Circular Walk from Flash

On a cool but dry day Karen and I drove in her car to the village of Flash over the county boundary in Staffordshire and parked outside the New Inn. Flash is claimed to be the highest village in Britain at over 1,500 feet. It is also reputed to be the source of counterfeit money many years ago, which was distributed at Three Shires Head so that the forgers could literally step out of their pursuers as at this point, the boundaries of the three counties Derbyshire, Staffordshire and Cheshire meet.
We started the route along a minor road before leaving it near Brook Farm to head across Adders Green. We passed near the gritstone outcrop of Gib Tor Rocks as we headed for another called Bald Stone Rocks passing through a Nature Reserve.
After a short distance along another road and past a couple of farm buildings, we crossed a footbridge across a small brook called Black Brook and followed a lovely valley eventually crossing another footbridge. We followed a path uphill and then through a stile in the wall, then back down the hill on the other side of the wall to reach a sign-posted junction with one path heading for Lud's Church, which we followed.
This led along a path through woods with the ground dropping steeply down to our left and after another junction and a short section of very muddy path, we reached Lud's Church. This is a gap in the gritstone bedrock about 60 feet high with damp and gloomy depths. It is thought that the name comes from Walter de Ludbank, a Lollard who met others here in the fourteenth century with other to worship, but was eventually arrested.
We followed a short section of steps down onto the floor of the gap and along the bottom eventually popping out at the end leading onto another path. We stopped near here for lunch.
After lunch, we followed the path until after a short distance it turned through a sharp angle to the right and then led gradually downwards in the deeply worn groove you get with ancient tracks until eventually arriving at Gradbach Mill, which is a Youth Hostel.
We followed the drive leading from the Mill and passed through a gate into fields which we followed uphill past a ruined house then through a stile onto a track for a short distance. As we walked along the next field we saw some very peculiar sheep mixed in with the others in the next field. They had very long necks and legs for sheep: they were alpacas! This field was followed by a short length of track then a sloping section of grass until another stile led onto a minor road going uphill back to Flash. We were back at the car parked outside the pub after a lovely walk of about 9 miles.