Eyam from Sir William Hill

Karen had volunteered to help at the DCRO “bag pack” at Morrisons supermarket in Buxton and I went for another walk!

This time I parked on the beginning of the rough track of Sir William Hill Road and crossed Eyam Moor, with it's blooming heather, by following the path along the drystone wall heading North-west until I arrived at the path along the edge overlooking Bretton Clough.

This leads downwards to the path junction at Stoke Ford and along the South side of Bretton Brook.

At a “T” junction with the path from Abney, I took the left turn and after carefully passing a section overgrown with nettles, I arrived at a minor road leading past Bretton Youth Hostel to the junction of another road at the pub called The Barrel Inn which is the highest pub in Derbyshire. Positioned as it is at the top of Eyam Edge, it certainly can boast wide-ranging views.

After turning left at the pub, I left the road very soon afterwards at a stile leading downwards and then at an angle to the slope of Eyam Edge soon arriving at the processing works marked as “Black Hole Mine” on the map.

I followed the signposted route through the works and onto the road leading into Eyam Village renowned for the inhabitant's sacrifices during the Plague in 1665. Here there was unfortunately a kilometre or so of road to walk, luckily with a footpath on one side for the majority of its length.

Passing the church and Primary School, I stopped at the tea shop in The Square for a snack and mug of tea, then returned to the church following a Public Footpath passing through the churchyard. This led to some fields passing one field with alpacas to arrive at a minor road quite a bit higher than the village.

On the other side of the road, the Public Footpath continued again uphill, passing Eyam Youth Hostel to cross yet another minor road. This led to a large field with a lesser slope passing the chimney of the old Ladywash Mine in the next field soon arriving back at Sir William Hill Road.

I turned right and followed the rough track downhill back to where I had parked earlier.

I had seen clouds of these on Kinder Scout and more today. I looked it up in a book on insects. It's a Heather Fly!

A neatly split tree - struck by lightning?

One of the Plague Cottages in Eyam

Eyam Church

8th Century Celtic Cross

Sundial dated 1775

Alpaca

Chimney belonging to old Ladywash Mine