Eyam RFM Blue Line

 Eyam RFM Blue Line

Walking with Peter

04/10/24

The plague village is always a pleasure to visit and the fact that houses of the plague victims are still standing plus the story is still alive and inspirational is heartwarming.

We parked next to the church and the walk pretty much straight away started climbing steeply upwards.

Imagine our suprise when one of the first things we see is a herd of wild deer crossing the field above us. 

The views from the hillside looking back down to Eyam and the valley beyond shrouded in mist are magical.

We followed the narrow road up towards Mompesson's Well. The drop to the right was extreme. How they built these roads originally is a miracle.

Mompessons Well is not very impressive to look at but when you realise that during the plague isolation of the village this was one of the points that food was left for the villages to collect it becomes hugely important and well worth memoralising.

The main mast at the top of Eyam Moor with the old chimney a remnant of the old industries in the area. This atmospheric narrow strip of trees seems to fill what would have been the entrance lane to the mine.

When we reached Sir William Hill Road we could see views of the Derwent Valley towards Grindleford full of mist. Going along Sir William Hill Road we came across a dog walker with a black curly haired fusspot of a dog aptly called Zippy.

Reaching the trig point there were views of the Hope Valley, the Derwent Valley and back towards Eyam. We had a coffee and enjoyed our rest after the steep hill from Eyam. The mist sitting in the valleys was just beautiful, really magical a privilege to witness. 

We crossed the Edge at Gotherage and descended down the hill side through the bracken to Bretton Clough.

We followed the clough through woods and pasture. There were a lot of curious sheep.

Underfoot it was definitely getting wetter and wetter.

Its hard not to discuss the presence of supernatural entities in this kind of landscape. Our focus today was on Leprechauns. Well... we are half Irish.

We were enjoying the warm weather and the easy route up the clough. Maybe the mushrooms were significant, no actually just pretty. We never even touch fungi in the wild better to be safe than dead.

We met a nice couple walking from Bradwell to Hathersage down the valley. We commented on how isolated this area was. They hadn't seen anyone for hours. The hills appearing up the valley were very conical.

Very interesting geology. No idea what these features are and the OS map gives nothing away. 

The sheep were really enjoying being king of the castle. Don't you just love sheep, what characters.

The route up to Hucklow Edge was very steep.

The last field had a couple of busily grazing horses in it and a glider was climbing the thermals over head.

The track along Hucklow Edge dropped rapidly down the hillside through woods and past the school.

Great Hucklow was very nice and seemed to have or at least have had many places of worship. There seemed to be as many such buildings as there were houses. The stiles in this village were incredibly difficult to negotiate. 

The next village Foolow was picturesque. I particularly liked the diddy church. We speculated as to the name Foolow and came up with our usual explanation that the OS surveyor and the old farmer created the name when the surveyor mis-interpretted the farmers dialect utterance of 'f''who knows' with Foolow. 

We followed Tideswell lane all the way back to Eyam passed a really chilled gang of cud chewing  curious cows.

We passed a couple taking a photo of these walls so I took one too. It was good to pass the time of day on such a lovely warm autumn day.

Finally back to Eyam and passed the various plague cottages including this one which was next to the church where we were parked.

A very good walk of over 10 miles with highland and lowland, moors and woods, edges and valleys, pastures and fields and roads and tracks. Variety is ace.

This was a long walk and the ascent of 1778ft is not to be sniffed at. There was a lot of difficult underfoot conditions, stones, mud, bracken, steep grassy slippery slopes etc. All good fun but not easy.

Distance	10.55	miles
Duration	4.43	hours
Avg. Speed	2.15	mph
Total Ascent	1778	ft
Steps	24,448