To Church Wilne from Duffield

We'd been torn whether to spend the Easter weekend at home in the garden or whether to get out walking. In the end, we decided to compromise, walking on the Friday and Saturday thus leaving the Sunday and Monday free for other things. Our decision had been helped by the availability of reasonably priced rooms for tonight at the Derby East Premier Inn, when we checked a few weeks ago. We decided to book a non-refundable room and take the risk on the weather and pandemic; doing this and losing the money if you don't go in the end can work out cheaper than repeatedly making more expensive bookings. As things turned out, it was glorious weather and we had a lovely walk. We'd also had some difficulty finding parking in useful places, leaving us with a slightly longer walk than ideal after travelling from home. For safety, we decided to meet up at the car park at SK448318 by St Chad's Water in Church Wilne, because we'd been before, so knew where it was and that there should be plenty of space. This meant that we would walk this leg from north-west to south-east, in doing so passing around Derby.

Richard was travelling from our house in Norfolk and I was coming from MIlton Keynes. Given that Richard's drive took two and a half hours and I had the flat to pack up for a week away, which always takes me longer than I think it will, followed by 60 miles of the M1 on a bank holiday, it was amazing that Richard was driving immediately behind me for the final approach to the car park along a single track road with passing places. We now always "Share ETA" with each other when driving separately, which is reassuring when one of us is delayed, so I knew when Richard set off and that my journey would take about an hour less than his. But it is impossible to deliberately synchronise arrival times with any degree of accuracy, we we always find it funny when we arrive so close together. We drove on in one car (passing a human-sized Easter bunny walking along the road as we drove through Borrowash) to another useful car park at SK349429 near St Alkmund's Church on the outskirts of Duffield.

Duffield is upstream from Derby (and indeed Church Wilne) in the Derwent Valley and the approach by car, through Little Eaton and then down Duffield Bank, was delightful, with lovely views of the rolling Derbyshire hills. We set off walking around 10.30, and headed back over the river and back up Duffield Bank, initially on the road. We turned off to the left in front of a row of houses, and at the end took a steep flight of steps up to the right. There were occasional views back to the valley below, but the trees and the houses we were climbing past made it difficult to see and impossible to photograph. After about a kilometre of walking across more open countryside, we descended again to another valley, emerging onto a road to the north of Little Eaton and the south of Coxbench. After a short walk along the road we turned off and resumed our easterly journey, crossing a road and then passing underneath the main A38 by way of an underpass.

We climbed again. with lovely views especially to the north. We took an avenue through Horsley Carr (a wood) then turned right and climbed through the wood, before descending across a golf course, I think this is the golf course linked to Breadsall Priory Hotel and Country Club, which we could see when we reached and walked a short distance along a road. There is an attractive row of almshouses in Morleymoor but of more significance for us was a bench where we stopped for an early "first lunch" before continuing on to Morley, where we took a short diversion to the pretty church, which had modern illustrations of the "Stations of the Cross" displayed in the churchyard, a reminder that today is Good Friday. There is also a mausoleum in the churchyard and nearby there is a cross, described in the guidebook as a butter cross, but not what I think of as a butter cross (it's not covered), and what might be a memorial to Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee.

I'm guessing that once upon a time there was a road all the way from Morley to Stanley, but now it started as a road, then became a track, then it reached a ford so was really only passable by way of the footbridge. It was lovely along here. On the approach to Stanley, the route became a road again. Stanley was apparently once a mining village (not to be confused with the town of Stanley in County Durham) but it is now a peaceful place. Stanley had an Easter Bonnet display, with decorated hats on display outside houses. The route doesn't follow the road through the village, but instead takes paths. All very well and good were it not for one gate with a VERY large puddle on the other side of it. The landscape south of Stanley was pretty, and we caught sight of Dale Windmill for the first time, but the route-finding was a bit fiddly and my back was hurting. We sat down for a rest and for me to take some ibuprofen.

We passed Locko Grange Farm, with the wedding and corporate venue of Locko Park beyond. There is a useful car park at the junction of the path with the A6096. It was so busy that we missed the path out the other side and instead took the vehicular entrance. Fortunately a short walk back along the road soon brought us to the right place. As we walked along the track from the A6096 towards the Dale Hills, another couple were behind us, so we let them overtake. We passed a few other people and by the time we got to the outskirts of the village of Dale Abbey, it was really quite busy. There were good views to the ruined Abbey.

We turned right and entered Hermit's Wood. We were looking for steps up to the Hermitage, or Hermit's Cave, but my first attempt at finding turned out a false start; I led us up a slope before a sign told us to go down a step flight of steps back to the bottom. We eventually got to the Hermitage, a cave cut into the rock where a pious baker from Derby lived after being told in a dream to come to the area and live a solitary life. It wasn't solitary today, though the large family group who were gathered outside the cave kindly moved on so that I could take a photograph. It was nice to see the cave, but I was pleased to leave all the people behind. After returning to the path and walking a few hundred metres further, we found a fallen tree trunk on which to sit down so as to enjoy the home-made hot cross buns that Richard had brought with him. We were some distance from the path but watched people coming and going; there were views back to the ruined Abbey.

Given the large numbers of people, it was not surprising to find a fair sized parking area when we emerged onto a road. After half a mile or so along the road, we continued onto a track where the road turned left, right by The Cowshed, a cafe which was doing a roaring trade. The track was signposted as leading to Nottingham Road, 2 miles away, and there were a few other walkers about, including a group of young people behind us. However, the walking was easy and we were aware we still had some distance to go, and we pulled ahead. We weren't going directly to Nottingham Road, instead turning left at Constitution Hill. This led us past Risley Coppice, a lovely bluebell wood, and eventually we got the good views as promised in the guidebook, though I will have to take their word for it that we could see five counties; the familiar sight of the the Ratcliffe on Soar Power Station did reappear to the south. We also passed the site of the original 18th Century find of the "Risley Park Lanx", a silver Roman tray, which was then lost again before being "rediscovered" in the 1990s in a forgery that was so good that the British Museum put it on display for several years.

We descended to the continuation of Nottingham Road (now Derby Road) Ripley and continued on the other side on Risley Lane which took us under the A52. From the corner of a flaying field, a footpath, busy with dog-walkers, took us across and around fields to the outskirts of Draycott. The village has an industrial history and it is dominated by the Victoria Mills, an enormous building with an unusual clock tower. The building was erected in 1888, designed as tenement mills to house many small lace manufacturers, who rented space and machines from Jardines, whose name appears on the clock tower, The lace manufacturers have gone now and the building accommodates flats.

We were now within a mile of the car park, and we took that route of the Midshires Way down a side-road and then on a footpath out of Draycott. When we reached the minor road which leads from Draycott to Church Wilne (not to be confused with a different minor road leading to the Church Wilne Reservoir) we left the official route and stayed on the road, so now on a JordanWalks variant of the Midshires Way. There was a pleasant surprise, namely that we were again by the River Derwent, which we had last encountered right at the start of today's walk. There was initially a bank alongside the road and the river and Richard scrambled to the top of it without difficulty; getting me to the top was distinctly inelegant, involving sitting down, then going onto all fours, and in the process getting a nettle sting on my hand. We continued along the road back to the car park. I sat by the lake while Richard rang his mother, then we rescued the other car and drove the short distance to the Premier Inn, neatly positioned approximately halfway between the start and the end of today's walk.

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