A short 4 mile (6.4km) easy walk along clear paths and a quiet upland road.  One steady climb of 220ft (67m). Muddy sections near both farms and woodland passed along the way. Recommended Map:  Outdoor Leisure Map Sheet 24 The Peak District – White Peak Area. Transport: The X17 Chesterfield service leaves Matlock bus station (M&S) at ten minutes past every hour. Refreshments: Nothing en-route, but several pubs and cafes in and around Matlock town centre. Car Parking: Roadside opposite Highfields School on Lumsdale Road, or layby opposite Matlock Golf Club. New houses are being built on either side of the Matlock/Chesterfield road, the A632 on the town side of Matlock Golf Club.  With starter homes on one side of the road, and an estate of larger properties opposite, they are fulfilling at least part of Matlock’s obligations to build much needed homes within its boundaries. Despite this development, Matlock’s eastern built-up limits soon come to an end, with the golf club on one side of the Chesterfield road, and farmland filling the other. Backing all this is the long line of mature forestry trees stretching for a good four miles across the skyline on either side of Matlock Moor.  This walk touches just one corner of the moor, following a route around the golf course on one side and crossing farmland on the opposite side of the A632. The walk pivots around a huge boulder, the Cuckoo Stone, a mysterious looking rock standing in the middle of one of the fair-ways.  Maybe it was brought here by ancient people as a form of pagan ritual, or possibly by way of the last ice sheet to cover Derbyshire.  All this is unknown, but it certainly adds an aura of mystery to the walk.   While there is a right of...

3miles (4,8km): easy/moderate walking. Two short climbs on easy gradients RECOMMENDED MAP: Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 scale, Outdoor Leisure map Sheet 2, The White Peak. BUS SERVICES: Hulleys’ 172 runs at 38 minutes past the hour from Matlock, Monday to Saturday. CAR PARKING: on the village main street – please make sure you do not interfere with private access. The tiny upland village of Elton sits more or less on the junction of the White Peak limestone and a southern outlier of the outlying stretch of gritstone tacked on to the bottom of the Dark Peak.  The village has a long history, as far back as the Iron Age when the first settlers built simple farmsteads on the surrounding moors.  For possibly ceremonial reasons not yet discerned, they built stone circles on remote places like Harthill Moor and Stanton Moor; there is also a chambered cairn possibly once the burial place of a Neolithic chieftain which seems to have links with nearby Arbor Low, Derbyshire’s Stonehenge. A gold cross found within a Saxon burial near Elton gives rise to the theory that Christianity came to the area as far back as AD700.   Travellers along the ancient moorland tracks would stop and pray with the hermit who lived in simple conditions in a small cave beneath Cratcliffe Tor, alongside which the prehistoric Portway can still be traced.  Slightly off route for this walk, nevertheless it is worthwhile making a diversion from the main path when passing below Robin Hood’s Stride rocks.  A simple 14th century crucifix is carved on the wall above a narrow stone bench, the only passable comfort the hermit could expect. In keeping with the rest of the White Peakland dwellers, many of the locals found meagre employment delving for lead beneath the surrounding fields.  While most of...

When Country Images magazine was first launched in 1994 we were pleased to be able to include walks from ‘not so’ Old Perce. Over the following months he traversed the Amber valley and provided delightful walks that, as all walks should, start and finish at the local pub. With many village pubs closing that has become harder to do but in true style for 2019 ‘a little older and wider!’ Old Perce is back. Yes, he’s still around and walks incessantly around Amber Valley which is great news for us. So this month he shares with us one of his favourite walks.  1. From The Dog Inn Pentrich go up the main road towards Swanwick, then turn left onto Riley Lane, signposted Fritchley and Crich.  2. At the bottom of Riley Lane cross Chesterfield Road onto Park Lane to Wingfield Park, past Weir Mill farm and eventually turn left onto Lynam Road signposted Fritchley and through the hamlet of Boden.  3. Go past Boden House and Boden Farm and straight up the steep lane that veers to the right. A short walk up the lane gives fine views of Wingfield Manor to the right. 4. Go to the top of the lane and follow the beaten path through the woods. At the stile follow the directions on the yellow arrow left as it marks a pathway through the second part of the woodland. 5. Eventually you will reach a stone stile to cross. Turn immediately left and go through the second stile. Turn right and walk to the end of the lane 6. At the end of the lane turn right. Fifty yards before the hat factory follow the footpath sign to the right and through the woodland for just a short distance and then cross the stile on the...