Trending Articles
Casamia Homes unveils two luxury residential developments in Derbyshire and launches new website

Casamia Homes unveils two luxury residential developments in Derbyshire and launches new website

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

THE SORCERER’S APPRENTICE

Triple appointment for growing Derby-based PR agency

Triple appointment for growing Derby-based PR agency

DRIVERS REMINDED NOT TO PARK ON MARKET PLACE AS EVENTS BEGIN

DRIVERS REMINDED NOT TO PARK ON MARKET PLACE AS EVENTS BEGIN

STAFF AT DERBY’S LONGEST ESTABLISHED FAMILY-OWNED FUNERAL DIRECTORS WRITES SUPPORT BOOK FOR CHILDREN

STAFF AT DERBY’S LONGEST ESTABLISHED FAMILY-OWNED FUNERAL DIRECTORS WRITES SUPPORT BOOK FOR CHILDREN

Book festival, books sale, back to school concept design. Colorful geometrical style vector design and illustrations

Celebrate World Book Day with Derby Book Festival 

Thousands needed for Derby’s Bridge the Gap to improve children’s mental health

Thousands needed for Derby’s Bridge the Gap to improve children’s mental health

ASHBOURNE SCHOOL CHILDREN PLACE TIME CAPSULE IN TRANSFORMED MILLENNIUM SQUARE

ASHBOURNE SCHOOL CHILDREN PLACE TIME CAPSULE IN TRANSFORMED MILLENNIUM SQUARE

Derbyshire, UK - May 29, 2016: Visitors exploring the landscapes and forest in the Dovedale valley in the Peak District of England.

Family days out with the National Trust this February half term

WICKED Messy Play Party

WICKED Messy Play Party

Facebook-f Instagram Envelope
Login
Country Image Logo
Cosy rooms
    Edit Template

    Walks In Derbyshire

    There really is no better way to see the beautiful area that we live in than to walk in Derbyshire. Over the years we have walked what feels like pretty much the entire of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire and feel it only right to share those walks with you. In every edition of Country Images Magazine we feature a walk for you to follow and now we’ve put them online for you to read too. If you have a mobile or tablet, why not follow the walks on it, with a map and an explanation of where to go it’s ideal for you to follow so as not to get lost. We hope  you enjoy the selection below and check back regularly for new walks.

     
    • All Posts
    • Walks
    Walk Derbyshire – Kedleston’s Glorious Parkland

    Walk Derbyshire – Kedleston’s Glorious Parkland

    January 3, 2019

    It is hard to believe that the ever constant bustle of Derby’s traffic is barely a couple of miles away at its closest point.  Kedleston’s park is an oasis of tranquility, with now naturalised groves and plantations, set around hundreds of acres of green-sward and lakes.  All this overlooks winding ponds separated by tinkling waterfalls, the breeding ground of visiting and permanent wildfowl, making a perfect foreground for the hall, ancestral home of the Curzons With only a quarter of its park turned over to the golfing fraternity, the rest of Kedleston Park is perfectly designed for enjoyable walking, be it on one of the graded woodland walks or beside attractive lakes made by damming Cutler Brook. Modern walkers seem to have more energy than the Regency ladies and their squires who contented themselves with a gentle stroll of say half a mile in the pleasure grounds. Even though none of the strolls available for today’s walkers is more than 3¼miles, it can be longer, and in fact the walk I describe here links two of the longer walks, covering an easy 5¼miles. There is also the possibility of a visit inside the hall to appreciate its treasure-trove of links to generations of Curzons. One of the finest of England’s stately homes, Kedleston Hall was built in the nine years between 1761 and 1770 by the great architects of the time, James Paine and Robert Adam for the first Lord Scarsdale, designed in the then popular classical style.  Greek columns and classical statuary decorate exquisite rooms laid out in order to influence visiting royalty by their abundance of treasures. To improve the appearance of the finished house, the medieval estate village of Kedleston was demolished and rebuilt in its present position as a model village, partly hidden half a mile...

