Distance: just under 3.5 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: easy
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Suburban walk to see the enigmatic Hemlock Stone. A 8.5 metre tall, sandstone, south east Nottinghamshire icon; which has been a local landmark and place of myth and ritual for millenia.
The Story
The Walk
Getting Back
Castleton, Derbyshire’s Finest Sandstone
Not far from the western edge of Nottingham, on the fringes of the little town of Stapleford, sits an enigmatic stone column.
Known as the Hemlock Stone it is formed from 200 million year old sandstone set down during the Triassic period.
Overlooking the modern A6002 road the Hemlock Stone is traditionally reckoned to have been a site of ancient Celtic ritual, and potentially was revered by even earlier human cultures. In the Middle Ages it remained something of a devotional site, albeit now Christianised, and customs around fire lighting remained active into the Early Modern period and potentially as late as the early 19th Century. Purportedly a fire would be lit on Beltane’s Eve – approximately the 1st May – the beginning of the bright, warm part of the year, and always an important date for working people.
The fire lighting tradition has been revived from time-to-time for royal jubilees. Indeed, since Elizabeth II’s Golden Jubilee in 2002 there has been an annual celebration of the Hemlock Stone and the role that it plays in the area’s identity. Known as the Hemlock Happening, it occurs every June in the little walled garden park just across the A6002 from the stone.
Stapleford Hill, the name of the rocky sandstone escarpment that the Hemlock Stone sits on, is a prominent local feature. However, it is unknown how the 8.5 metre tall, obelisk-like, Hemlock Stone came to stand proud of it.
In Medieval times there was a local legend that the devil had been angered by the ringing of church bells in Castleton near the centre of the Derbyshire Peak District. At the time Castleton was a major centre in the crucial lead mining industry and despite its remote location, an important local centre. The legend goes that in his rage the devil picked up the Hemlock Stone and threw it 40 miles where it landed just over the county boundary into Nottinghamshire where it stands to this day.
This origin story is somewhat spoiled (supernatural elements aside) by the fact that Castleton lies in a fold between the limestone White Peak and the Pennine gritstone Dark Peak. There is no sandstone anywhere near it.
In the 18th Century the antiquarian William Stuckeley suggested that it might have come about through quarrying on the hill. Later geologists rejected this interpretation, reckoning that the Hemlock Stone was created by the actions of ice flows during the Ice Age. Nowadays however, the consensus appears to be leaning towards William Stuckeley’s interpretation, concluding that the Hemlock Stone was once a larger chunk of rock which was shaped by the action of people quarrying the sandstone on Stapleford Hill into the form that it takes today.
The layers of sandstone at the top of the Hemlock Stone are black with soot from industry in the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries. A sign of how solid the upper layer of sandstone is. The base of the pillar is not discoloured rather it is a clean sandstone colour. This is due to the fact that the lower layers are less firmly pressed together and are eroding at a faster rate.
In time this will cause the Hemlock Stone to break in two and collapse. But despite the weather’s best efforts this is likely to occur thousands of years in the future, meaning that this fascinating rock will continue to be an important local landmark in south west Nottinghamshire for generations to come.
The Walk
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
I create the Walk Midlands routes via Ordnance Survey Maps Explorer enabling me to take them on my phone. Subscribe yourself via the banner above.
This walk to the Hemlock Stone begins from Beeston Railway Station.
From the eastern end of the platforms there are sets of steps leading up onto a road running into the town centre.
Walk up these steps to the carriageway above.
Once on the road turn left and walk along the road until you come to a crossroads with a small Co-op on your left hand side.
Here use the traffic lights to cross over the road and continue along the road running away from the cross roads more or less straight in front of you.
Continue along this road for some distance.
It is initially residential in character, but you soon reach the edge of Beeston town centre passing an abandoned pub called the White Lion.
Just beyond the pub you cross a main road where the tram runs from central Nottingham.
On the far side continue heading straight past a large, new, slate grey building on the left, and the side of large branches of both TESCO and Sainsbury’s to your right.
At the top of this road you come to a cross road biscetting Beeston’s largely Victorian era high street where there was a market taking place on the day I walked the route.
Continue walking straight ahead down Wollaton Road (which runs north towards the edge of Nottingham in the direction of Wollaton Park).
