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Signposting the Peaks and Paths
Many progressive social movements, such as the Cooperative Society, started in the Manchester area, and in 1894 this was the birthplace of one of Britain’s oldest footpath protection clubs, the Peak and Northern Footpath Society. Today it operates in Lancashire, parts of Yorkshire, Derbyshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire, with its headquarters in Stockport. Partly thanks to…
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The secrets of Shuckstone
Starting from Whatstandwell Bridge, if you follow the track from the hamlet of Robin Hood up through the quarry and wood to Wakebridge, and then on past Wakebridge Farm up to the top of the hill, the route finally levels off and you come to Shuckstone Fields, behind Holly Grange Farm and above Lea. This…
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A walk on the Portway
This walk, which can stand alone or be incorporated into a longer route, gives a taste of one of Derbyshire’s oldest roads, and incorporates many features of historic (or even prehistoric) travel. Starting behind the Miners’ Standard pub above Winster (car parking generally possible opposite) , the track runs north between stone walls. Today the…
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The style of stiles
Since the nineteenth century stiles have been a familiar feature of the rural landscape, providing a bucolic focus for pictures of simple country folk or lovers’ trysts. Before the enclosure of moors and commons stiles weren’t needed, but with the arrival of hedges and dry stone walls access was needed for pedestrians. ‘Stile’ comes from…
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Walkers, hikers or ramblers?
Many of our field paths were created by people walking to work, possibly in mines or mills. With the enclosure of moors and commons in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth centuries and the building of drystone walls to delineate the new fields, these routes became fossilised, often marked by a series of squeeze stiles,…
The Old Roads of Derbyshire 