A Walk to Castleton

A quiet place to start a walk on a lovely warm Spring day. Karen and I parked in Old Dam Lane in Peak Forest and set off on a farm track past Conies Farm leading into a field with Conies Dale in the distance.
We soon reached an area of old lead mining activity with several shafts mostly covered with concrete railway sleepers except for on large shaft which had a grill covering it.
After crossing several fields, we headed towards Oxlow House farm to join the B6061 at Rowter Farm Lane. We then followed the road to the top of Winnats Pass as far as Winnats Head Farm where we passed through a gate into pasture land above the Pass.
We sat on a rock with views down into Winnats Pass and had some drinks from our flasks.

 Winnats Pass

Afterwards, we continued onwards through the fields joining the old section of the main A625 road at the Blue John Cavern showcave building. The A625 used to be the main route into Castleton from this direction but periodically it was damaged by landslides from the nearby hill, Mam Tor. In the end, the battle with the landslides was lost and in 1979 the road was closed. The route into and out of Castleton from this direction is now via Winnats Pass.

 Mam Tor - "The Shivering Mountain"

Paragliders flying over Mam Tor

The old main road

We walked down the remains of the old road which resembles an area which has been shaken by a severe earthquake and after reaching more solid ground and road we stopped on a grassy area outside Odin Cave with the large ravine leading to the nearby Odin Mine and had lunch.
When lunch was finished, we followed along the road, passing below Treak Cliff Cavern showcave and then crossed via a footpath in a field across to Speedwell Cavern showcave at the foot of Winnats Pass.
Crossing the road, we passed through a gate and followed a path through more pasture land leading after a while into the village of Castleton.
In the village centre, near the Youth Hostel, we bought ice creams at a shop and ate then outside. Moving on, we turned through the short and narrow ravine leading to Cave Dale which has no road but does have a Public Bridleway leading up beneath the rear of Peveril Castle perched above the huge entrance to Peak Cavern.

 Cave Dale with Peveril Castle looking down

Cave Dale leads gradually upwards eventually reaching more open ground high above Castleton. On the way we met Anne Soulsby walking down Cave Dale dressed in caving gear after a trip down and up Titan.
At a junction of paths and tracks, we passed through a gate into a large field with skylarks singing and continued onwards onto Bradwell Moor. We intended to follow a path heading rightwards but became focussed on a large area of old mine disturbance and missed the path and only realised our mistake on reaching a minor road. Luckily we had only gone a couple of hundred metres when we realised and headed back from where we had come.
As luck will have it, our turning was through a small gate in a drystone wall right by the area of mine disturbance we had been looking at!
Anyway we passed through the gate and walked along what looked like a rake (a mining term for a vertical vein of lead ore) through some fields and as we entered another field with loads of sheep we spotted a ewe nearby with two newborn lambs.

 Mother Ewe and newborn Lambs

After a short distance we were back on a tarmaced lane leading back to where we had started at Old Dam.
I wore Keela stretch trousers, Asolo Fugitive GTX boots and Osprey Kestrel 38 rucksack. It was so warm I only wore a Berghaus shirt carrying everything else in my rucksack.