    Read More
    Walk Derbyshire – A Winter Warmer Around the Longshaw Estate

    Walk Derbyshire – A Winter Warmer Around the Longshaw Estate

    November 26, 2018

    I have to make an apology before embarking on the text for this walk.  In July I acquired a new hip, this was after upwards of ten years trying to ignore an ever growing problem. Fortunately I had the sense to build up a stock-pile of walks, which kept Garry and Alistair happy at Images HQ, making it possible for them to publish my walks as and when necessary. Feeling a lot better since my session with Mr Williams, one of the osteopath surgeons on the staff at Calow Hospital where, I must add, I didn’t feel a thing, and was much entertained by what sounded like the opening bars of Giuseppe Verdi’s Anvil Chorus from his opera il Travatore! Deciding it was time to put my boots on again, I chose this walk mainly because it is short and finishes with the alternative of a pub lunch or the excellent soup and sandwiches on offer at the National Trust tea-room next to Longshaw Lodge.  Using easy to follow paths through what was once a sporting estate, the walk drops down into the upper valley of Burbage Brook.  Here it joins one of the ancient Pack-horse tracks that once linked Sheffield to the salt wells of Cheshire, and carried finished metal goods such as scythes on the return trip. With far reaching views throughout, the walk starts by skirting the front of the lodge, along a path between it and the open moors now grazed by sheep, but once the realm of sportsmen and their guns in search of game. Going through a swing gate, the path splits with one going south towards Big Moor, and the other bearing right, drops down to the Grindleford road.  This is the one we took, going past an attractive pond, the haunt of...

    Read More
    Walk Derbyshire – A walk around Ilam Hall

    Walk Derbyshire – A walk around Ilam Hall

    September 25, 2018

    Tucked away on a bend of the Manifold river, Ilam Hall village was built in the 1820s on the instructions of Jesse Watts-Russell. The original Victorian houses of the village echo the fairy-tale image of the hall, built at a time when skilled labour was cheap. It was also a time when tenants could be moved at the whim of their landlords if, as in this case, he wanted more space or privacy. The Ilam Hall we see today, with its Tudor-style chimneys and mock Gothic architecture, is only part of the original building; the central tower and most of the formal rooms were demolished in the 1930s. The rest of the building was due to suffer the same fate when it was bought by Sir Robert McDougall, a Manchester businessman. He had the remaining parts of the hall made habitable and presented it, together with the grounds, to the National Trust, instructing that the hall be used as a youth hostel. Hall and village replaced dwellings of a much earlier vintage, whose history can be traced back to Saxon times. St Bertram, an early Christian missionary, hid himself in a cell near where the river bubbles to the surface below the hall. By his pious example, he persuaded the locals to abandon their pagan beliefs. It is possible he preached at the foot of the rough cross which now stands by his church. Carving on the cross is Viking, dating from around AD900-1000. The church was ‘improved’ by Watts-Russell and its original 17th – century lines are broken by an octagonal mausoleum. The shaft of another stone cross, known as the Battle Cross, was found in the foundations of a cottage during the rebuilding of the village. It now stands to one side of the riverside walk and is...

    Read More
    Walk Derbyshire – Around Winster

    Walk Derbyshire – Around Winster

    July 24, 2018

    Winster is a haphazard cluster of seventeenth and eighteenth- century houses linked by narrow hillside alleys or ginnels as they are known locally.  They sit in a pattern which suited the lead miners and their families in the hey-day of this now extinguished Peak District industry. The walk follows paths once trodden by miners who, usually in small groups, delved beneath the surrounding heights.  Often run on a part-time basis, the miners would be satisfied with a daily input of enough ore to fill their wes’kit (waistcoat) pockets.  Small abandoned stone barns, used as stores by these miners, still dot the surrounding fields.  At the side of the nearby B5056 Cromford/Bakewell road, close to its junction with the Newhaven road, a communal lead store has been preserved as an interpretive feature.  A little way down the road from it, the Miners’ Standard pub takes its name from the standard dish used to measure quantities of ore. In contrast with this small-time mining activity, the last and most productive lead mine in Derbyshire was nearby at Mill Close.  It was still in operation until 1939 when flooding led to its abandonment. The central feature of Winster is a two-storied, late seventeenth-century Market Hall.  Standing opposite the co-operatively run village store and post office, it was the first National Trust property in Derbyshire.  Winster has its own team of Morris Dancers, and every Shrovetide the women and children of the village hold pancake races along the main street. Parking is difficult in the centre of Winster, but can usually be found roadside to the west (Elton) side of the church, or at a dedicated car park above the village near the Miners’ Standard.  The Matlock to Bakewell via Elton bus runs through Winster (but not on a Sunday). The Walk : Walk...

