Return to the Churnet Valley

Saturday 1st April 2023

At the start of spring this year I was feeling frustrated at the poor weather that had kept me at home for much of the winter and right through to the end of March, so I was desperate for a good walk and on this day I finally forced myself to get out despite the drizzle outside. I went to the Churnet Valley, in Staffordshire, which I had visited many times over the winter of 2021/22, but I had not been back since October, which despite being only six months ago felt like forever given how frequently I had been to the area in the twelve months previously. I parked at Froghall Wharf and immediately came across a problem as I had not come with any plan of where I was going to be walking, so I found myself repeating the same walk that I had taken a year earlier from Froghall. It was not a bad route, but after all the rain over the winter it was not the firmest underfoot. I started by joining the route of the tramway that used to carry limestone from Caldonlow Quarry to the limekilns at Forghall Wharf before being loaded onto the Caldon Canal, but I didn’t stay on the track for long before branching off into Harston Wood where the thick garlic smell of ramson filled the air while wood anemones decorated the banks of the stream. Eventually, I climbed out of the valley on a steep, muddy path that brought me to outskirts of the village of Foxt where, as in 2022, I took a path that descended through some grassy fields before plunging into a valley clothed in Whieldon’s Wood.

This was filled with many small green plants, including bluebells, which in a month’s time will produce a wondrous display, but not at this early point in the season, nevertheless the abundance of wild plants that filled the verdant valley was uplifting and stayed with me as I headed downstream. Eventually I came to the outlet of a lake where a landslide has closed the path, so I had to carefully make my way around the difficulties before reaching the main footpath where I turned left to continue to follow the Blackbank Brook downstream, and found the path to be just as phenomenally muddy as I had seen over the winter of 2021/22. There was nothing I could do about it except to just brave the mud and somehow find my way down the path until with Froghall Wharf in sight through the trees I turned off the path to climb up to a road where a short walk brought me to Hermitage Farm and after crossing several grassy fields I reached Booth’s Wood, but this was nothing like I remembered. On previous visits this dell has been thoroughly overgrown with the path severely blocked by fallen branches, but now the path has been cleared, which greatly benefited me and hopefully, by clearing the ground, will also benefit the bluebells which grow in abundance in this dell.

At this early point in the season it was celandines and wood anemones that filled the woodland and they were no less welcome than the bluebells that I knew from last year would come to dominate in a month’s time. After taking loads of pictures I eventually moved on from there and up to the relative mediocrity of Booth’s Hall Farm where I wanted to turn left onto a path that would take me back down into the Churnet Valley, but I couldn’t find it. I was mindful of the fact that I was still following my route of twelve months earlier so I wanted to go somewhere new, but I couldn’t find the path past the farm building so I resigned myself to following the familiar path over waterlogged fields that took me past Greenwood House and eventually down to the bottom of the Churnet Valley. Since I had turned right at this point twelve months earlier, this time I turned left to walk beside the canal for a short spell before crossing over the valley to enter Consall Nature Park. A steep climb took me up Far Kingsley Banks to a fantastic viewpoint across the park that I have come to love over my previous visits. After admiring the view, which wasn’t at its best, I followed the path down to the bottom of the valley and after passing the pools proceeded to head back out of the park and onto the towpath beside the Caldon Canal that brought me all the way back to Froghall Wharf. I really needed this walk after a difficult winter, and it shows the importance of getting out for a walk.