Lathkill Dale and Limestone Way Walk

A great day walk in the Peak District's most beautiful dale - Lathkill.

This Saturday walk is associated with a Hostel Event at the Reckoning House near Lathkill Dale and is for people who want to join our walk.

We start at a layby near the village of Monyash and soon enter Lathkill Dale. The dale has no stream until we reach some spings above Cales Dale, where the river appears from underground.

Below Cales Dale the sides of the Lathkill are partly wooded, an area known as Low Wood. The first of many weirs appears and there was once a mill near here and in places the river is dammed to form ponds for the fish. There are many water-based birds too - wagtails, dippers, waterhens and coots.

The section of the dale between here and Over Haddon was once home to several very profitable lead mines, of which the most important was the Mandale Mine, situated near where the Mandale valley joins Lathkill Dale from the north, about a kilometre upstream of Over Haddon. This mine was worked from the 13th century until operations finally ceased in 1851, defeated flooding. Sections of the workings may still be seen, especially the aqueduct which carried water to a large water wheel which was once used to pump water from the mine. We will descend into one of the shafts.

We will take lunch near the river below Over Haddon and then climb out of the valley to the Lathkill Hotel for a well deserved pint.

After lunch we head up on to the moors  and down dark lane past some Flourspar mines  to the picturesque village of Alport, where the River Bradford joins the River Lathkill. We follow the Bradford Dale upriver and then a very steep climb up the Limestone Way above Youlgreave over Low Moor Plantation crossing Cales Dale and then Fern Dale to the village of Monyash and a possible visit to the Bulls Head and back to the layby.