Wednesday October 26th

Baslow, Chatsworth and Beeley Moors 

We had done a slightly longer version of this walk at the end of March, but today's outing was great, especially given the autumnal colours and leaves on the ground. We parked in Baslow, grabbed a coffee from The Café on the Green and set off in the sun to tramp through the Chatsworth Park. The first section is flat but luscious and (as usual) was full of the cleanest sheep in the Peak District. Crossing Beeley Bridge leads into Beeley itself and up through the birch woods. The autumn light was lovely, adding atmosphere to the walk through the woods.

The sun in Beeley Plantation
Being mainly birch and because of the time of year, there were lots of Fly Agaric (Amanita muscaria) fruiting.
A youthful Amanita muscaria
We left the woods for the open moors, marked on the 1:25k OS map as "Rabbit Warren". The views from this section are great and the path leads towards the Elizabethan Hunting Tower and then Robin Hood. We took a slightly different route through the Stand Woods, David having taken the Peak District South map rather than Peak District Central! Nevertheless, we still avoided the slightly tedious section past the Swiss Cottage lake. The Elizabethan Hunting Tower is always a good spot for lunch and a little breather. We kept high this time and went along Dobb Edge, which gave us a view over Chatsworth House itself and the curated park in the shifting autumn light.
Chatsworth House (part) and park
We crossed the A619 road near the Robin Hood pub and crossed the moor below Birchen Edge, passing Moorside Farm (imaginative name!), the Three Men rocks and passing above the Healthy Lea Planation and below Gardom's Edge which gave a pretty view of Baslow.
Baslow from below Gardom's Edge
At this point, we had our only slight sprinkling of rain but, as the sun was shining, we were lucky enough to see a rainbow.
Rainbow above Gardom's
The sun got a little brighter and we were then able to see a partial double rainbow- we'd only recently realised that the colours of the outer/second rainbow were in the reverse order to the brighter one.
A second rainbow just perceptible

The path then goes down to the A621 Sheffield Road before ascending the rough ground below Wellington's Monument. We climbed up and, on this occasion, did not turn right to visit the monument or the Eagle Stone. The last section was a pleasant walk down to Baslow and in just over a mile we retraced our steps to the car park.

A mainly dry, sunny day: a walk of 12.2 miles and 434m ascent, well worth doing again and very enjoyable.


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