Posts Tagged ‘Matlock’

Matlock & Matlock Bath

Friday, December 30th, 2022

Monday 30th December 2019 seems so long ago now, part of BC – before Covid – and it comes as some surprise to work out that it was only three years ago that we were staying in Matlock and going for a walk with my younger son and his family.

Matlock & Matlock Bath

Matlock Bath is the tourist centre of the area, just around a mile and a half down the A6 from Matlock where we were staying, but that would be a rather boring walk. Instead we took a route along a well-signposted footpath up the steep east side of the valley taking us to High Tor, coming down to Matlock. The actual horizontal distance was perhaps twice as far, but the vertical aspect was considerably greater, with some splendid views perhaps compensating for the life-threatening exertion. I’m just not used to hills.

Matlock & Matlock Bath

The path around the face of High Tor was described by one sensationalist article in a tabloid excuse for a newspaper as the “most dangerous footpath in England” but in fact is rather safe, even having a handrail to hold as it narrows around the cliff face. It’s a path I would avoid in high winds, event though there is a one way system which most walkers adhere to on this short section as passing people could be just a little tricky.

Matlock & Matlock Bath

But there are far more dangerous paths than this, which is safer than many coastal cliff walks. Not of course a walk to take your hard to control young children on, and the article appeared to have been triggered by the complaint of one mother who had done so. Public footpaths date from before we had much concern for health and safety.

There were a few people like us making this popular walk, but coming down to the main road with its long row of fish and chip shops was entering tourist central, crowded enough to make it hard to keep walking at a sensible speed. It’s always like a little bit of a popular seaside resort strangely landed in the centre of the country about as far from the sea as you can get. It was quite a shock when I first saw it, coming up the A6 on my way to another term at Manchester University in the 1960s – though we soon found there were better routesif less scenic.

At one of the pubs we met other family and friends including the younger and less controllable who had arrived by train – one short stop down the line – rather than make our more hazardous journey. We walked out to admire the fish swimming in their pool while waiting for the food to arrive and afterwards left to visit the mining museum.

The mining museum is worth a visit, though it really needs several visits to see it all, and hits a balance between a museum proper and a visitor experience mainly for children, though some of its fake mine passages are tricky for overisize adults.

We left the mining museum and divided into two parties again. My son and I decided to walk back to Matlock over the hills to the west of the main road while the others went to the station to catch the train.

The steps up the steep hillside past the entrance to Gulliver’s Kingdom were a little daunting to a flat earth dweller whose heart has seen better days, but past them it was a pleasant walk with few sections with good views across the valley as the light faded at the end of the day.

More pictures and story at Matlock & Matlock Bath. This year we will be at home today and our walk will be rather flatter.


Lumsdale and Matlock

Tuesday, June 23rd, 2020

We had a day before we left Matlock when we were not looking after grandchildren and went on a walk. I’d been to Lumsdale before on my own at the end of 2018, but Linda hadn’t so we decided to walk up there .

The beginnings of our Industrial revolution were driven by water power, before the age of steam, and valleys like Lumsdale were where it began. The Bentley Brook which runs down the valley is a relatively small stream, but the valley falls quite rapidly and its water flow could be harnessed by a series of mills on its descent.

Importantly, its flow was pretty reliable through the year, and could be maintained at a pretty constant level by damning its flow to build ponds at the top of the valley, two of which are still there, though the top pond above them is now dry.

We climbed gradually up the valley, going past the derelict structures of several mills. This picture is looking down from the top of the falls in the picture above, which was taken from roughly where you can just see a person in a red jacket. There are few places with any guard rails and the rocks were damp and slightly slippery, and I was hanging onto a small tree but still didn’t feel too safe, and had to move back from the edge.

Higher up things seem rather safer, and the flow of the river more a result of man-made activities, including a dam to create a large holding pond. There is a second pond a little higher up the valley, and higher still I photographed the remains of another dam, which burst in 1947 and has not been repaired. There are useful explanatory boards at key points on the extensive site, but it remains for the most part open and unchanged for people to walk around, unlike some other ‘heritage’ sites.

We walked across from Lumsdale to Matlock Bank, stopping for lunch at the Duke of Wellington on the Chesterfield Rd before going down Rockside Steps and past the old tram depot to Bank Rd and down to the river.

It wasn’t a very long walk, but was full of interest, as I hope the pictures at Lumsdale & Matlock on My London Diary show.


All photographs on this and my other sites, unless otherwise stated, are taken by and copyright of Peter Marshall, and are available for reproduction or can be bought as prints.


Matlock Walk

Saturday, June 20th, 2020

Last October seems now so long ago. Linda and I had gone to Matlock to look after two of our grandchildren for a couple of days in what turned out to be a small family emergency.

I took a few photographs on the walk back from taking the girls to school, and then went out later in the day for some exercise. Matlock is a pretty hilly kind of place, so I got plenty of it.

Matlock Bank is an area on a hill that rises up from the riverside at the centre of Matlock, with Bank Road rising pretty steeply up the hillside. It doesn’t have any banks on it, though there are some shops, the post office and police station close to the bottom, several churches higher up as well as offices for the local council and, close to the top those for Derbyshire County Council in what used to be Smedley’s Hydro.

It was this hydro, and other similar smaller establishments that made Matlock the town it is, and the spa became an important tourist centre in the nineteenth century. I knew, having done my research earlier in The Crown.

In 1893 a cable-hauled tramway opened on Bank Road, “Tuppence up, Penny Down” for the ride up around 300ft of hill on the world’s steepest tramway on public roads, a gradient of 18% – 1 in 5½. Unfortunately it was closed in 1927, with the council who ran it replacing it with a motor bus service.

There are still buses. Occasionally, though I didn’t see one while out for my walk. But I was glad I hadn’t brought my bike. I just don’t have the gears forgetting up 1 in 5½ – or the brakes for going down.

More pictures on My London Diary in Matlock Town Walk.

October 2019 complete

Saturday, November 16th, 2019

It’s taken me a lot of work to get all my pictures from October sorted out and on the web on My London Diary, and two trips away from home didn’t help. Apart from those visits to Unstone, Sheffield and Matlock it was also a busy month with more protests by Extinction Rebellion and around their actions, ending the month with 39 posts including over 1500 pictures.

October 2019

IWGB Protest UCL outsourcing

St Mary’s Hospital Strike For Equality
Support Chilean protesters
Algerians call for free elections
Assange – Tell the Truth BBC
Iraqi solidarity with Iraq protesters

UFFC 21st remembrance procession
End Family Courts aiding violent fathers
Against compulsory relationship education

Catalans say release Political Prisoners
Lumsdale & Matlock
Matlock Town Walk
Cuba leads on climate say RCG
March for a People’s Vote
Windsor

XR demands Murdoch tell the truth
XR defies protest ban
Protest defends freedom of speech
XR No Food No Future protest
Rally supports Bolivia’s Evo Morales
Against Ecuadorian President Moreno
Solidarity with Rojava – Kurdish Syria

XR Strength in Grief Procession
Brexit unfair for EU citizens
Trade Unionists join the Rebellion
Brick Lane Night
Bangladeshi students protest campus violence
Extinction Rebellion Day 3
Biofuel Watch – Axe Drax at BEIS
All Rise For Climate Justice
Stirling Prize for Architecture
Extinction Rebellion continues

XR Rebels marry on Westminster Bridge
Extinction Rebellion occupy Westminster
Sheffield, Yorkshire
Unstone, Derbyshire
IWGB at Mayfair club Loulou’s
Saudis support killer Prince MBS
Justice For Jamal Khashoggi

London Images