On your right you pass a large red brick building which is shaped like a former mill or warehouse, now flats.
Shortly after passing this building on your left there is a residential road called Broughton Street running off Wollaton Road.
Cross over the road here – there are some handy traffic lights just up from where you are stood – and head down Broughton Street.
Walk a short distance along Broughton Street.
Presently you reach a t-junction with Bramcote Road, which is on your right.
Turn right here and walk a short distance along Bramcote Road.
Soon there is a junction, amidst an estate of detached and semi-detached inter-war houses. Here the road curves around to the left.
A little further on the road you are walking along reaches a t-junction where it joins another road.
On the far side of the junction there is a driveway running into woodland.
Head across the road here and walk down the driveway into the trees.
After passing the drives for a couple of houses on your right, the drive turns into a footpath.
This footpath runs through a band of trees across a golf course for some distance, It is pretty handy as it makes crossing the golf course easier than is often the case.
Having crossed the golf course you come to a signpost next to a small electricity substation. This points down a track leading to your right.
Turn right here and follow the track for a very short distance until it turns onto a road of suburban houses.
The houses you have walked past so far have been comfortable suburban homes. The houses that you are passing now – not least one clearly recently built – are in a rather different league.
Turn right here and then follow the road as it curves around to the left.
Soon you reach a t-junction where you take the right hand fork.
Then turn left when it comes out onto another road, a few paces later.
Walk up a tree lined road a short distance until it connects with another larger road.
Here on the far side of the road there is another track, next to a 1980s or 1990s vintage house with a brown fence surrounding its garden.
Follow this track for some distance.
Presently it turns into a very quiet suburban road lined with mid-20th Century period bungalows.
Follow this road as it runs downhill.
At the bottom you come out onto a major dual carriageway.
Nottinghamshire County Council have handily put a tall green metal wire fence along the central reservation of the dual carriageway, so you cannot jaywalk it.
However, there are some traffic lights very close to where you have come out next to the road to your left.
Use these traffic lights to cross the dual carriageway.
Then head to your right and walk a short distance until you come to the mouth of a residential road running along the side of a large school’s playing fields.
Turn left along this road and walk up it for some distance.
Presently you come to the end of the road and it turns into a path running into a sandstone cutting lined flanked with trees.
In some places the sandstone has historical graffiti, etched over the course of generations, visible in it.
Follow the path along this cutting for some distance.
After a little way you leave the cutting next to a modern bungalow.
Just before the house there is a footpath running off, part blocked to stop motor vehicles, to your left.
Turn left and head down this path.
Follow this path a short distance.
You approach some woodland, which the path enters.
Head along the path as it runs through the trees.
After a little way you come to a junction.
Here turn right and walk towards a green metal fence (akin to the one you recently had to skirt on the dual carriageway).
Whoever erected the green fence left a gap for pedestrians to maintain the right of way.
Head left, and walk down a tamarac paved driveway.
At the bottom there is a further gap for pedestrians which allows you to exit onto the side of the A6002.
Cross over the A6002 – which is not especially busy – particularly in the middle of the day, then head left walking past the entrance of Bramcote Crematorium.
Having passed the crematorium, you soon walk past a white painted house.
Once past the house look out on your right for a gap leading into the trees.
This path leads you up through woodland onto Stapleford Hill.
Stapleford Hill is the home of the Hemlock Stone. Whilst only 101 metres tall at its summit, this sandstone escarpment is a prominent local landmark in its own right.
Follow the path to the left as it runs up Stapleford Hill through the trees.
After climbing up the fairly steep path for some distance the Hemlock Stone looms up just outside the trees on your left. It is well worth stopping for a look.
Getting Back
Trains from Ilkeston Railway Station run south towards Nottingham and north towards Sheffield. There are also (as of the time of writing in August 2022) a few services each day which run to Liverpool or Leeds, as well as down to Norwich. Sheffield to Nottingham trains are hourly throughout the day. From Nottingham it is possible to get trains south towards Leicester, as well as east towards Lincolnshire, and west towards Derby, Staffordshire, and down towards the West Midlands conurbation. Ilkeston town centre is also served by buses running to locations across Derbyshire as well as to adjoining parts of Nottinghamshire.