Ellastone to Tissington and Lees Barn

It is only about nine miles from Ellastone to Tissington on the Limestone Way so we decided to extend this leg to our holiday cottage at Lees Barn (SK157568), giving us a better length of walk and meaning that we only needed to take one car with us this morning. We drove the excellent free car park by Ellastone Village Hall (SK116435) that we'd used yesterday. Today it was much busier, with lots of fathers (why is it always fathers...) with teenagers who were clearly gathering for an "adventure" of some sort, some getting into a minibus complete with their rucksacks. There was still room for our car and we set off by retracing our steps back to the route of the Limestone Way where it follows the B5032 for a short distance to the east of Ellastone, on its way to Ashbourne.

We left the road at a slightly overgrown stile, wondering if the under-walked nature of the Staffordshire Way was going to extend onto the Limestone Way, especially since we were still in Staffordshire. The path on the ground for the next section was not entirely clear, but we managed to find our way rather better than a group of four teenage girls, who looked as if they might be on a Duke of Edinburgh expedition. They were charming (as young walkers usually are) but we were left wondering whether groups like this have been explicitly banned from using their phones or whether they simply don't realise the mapping power they undoubtedly have in their pockets. Yes, when we went walking at their age we had to rely on paper map and compass, and we also had to manage without mobile phone contact with the world. Yes, mobile coverage remains patchy and you can't rely on getting a signal. But we are able to head off to reasonably remote locations, knowing that with a paper map plus Open StreetMap on one phone and the OS Maps App on the other, we will usually be able to find our way quite reliably. There is a lot wrong with the World in 2021, but some things have definitely improved!

Lest I sound altogether too smug, although the stiles we were encountering were generally less overgrown and wobbly than those we'd met on the Staffordshire Way, I do find stiles increasingly difficult as I get older. They tend to assume you have rather longer legs than I have (although I'll tall for a woman, I am a woman...) and also that you have the power to hoist yourself up on one leg. However, the particular issue on the Limestone Way turned out to be stone "squeeze" stiles, which were sometimes just too narrow for me to squeeze through.

To return to the description of today's walk, the countryside was attractive, with a wooded valley to our left. We passed some lovely alpacas near The Hutts Farm and in the same area, had a chat with the four DoE girls who had stopped for refreshments just in front of the stile we wanted to cross. I think they must have gone a different way because we didn't see them again.

We climbed higher, at one point veering to the right (as signposted and shown on the map) but leaving then returning to a perfectly decent track that went straight ahead. However, we were rewarded by not encountering a padlocked gate and by lovely views down to the Ashbourne area. A mile or so further on we reached the A52, but before emerging onto the road we first had to negotiate a collection of bullocks right by a gate. Here we did rather better than the group of adult walkers who were going in the opposite direction, some of whom looked to be really nervous. After a short walk along the road, we went through a gate and took a made-up track (shown on the OS map as a minor road) which climbed on the other side. I stopped to change my socks, which attracted the attention of another group of walkers, this time definitely HF Holidays, as the leader was wearing a T-shirt. He kindly offered me blister plasters, so I explained that I didn't have blisters (yet!) but was taking preventative measures.

We were now in glorious hilly walking country, with an initial climb up Marten Hill followed by a descent and another climb to Caldwell Farm, then a steep descent to Caldwell Bridge. We could have stayed on the track but instead cut the corner off, following the approximate route of the Limestone Way. We stopped for lunch just before the bridge. It was a glorious location. The bridge itself wasn't anything special (or perhaps we just couldn't see the bridge properly) but the River Dove beneath us was pretty and Caldwell Bridge was taking us from Staffordshire into Derbyshire. We were right at the top of OS Explorer Sheet 259 (Derby) and when we got onto the next map (Outdoor Leisure Sheet 24, The Peak District White Peak area) we were close to the western edge of the East Sheet. Therefore, it took me some considerable time to realise that Caldwell Bridge is only about a mile from the famous "stepping stones" of Dovedale, where we were walking a few days later, with the National Trust Dovedale car park even closer.

Apparently, Caldwell Bridge was built in 1726 to carry a turnpike linking the Potteries with Ashbourne and Buxton, but it was later abandoned. We passed an old milestone ("Cheadle 11") as we climbed up the track. We soon reached the village of Thorpe, and eventually worked out which of the peaks above the village was the famous Thorpe Cloud; t does indeed have a characteristic shape, which we noticed later in the week when we were in the Ilam area, but from Thorpe, the more noteworthy feature was the many people we could see close to the summit. Thorpe is also home to a HF Holidays house "The Peveril of the Peak"; suddenly the reason why we had seen the various walking groups was clear, and it probably also explained the number of individual walkers we had passed (and continued to pass) who were clutching laminated walking guides.

Our route continued on to the estate village of Tissington. We approached the village by crossing the A515, which we'd driven along both yesterday and this morning. On the other side of the road we passed through the "gates" and found ourselves on an avenue bordered by lime trees and with cattle grazing. However, we had to wait for a motorbike "ride out" to pass from the main road before following them through the gates, so we should perhaps have been more prepared than we were for the mass of humanity that was milling around Herberts Tearooms, opposite the church. There was a delightful mixture of bikers, guests arriving for a wedding at Tissington Hall, plus the usual medley of walkers, cycles and other holiday makers drawn to the picturesque village. There was a long queue for the additional refreshment van, but we realised that the queue for take-away service inside the tearooms was quite short, whilst we could easily get away from all the people by sitting on the grass rather than at the tables that had been provided outside. We were soon eating tea and cake in early celebration of our 40th Wedding Anniversary tomorrow, whilst engaging in a spot of people watching.

We took a short diversion from the official route of the Limestone Way so as to walk past Tissington Hall, where guests could be seen arriving for the wedding, and this route all took us past a couple of the wells, which get "dressed" in the annual well dressing ceremony. Tissington is believed to be the village where the tradition of well-dressing first appeared, going back to 1348 and perhaps earlier. Its origins are probably pagan, associated with giving thanks to the gods for a reliable and safe water supply, perhaps after they have survived the Black Death. What is certain is that I visited the Tissington well dressing with my Mum and Dad in 1968; I know that because the date is given as part of the display around the wells which I photographed. We were heading now for the Tissington Trail, on the route of the former Buxton to Asbourne railway, which closed to passengers in the 1950s and to freight in the 1960s, but was not converted to a leisure trail until 1970s i.e. after I first visited.

Today, we were soon back on the route of the Limestone Way which followed a quiet country lane to the Tissington Trail. By now we were fairly sure that we wouldn't return to Tissington tomorrow, but rather link directly back to the official Limestone Way route at Parwich (about a mile to the east of Tissington) from our cottage. So I took a photograph in the direction of the official route which goes down into a valley and up the other side, then we joined the Tissington Trail, easier and faster walking, but a rather longer route! We have walked along this part of the Tissington Trail before, with Helen in 2007, and I remember being annoyed on that occasion that we kept having to avoid cyclists. We again had to keep out of the way of cyclists today, but it didn't bother me so much, and we made good progress.

I'd wondered about rejoining the path tomorrow at the Alsop en le Dale parking area, but parking isn't cheap and as we passed the point where the road to Alsop en le Dale and Parwich leaves the A515, slightly further on, we noticed a footpath from the Tissington Trail that led to another path under the old railway line and so to the A515 and the minor road. We decided to use this route. About a mile further on, there was also a path from the Tissington Trail down to Liffs Road, which is the road on which our cottage is located, and we were soon back there.

Following leg