Distance: 8.9 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: hard
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
Walk to Lud’s Church in the Staffordshire Peak District from Rushton Spencer to Flash, Britian’s highest village, along the River Dane valley.
The Story
Route Notes
Getting Back
Staffordshire’s Green Chapel
Lud’s Church is one of the most celebrated locations in the entire Peak District. It is situated in woodland high above the River Dane valley pointing north from Staffordshire towards Cheshire in the far north of the Midlands,
It was formed by a landslip which created a deep, relatively narrow crevice in the woods covering the hillside above Gradbach. Famed for its stillness, the drip, drip of water, and the green mosses and ferns covering its walls, Lud’s Church is over 100 metres long and 18 metres deep at its lowest point. A truly remarkable place, pretty unique in the English Midlands.
Lud’s Church name comes from a story that during the 15th Century it was a meeting place, and place of worship for Lollards, a loose knit constellation of proto-Protestant religious dissidents, many of whom in England were influenced by ideas propagated by John Wycliffe who was parish priest at Lutterworth in Leicestershire in the 1370s and 1380s.
Officially deemed heretical by around 1400 and a threat to the political order in England after the planned coups and uprisings in the 1410s led by the Herefordshire born baron John Oldcastle, and others, Lollardry in its myriad forms went to ground. It was this which led those who saw their religious views, which included biting critiques of the clergy, aspects of religious dogma, and the belief that religious texts and services should be conducted in English, to look to meet, discuss and worship in remote locations like Lud’s Church.
The Lollards are not the only aspect of late medieval culture strongly associated with Lud’s Church. For decades experts in Middle English literature have tended to associate Lud’s Church with the “green chapel”, a deep, moss covered chasm, described in the unusual Arthurian side legend, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Which is written in a north west Midlands dialect, and features the Wirral peninsular in north western Cheshire, as well as other landscapes which recall Wales and the Peak District, suggesting that the area was well known to the story’s author.
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is dated to the late 14th Century, around the time when the Arthurian romances were being created, and a generation or two prior to when Lud’s Church may have been a gathering place for Lollards. It is a mysterious text, nothing apart from the fact that they probably came from north Staffordshire, north west Derbyshire or Cheshire being known about the author (admittedly not all that unusual for the era). And also for whom, and why it was created, the manuscript seemingly have been created for someone’s personal library, but for whom and what its significance was can only be guessed at.
There are no other known versions of the tale besides the manuscript in north west Midlands middle English dialect now preserved in the British Library. As such it is not known whether versions of the story were in wide circulation as oral tradition, or in other written texts, or whether it was created by the person who wrote it drawing upon other stories, scraps of history and literary traditions. No record of its first two centuries prior to it entering the collection, already an antique, of Huntingdonshire based Sir Robert Bruce Cotton in the late 16th Century, and it was not widely studied until 200 years ago in the 1820s. After which the story of Sir Gawain rapidly became a popular and widely known adjunct to the Arthurian legend. Something, alongside its natural beauty and wonder, which draws visitors to Lud’s Church today.
Route Notes
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
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This walk from Rushton Spencer to Flash via Danebridge, Gradbach and Lud’s Church begins from Rushton Spencer.
At the time of writing in November 2025 Rushton Spencer was served by the 109 bus between Leek and Macclesfield, six times a day on weekdays and four times a day on Saturdays with no Sunday service.
Upon alighting the bus in Rushton Spence in the middle of Rushton village, walk north a short distance along the A523.
Soon on the right hand side of the road there is a driveway running off the A523 past a scattering of houses. Turn right and walk along this driveway past the houses, carrying along the driveway as it turns into a green lane.
Presently the green lane ends and you clamber over a stile and follow a footpath across a series of hedgerow lined fields.
You head steadily uphill, until you reach open fields on top of a hill, with the far higher summits of a Peak District, inside the national park rising in front of you.
Turn right and head towards Thompson Farm.
Upon reaching Thompson Farm follow the footpath signs over a series of stiles until you emerge onto a sloping paddock in front of the farm. Head downhill following a well worn path until you emerge onto a track just above the River Dane.
