Wolfescote Dale, Biggin Dale and Beresford Dale from Hartington

Leaving Karen to catch up on various meeting minutes and other paperwork, I drove to Hartington and parked in the village centre then after getting a snack and bottle of drink in the village shop, I followed the road out of the village passing the impressive Hartington Hall youth hostel ten left the road through a farm gate.
After crossing part of a field and passing a squeeze stile to enter a second field I followed a route by a drystone-wall as far as a second stile leading onto a track known as Highfield Lane.
The lane led to a minor road and after a few metres, a gate entering the top of Biggin Dale. The lane had been pleasantly dry with a stony surface, but here the ground was muddy grass until arriving at a wall with a gate by a smaller dale joining Biggin Dale, there was the start of a surface stream resulting from all the recent rainfall.
The stream flowed down the remainder of Biggin Dale covering sections where the usual path is so I had to walk on one side of the dale or the other in order to avoid the water. I have never seen so much water in this dale before!
At one point near an old adit, there is a section of drystone-wall which has been repaired with a further section which has been dismantled in preparation. Recent stormy winds had knocked a large tree down and even though it was next to the section awaiting repair, it actually fell across the newly-repaired part!
Biggin Dale joins Wolfescote Dale and I turned right to follow the path leading alongside the River Dove. Except for the odd muddy section, the path wasn't too wet and the river was around normal winter level.
There is a large grassy section of meadow at the end of Wolfescote Dale which joins Beresford Dale which had large areas of very wet ground and standing water, but this is normal for wet weather.

Continuing along Beresford Dale and some sections of grassy fields brought me back to the starting point at Hartington village.