Going off for a day’s walking is wonderful. However, there are times when you don’t want to head back and just keep wanting to put one foot after the other.
This is where longer distance walks, whether following a recognised trail, some of which tell beautifully intricate stories about people and places, come into play.
The English Midlands is incredibly well stocked with such trails, and of course you can always create your own. I use Ordnance Survey Explorer online for this, while the redoubtable Slow Ways project offers an easy way to knit tried and tested walks together over long distances. If you’re the kind of person – and I am – that likes to uncover a story or get to know a region whilst walking then the Long Distance Walkers Association has an online database which’ll serve you up a walk for literally all seasons, humours, or whatever takes your fancy.
Like a tasting menu, here are three mid-length long distance Midlands walks, doable in a long weekend which I did last year.
As ever, each is eminently doable without a car – lacking one arguably decreases the hassle!
Steel City – Cottonopolis
Sheffield – Manchester (3 day walk)
Three day trek across the Peak District National Park from Sheffield to Manchester. When I started planning this route in late 2021 I was surprised to find that there was no gold standard, established, way of walking between the two cities. Which are quite close to each other, only about 45 miles apart as the crow flies. So I decided to make my own. This route heads up onto the moors above Sheffield, down into the Hope Valley (Day One), up onto the Great Ridge, past Mount Famine skirting Kinder Scout, then down to New Mills (Day Two) and along the Peak Forest and Ashton Canals to Manchester (Day Three) is my attempt at a route which balances interest with speed. Not the trickiest of walks, but three long days, with some steep sections in the Peak District. Great sense of achievement upon completion. A good way into long distance walking if you’ve not done much of it (I hadn’t since I was 15!) and start with a reasonable level of fitness (find out more).
Could Call it Factory Walk
Derwent Valley Heritage Way (4 day walk)
Well established fifty five mile walk northwards through Derbyshire following the varied course of the River Derwent from the Trent to where it begins at Ladybower Reservoir. Here in the English Midlands we have two UNESCO recognised World Heritage Sites. They are the Ironbridge Gorge just south west of Telford where the first coke fired blast furnace was erected in 1709 and the Derwent Valley Mills where the first water powered cotton factories employing hundreds, then thousands of people were established in the 18th Century. For the last couple of years I have been fascinated by the industrial revolution. A heady mixture of wanting to understand the roots of capitalism, the ecological crisis we are facing, and also a fascination with how workers have reacted to and resisted the imposition of the new technologies and regimes of work has dragged me in. So, when I visited Derby’s fantastic Museum of Making shortly after its recent reopening I was thrilled to discover the Derwent Valley Heritage Way which takes you through the landscape where the factory system was born. A system which – amazingly to modern ears – was initially entirely powered by waterwheels. The Derwent Valley way takes you through an incredible mixture of countryside, from the flat River Trent plain on Derbyshire’s southern border with Leicestershire, up through the limestone foothills of the Peak District, into the true Pennine grit that prevails north of Baslow. Along the way, in addition to the story of the area’s unparalleled, infamous, contribution to the development of industrial capitalism, you visit the deeply underrated city of Derby, as well as thriving towns like Belper and Matlock as well lively villages like Cromford, Matlock Bath, Baslow and Curbar. As walking routes go it is fairly accessible, with the occasional steep section which is a bit more of a scrabble. Much of the walk is paralleled by bus and train routes means that it is possible to mix models of transport (find out more).
White Peak Explorer
A (Short) Long Distance Walk in the White Peak (2.5 days)
One day I will walk the famous Limestone Way running from Rocester in Staffordshire just outside the Peak District National Park, all the way up to Caslteton where the wild Dark Peak begins. Before doing that however, early last autumn I concocted my own two and a half day itinerary, starting as Ashbourne the southern “gateway to the peaks”, following the course of the River Dove to Hartington, then weaving cross country northwards to Eyam, before heading south to Bakewell and its copious bus routes back to towns with railway stations. Along the way the route takes in the spectacular dales cut by the River Dove, famous sites like Thorpe Cloud, Pilsbury Castle and Monsal Head, the historic mining (and plague) village of Eyam, and the steep dales between Eyam and Bakewell. A great introduction to one of the Midlands loveliest and most varied regions, the bony limestone coccyx of Great Britain (find out more).