The Eastern Edges

Saturday 17th October 2009

I am predominantly a spring and summer walker as I take advantage of the warmer, more settled weather of those seasons in Britain to go for most of my walking holidays. Once I have returned from a holiday I start describing it in this blog tackling one day every week until I have done the whole holiday when, if I have worked out my schedule correctly, I then go for another holiday and start the process again, however, by late autumn I have run out of holidays to write about. When I first came across this problem I went back to my earliest walks and started writing about the walks that had shaped me as a walker. In 2009, while actually doing the walk I am going to describe now, I realised that going through my early walks was going to give me plenty of material for many winters to come, so I came to the decision that I wouldn’t bother describing day walks, such as this one, in the Peak District. That had the benefit of releasing me from the pressure of having to take pictures and make notes that would later be used for when the walk was eventually written up, but it now creates a problem when I actually do want to write them up.

Eventually, I did run out of early walks and then I had to start describing my Saturday walks that had previously been ignored in this blog, but I didn’t go back to write about those missed walks. Due to lockdown I have recently been unable to go anywhere for a walk, so I have been going through my old pictures and I discovered some from a walk that I did in 2009, but none from any of those later missing walks. I have no record of the subsequent walks I did because I didn’t bother taking my camera as I knew I wouldn’t need it, but when I started this walk I had planned to include it in this blog, so I have some pictures to help me reconstruct my route despite having no other record. So, let’s start with the first picture which shows the large rocks of Curbar Edge, on the eastern side of the Peak District, under grey autumnal skies. I assume I had parked at the Curbar Gap car park that I have used many times since my first walking holiday in 1998 and most recently, just last year. This car park is not far from Curbar Edge where I was able to enjoy satisfying walking on rock and with extensive views across the Derwent Valley.

I took plenty of pictures along the length of Curbar Edge and the adjacent Froggatt Edge, but the next picture was taken three hours later and it is a mystery what I did in that time. At some point I came to my decision to not describe this walk in my blog and I seem to recall at that point being on the edge of a wood above a steep, short valley (called a clough in the Peak District). The most likely place for this, consulting a map, is above Oak’s Wood, though it is unclear why I would climb above the clough when there is clearly a path that goes straight across, though this is less clear on older maps such as the one I would have used at the time. From this point I would have passed through the National Trust’s Longshaw Estate and onto the moors north of the Hathersage Road passing over the site of Carl Wark Fort to the top of Higger Tor where I finally started taking some more pictures. Most are looking south towards the rocky promontory of Carl Wark with the cultivated Longshaw Estate in the background.

Almost two hours later I took one final picture prompted by the surprise appearance of the sun and appears to have been taken from White Edge. This lies on Big Moor to the west of Curbar Edge, so it would seem I had headed back through the Longshaw Estate and taken a route parallel to my earlier one along Curbar Edge that would eventually take me back to my car. What is remarkable to me now is that this is almost identical to the walk that I did last year. I hadn’t realised that this was a walk that I have done many times before, so I must really enjoy it. I first walked along Curbar Edge in 1998, although on that occasion I had started by heading south from Curbar Gap to the Robin Hood Inn before heading back along Birchen Edge, but since then I appear to have been inspired by a walk that I did in 2004. I have no record of that walk, though I remember starting from Upper Burbage Bridge at the northern end of the walk.

This walk from 2009 must have been a repeat of that, except for starting from the southern end, and I appear to done the walk again (with some differences between Froggatt Edge and the Longshaw Estate) in 2016. When I did the walk again last year I thought I was repeating my route of 2004 little realising that it was not the first time I had retraced my steps and even just now, when I started writing this blog entry, I hadn’t realised it was for a walk that I had done many times. There are some walks and places that are so good you are drawn to do them repeatedly and never tire of the experience and the eastern edges of the Peak District is just such a walk.