the quarries and busy A6 road, Bonsall is a gorgeous little covey of large old stone houses along tight twisting lanes. We walked from the village and along a lane leading us to a farm track and then this track turned into a footpath. All the time leading us downhill, through hawthorn tunnels and thicket cages. The path started out with open countryside visible through the gaps in the twisted, gnarled wood, but as we descended further and more steeply into the valley the path became twisted and wound us around taller trees as we skirted the edge of the quarries cliffs. The path became narrower and steeper as the woodland became dense and closed around us like a net, as we trudged down through the wet brown carpet our feet were slowly becoming twinned with. After a while we began to see signs of life and suddenly before us sat a rather tired, although intriguing, cabin. The path took us around this cabin and level with rooftops. Like weatherbeaten crags, they lined our peripheral vision and made the steep path in front of us appear more precise.

We soon arrived in amongst the buildings and the contrast was obvious between the stone cottages and old mill buildings surrounded by fast flowing streams entering glass-like millponds and the reverberating trucks and quarry traffic. We quickly did a loop around the village, taking note of the interesting independent shops for when we can return safely in a post-covid life. Our path now took us uphill out of the village and into Slinter Wood. From here we walked along boardwalks over the aforementioned scars of an industrial landscape. This scars though had been absorbed by the natural world as the previous purposeful mill streams now served as a cascading life-giving flow of water for the woodland floor and its animal life. Houses were dotted around the edge of the trees and as we continued to climb the houses became visible as the rocks they were hewn from. This path led us steeply up Groaning Tor, (aptly named), and at its peak the ground was becoming treacherous and sure footedness was not guaranteed.

The camera and equipment got packed away safely in our bags as we prepared for the descent. We fashioned two Hazel sticks into walking poles, and we named them Sven and Gertha as we bonded with them over the next hour. The narrow hazel lined path dropped steeply down hill, down Groaning Tor. The loops, hairpins and switchbacks, which normally make descending easier, were not here. This just dropped down and down and down. The mud on the forest floor acted like a grease for our boots to glide on as we dug our hazel stick tips into the ground to attempt to steady our plunge downwards. There were many scary moments and we began to get stressed and anxious about it, but the further into the descent we went the more humour we found in what we were doing. It wasn’t long until the hysteria set in and we were filling the woods with our laughter. The positive vibes helped us reach the bottom unscathed and soon a small concrete bridge greeted us to allow us to cross a stream and climb through the northern edges of Slinter Wood. This climb was endless and our legs were like jelly at this point. The slip and slide of Groaning Tor had made us tense our legs up for a while so when we had to start using them again it proved difficult. We powered up through the tall Hazel, Oak and Hawthorn along a narrow muddy track which was barely visible at times through the undergrowth. Once at the top we joined a narrow road and kept to tarmac for a while before joining the farm track on the edge of Bonsall where our adventure had begun.

By the time we made it back to our car in Bonsall it was dark and the village was all lit up for Christmas. The village square was decorated and the pub was, although closed, shining like a beacon across the village. It warmed us and even though we were cold and achy the atmosphere in the village was moving and greeted us after our day of toil. As an owl hooted overhead we got in the car and headed home feeling totally rejuvenated.