A Staffordshire Ramble: Grindon, Milk Hill and the Manifold Way

I've been inspired to do my walks by lots of things - photos, blogs and articles, wanting to explore distant hills I've seen on the horizon - but this is the first time I've planned a route around winning a pizza stone in a raffle.

We'd visited the Christmas Fair in Butterton the previous weekend and were struck by how lovely the countryside around that part of the Peak District was. So when we found out we had to return to the area to collect our prize, it seemed the perfect opportunity to do some exploring at the same time.

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High Wheeldon and Pilsbury Castle

Two significant Peak District rivers have their sources on the Axe Edge watershed - the Manifold and the Dove. Over millennia, their meandering journeys south-east carved out deep gorges in the bedrock, resulting in limestone tors and caves that have long drawn sightseers to the area (including William and Dorothy Wordsworth).

If you're in the White Peak, the breathtaking scenery of Dove Dale and the Manifold Valley should definitely be on your list of places to visit but you shouldn't underestimate the countryside north of these tourist hotspots. Here a generous network of footpaths weaves quieter routes through broad valleys or over rounded hills and provides plentiful options for short walks, be it a half-day excursion or a summer evening ramble of an hour or so.

Looking south-east from Axe Edge Moor, source of the River Dove and the River Manifold.

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Thor's Cave and Ecton Hill

Thor's Cave above the Manifold Valley has long been on my list of places to visit and at the end of June we drove out late one Sunday afternoon to explore this area of the White Peak. Along the lower reaches of the valley itself runs the Manifold Way, from Hulme End to Waterhouses: this was once the route of the relatively short-lived Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway (L&MVLR), which maintained a economically-precarious existence from 1904 to 1934 before finally giving up the ghost. The Wiki entry on the Manifold Way mentions a wag among the railway workers on the line describing it as a "line that started in the middle of nowhere, and ended up in the same place", and his quip succinctly explains its demise.

Our walk started at the northern end of the trail at Hulme End. The station at the head of the railway line once stood here and  there is a pay-and-display car park, public toilets and a visitor centre. It was fairly late in the afternoon when we started out but the weather was glorious and the sunset wasn't due until after 9.30 so we relished the thought of a walk into the early evening. As we followed the tarmac path (the trail has good accessibility for pushchairs and wheelchairs though occasionally shares a route with motor traffic), Ecton Hill appeared to our left. I'd mentioned to Rich that there was a hill at the end of the route but when it suddenly loomed into view I prudently decided to keep quiet for now that this was it.

Ecton Hill

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