Churnet Valley – Furnace Forest

Wednesday 22nd December 2021

I am fortunate to usually have the week leading up to Christmas off work when in the past I would go to the Lake District, but this has not been possible for the last two years. For the first two days of my holiday last Christmas I was happy to walk in Leicestershire, but my itchy feet soon wanted more and I found myself heading back to the Churnet Valley which I had visited twice the month before. I loved the area then so it wasn’t surprising that I was back so soon. I had intended on parking beside the Ramblers Retreat Inn, but I missed the turning and ended up in Oakamoor, parking in the same place I had on my first visit. On that occasion I had turned off the prescribed route towards the end, so now I took the opportunity to take the forsaken path that starts south of the village of Oakamoor climbing steeply up Moss’s Bank. This was a great climb that soon warmed me up in the cloud, wintry weather. It had been unusually mild when I was in the Churnet Valley the previous month, but that was not now the case as there had been a frost overnight and it was still very cold and overcast. The path was a little eroded, but brought me up to the top of the trees where I was faced with a choice of paths with the right-of-way, in hindsight, turning right, but instead I turned left into an area of open access.

Despite soon realising that I was off the intended route, I was happy to blindly follow clear paths around the edge of the hill before finally descending on a wide track down to the old mill near the Ramblers Retreat. Now I could start my originally intended route, which is marked on O.S. maps as Staffordshire Moorlands Walks and used to be available on the district council website, but can still be found on the Ramblers Retreat website. Heading up Ousal Dale I retraced my steps of the month before and despite the grey weather it was great to be climbing with the gradient adding much to the appeal of the walk. I believe it is the many steep climbs that is one of the attractions that keep drawing me to the Churnet Valley. When I reached the top of the valley I came off my route of the month before turning left past the building that used to be Dimmingsdale Youth Hostel and is now available for private hire as I discovered when I passed a family outside enjoying a hot tub! Moving quickly past them on the public footpath I descended into Dimmings Dale passing some clearly artificial ponds and turned right onto a track.

After a while I checked the directions and realised that I shouldn’t have crossed the valley and instead I should have taken a footpath on the other side. My track climbs out of the valley, while the footpath I should have been on does not. Despite this I enjoyed the walk up the delightfully wild and tranquil valley until I found a point where I could cross onto the correct path. It was curious that despite the obvious artificial origin of the ponds, they seem to have blended into the environment so well that you can easily ignore their original purpose. As the valley ascended it narrowed to merely a slender stream beside the path until eventually I reached the top where I found a road beside the Old Furnace. The ascent continued up a field and into a wood that is merely an extension of Dimmingsdale Wood and crossing the track that I had earlier taken by mistake I climbed a very muddy path and completely missing the turning out of the wood. It took me a while to realise where I should have gone before eventually I found the path out of the wood that took me across farmer’s fields.

Having just stopped for my lunch, I now felt very cold, so I moved briskly along the path turning sharp left before I reached the hamlet of Newton and slowly began to descend with rain starting just after I entered Dimmingsdale Wood again. I was not expecting rain at this time so this was rather surprising, but it was short-lived and soon after I reached the bottom of Dimmingsdale it stopped raining. Making a careful point of determining which side of the valley I ought to be, I headed down through the fabulous scenery taking many photographs as I slowly descended the gorgeous valley. The colour of the fallen leaves on the ground made this a delightful scene and carried me all the way down to the Smeltingmill and the Ramblers Retreat. I had assumed the proscribed walk would be too short and I would need to extend it somehow, but the rain changed my mind and I returned to Ramblers Retreat later than I had anticipated. All of my walks in the Churnet Valley seem to have taken not much more than four hours, so I was not bothered as I wandered on the old railway line straight back to Oakamoor. The grey, murky weather was not a problem as I enjoyed walking through the stunning surroundings of the Churnet Valley again.