Saturday 20th November 2021
After the fabulous walk in the Churnet Valley that I had the week before and with the mild weather continuing I was soon heading back to Staffordshire parking at Froghall Wharf, which is an idyllic post-industrial location at the end of the Caldon Canal. Passing the old limekilns, I joined the canal towpath with little idea of where I was going to be walking. I hoped I would get some inspiration while on the trail and fortunately a map at the car park provided just that. The red trail was my initial inspiration and took me beside the canal through the steeply-sided wooded valley where the autumn colour of the trees produced wonderful scenery beside the preserved Churnet Valley Railway that runs close to the canal through the narrow valley. This walk went on for such a long time that I began to get a bit fed up with the unchanging scenery. Eventually I turned off the towpath to climb steeply through Booth’s Wood which was a great climb that warmed me up after the cold start beside the canal, but when the gradient eased I could find no route out of the wood despite being marked as doing so on the map and instead the path clearly veered back down into the wood.
Retracing my steps I tried to find the right route but without success, so in the end I came off the path and climbed up to the fence that marks the boundary. Despite walking back and forth beside the fence I could not find the correct way across it and eventually climbed over as best I could making my way across the field onto the correct right-of-way past Greenwood House. I was on a trail that is marked on OS maps as Staffordshire Moorlands Walks (one of many) and this took me through farmland before descending into a wooded side-valley of the Churnet that was a fabulous place, delightfully wild, but possibly too much so as fallen trees blocked the path and made it difficult for me to cross the valley. After successfully negotiating the obstacles I was back onto the farmed upland and enjoying the sunshine that was finally making an appearance and providing me with some great walking. On reaching a road, now on the green trail, I descended a short way, actually approaching Froghall, but before reaching the bottom of the valley I turned off onto a path that heads into Moseymoor Wood.
However, a sign at the beginning of the path warned me that there was a closed path, so cautiously I made my way along the path which was exceptionally muddy. The first turning I reached was blocked off and marked as closed, so I continued up the valley into Cloughhead Wood and found that the turning for the green trail was also closed due to landslip. With both my options unavailable I continued on the path that climbed out of the valley on a much drier path back onto the road that I had come off earlier. With my plans constantly changing I walked along the road into the village of Ipstones onto another part of the green trail and took a byway called Green Lane that crosses the hillside before descending into the muddy valley that I had been unable to access earlier. With the sunshine now a distant memory I immediately climbed back out of the stunningly wild valley before continuing on the byway up to the village of Foxt. There I abandoned the green trail and dropping steeply down into the stunning valley of Shirley Brook I stayed on the side of the valley to reach the route of an old tramway that used to serve the limekilns of Froghall with limestone from Caldonlow Quarries. This gradually descending track took me all the way down to Froghall Wharf and back to my car.
This walk was rather short for me at only four hours, but with the short hours of winter I decided that this was enough and was actually a similar length to the previous week’s walk in the Churnet Valley. This was an enjoyable walk, though a bit muddy in places, however it passed through many fabulously wild woodland scenes that were a real delight and show why I was developing such a strong love for the Churnet Valley
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