    Read More
    Derbyshire Walk – Elvaston Castle

    Derbyshire Walk – Elvaston Castle

    June 27, 2018

    This walk, around the parkland of Elvaston Castle, is one of my occasional excursions from some of Derbyshire’s grand houses.  Unfortunately it could almost be described as from one of Maxwell Craven’s ‘Lost Houses’.  Financial constraints on its present owners, Derbyshire County Council, make it impossible to fund the necessary £6.1 million needed to restore the building’s fabric; something that has put it very firmly on the list of ‘Buildings at Risk’ register.  As a result of the house being unsafe, it means that it has been closed to the public since 2008, but the 200 acres of parkland around which this walk goes, are still freely accessible. There is also a programme of events in the park throughout the year, ranging from an Easter egg trail, to a night time guided nature walk – for further details check www.derbyshire.gov.uk/countryside events. Until Henry VIII’s Dissolution of the Monasteries, the estate was owned by Shelford Priory, after which it was sold in 1538, to Sir Michael Stanhope of Rampton, Notts.  Following his death in 1611, the whole estate, including Elvaston, was inherited by his second son, also called Michael.  He became High Sheriff of Derbyshire and died in 1638, but not before he built the Elizabethan-styled house at Elvaston on the outskirts of Derby in 1633. With little change, Elvaston passed steadily through generations of Stanhopes until the 19th century.  This was when Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl of Harrington employed the architect James Wyatt to extend and re-develop the castle in the then popular Gothic Revival style. During this time a new wing and the great hall were added.  Further modifications on the Elizabethan-styled south front were carried out in 1836 by the architect Lewis Nockalls Cottingham, leaving the building very much as we see it today. Vacated by its original...

    Read More
    Walk Derbyshire – Foolow & Silly Dale

    Walk Derbyshire – Foolow & Silly Dale

    June 5, 2018

    There are no records of any simpleton, either in Foolow or Silly Dale; both names come from Anglo Saxon English and have entirely different meanings than in today’s language.  Foolow means multi-coloured hill, possibly a reference to nearby Eyam Edge. Silly is Old English for pretty, an apt description of this little-known dale, especially in late spring when the limestone-loving flowers are in full bloom. The walk starts and finishes in Foolow, a village of light grey limestone cottages, arguably the most picturesque in the Peak District National Park.  There is a bay-windowed manor house and the Bull’s Head offers an excellent menu to satisfy the hunger of the hardiest walker.  Until 1888 when the tiny limestone church dedicated to St Hugh was opened, church-goers congregated around the ancient stone cross and its pagan bull-ring standing next to the duck pond. Until 1932 when pipes were laid, water was a problem in this upland village.  Before then villagers had to collect water from a well a little way along the Hucklow Edge road above the village.  Cattle enjoyed the convenience of the attractive duck pond on the village green and in celebration of the gift of water, village wells have been dressed since 1983 on the Saturday prior to the last Sunday in August. Starting from Foolow the walk climbs up to Hucklow Edge before turning west and descending to the neighbouring village of Great Hucklow.  This village, clustered around its pub, the Queen Anne, is really a group of five inter-linked hamlets where lead miners delving 600 feet beneath the ground, worked the riches of High Rake, following a series of inter-connected veins running north-westwards.  Pack Horse teams once carried the ore together with Cheshire salt across the high limestone moorland, by trackways that can still be traced for...

    Read More
    Load More

    End of Content.

    We hope you enjoy the walks, but check back regularly for more walks in Derbyshire and walks in The Peak District as we are constantly adding new ones.

    Country Images Magazine

    Featured Posts

    Euromedia Associates Ltd

    Country Images Magazine is Derbyshire’s leading independent lifestyle magazine, proudly rooted in the heart of the county and dedicated to celebrating its rich heritage, natural beauty, and vibrant communities. Each issue features a carefully curated selection of articles exploring Derbyshire’s history and landscapes, alongside the latest home and interior design trends, local theatre productions, cultural events, dining destinations, and lifestyle inspiration.

    In addition, Country Images provides a trusted platform for showcasing independent local businesses, highlighting those that offer outstanding products, personalised service, and a genuine commitment to quality. Through thoughtful editorial and strong community connections, the magazine continues to inform, inspire, and connect readers across Derbyshire.

    • All Posts
    • Featured
    Euromedia Associates Ltd Logo

    Copyright Euromedia Associates Ltd © 2026