Two prominent hills guard the southern entrance to Dovedale; bulky Bunster rises to the west at the end of a broad limestone ridge, while Thorpe Cloud’s graceful summit looks to the east. The steeper of the two, the Cloud has footpaths on three sides and as such has become a popular venue for walkers looking for a short exciting scramble. Alternatively it makes the centre piece of a little known walk linking the Dove and Manifold Rivers close by their junction. This walk begins at the Dove Dale car park, before moving along a short road through the tight gap between the Dove’s guardian hills. At the road end (it is really there to guide anglers to the start of their beat), the famous Stepping Stones take walkers over to the opposite bank. An alternate crossing can be made if the river is in flood, by using the wooden footbridge closer to the car park. If we were to continue to explore upstream along the path over the high rock we come to the place where an eloping parson came to grief a couple of centuries ago. From the stepping stones, this walk turns right to pass round Thorpe Cloud’s lower slopes, by climbing broad Lin Dale. A grassy track reaches the Ilam road next to a public toilet. Thorpe village dots the far side beyond the main road and the walk then follows a series of quiet back roads, past the village church, before dropping down to Coldwall Bridge over the lower reaches of the Dove. Nine out of ten visitors ignoring Thorpe’s charm fail to realise that its foundations date from at least Norman times, but all that is left from that time is the unaltered tower of its church. A wide track drops down to the river,...