On reaching the Dane you pick up the Dane Valley Way running to the right along an embankment at the top of the river.
Walk along the wide well maintained track along the river. At this point the River Dane forms the boundary between Staffordshire and Cheshire, the Midlands and Northern England.
Just past an abandoned house situated beside the track you reach a sturdy footbridge across the River Dane on your left.
Cross this bridge leaving Staffordshire for Cheshire.
On the far side of the bridge turn right and follow the contours of the river through a series of fields.
Soon approaching the hamlet of Danebridge you pick up a track which runs towards the shop, taproom and brewery of the Wincle Beer Company.
Past the brewery you reach a main road, and turn right, walking a short distance along the road to the bridge where you cross the River Dane back into Staffordshire.
Follow the road uphill through Danebridge and look out on the left for a footpath running uphill past some houses.
Continue along this path out into open countryside, which looks like it was planted with pine trees which were harvested recently. Saplings have been planted to replace them.
Pick up a track running through the former/nascent woodland, and then follow a steep path up and out into open fields.
Head across the fields making for Hangingstone Farm.
On the edge of the farm you reach a track, where you turn left and follow a footpath uphill past the farm.
You walk along the track for some distance, past the imposing Hanging Stone itself high up on the hilltop above you.
Presently, having passed a house known as the Paddock you reach a wide, well worn path running uphill to the left.
Head up this path continuing until you reach the summit. From the top there are spectacular views to the north into the heart of the Staffordshire Peak District, as well as south towards the Roaches.
There is a junction on the path here where you turn right heading uphill onto an edge which shares some characteristics with The Roaches just to the south back towards Leek.
Follow this edge for some distance until in a dip you pick up a wide path running downhill towards Back Forest, where Lud’s Church is situated.
Continue downhill and into the trees. Soon you reach a junction where you turn left, crossing some duckboards and heading further into the trees.
Soon you reach the collapsed southern part of Lud’s Church, and then descend the steep, narrow, sometimes slippy, stone steps into the ravine.
The path leads you down through the great, immensely still, mossy chasm for the entirety of its hundred or so metre length.
At the end of Lud’s Church you climb up a step of stone steps and back up onto the path through the trees.
You follow the path past a series of rock formations which loops around then begins to descend.
Follow the wide well maintained downhill through the trees.
At the bottom of the slope you reach the Black Brook which runs down to the River Dane.
Turn left and cross the Black Brook and then clamber over a stile to reach a path which runs beside the River Dane towards Gradback Mill.
Walk through the grounds of Gradbach Mill past the mill building and then up the complexes’ driveway until you reach the lane.
Follow the lane for some distance.
Presently on the left there is a short cut across the River Dane and through a field to reach a road on the far side.
Upon reaching the road turn right and follow it around.
Continue along this road as it runs uphill for some distance.
Presently on the left there is a narrower, quieter road running off to the left which climbs steadily towards Flash, Britain’s highest village.
Continue along this road which ascends steeply uphill approaching the edge of Flash.
On reaching Flash, and the high point of the walk 471 metres above sea level, walk straight along the main road.
After Flash continue straight along the road until reaching the side of the A53 which runs between Leek and Buxton.
Upon reaching the A53 turn left and walk a short distance uphill towards Flash Bar. At Flash Bar there is a cafe, and the bus stops for buses between Buxton and Leek.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
At the time of writing in November 2025 Flash was served by two buses a day in each direction between Buxton and Leek on weekdays and three on Saturdays and Four on Sundays. The last weekday bus was at 14:40 to Leek and 14:10 to Buxton. The last weekend buses were at 18:00 to Leek and 17:30 to Buxton on Saturday and 16:50 to Leek and 15:55 to Buxton on Sundays. Buxton has bus services across the Derbyshire Peak District, including to Derby and into Greater Manchester and Macclesfield, as well as mainline trains north towards Manchester. Leek has buses across north Staffordshire, especially to Hanley in Stoke-on-Trent, around a mile from Stoke Railway Station.