Distance: 14.8 miles
Difficulty of the terrain: hard
Get the route via: Ordnance Survey or download the gpx. file from Dropbox
Walk from Dore on the south west edge of Sheffield to Bakewell in the heart of the Peak District National Park. Via Totley Moss, White Edge, Baslow and Chatsworth House.
The Story
Route Notes
Getting Back
Bakewell Pudding
Situated near the bottom of the River Wye valley in a relatively low lying part of Derbyshire’s White Peak, Bakewell is the Peak District National Park’s only town which has a population of around 3,500.
Bakewell has been a market town serving the Peak District, and a major transport hub for centuries. In Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice it is from Bakewell that Elizabeth Bennett travels to Pemberley, which has given rise to the suggestion that either Lyme Park or Chatsworth House, is the inspiration for the estate. Though there was likely a notable settlement on the site a thousand years prior to when that novel is set as parts of Bakewell’s All Saints parish church are known to be from the 10th Century, and there are a couple of early medieval crosses in the churchyard too.
These days due to its size, and situation at the junction of several major roads, while being quite close to Sheffield, Chesterfield and Derby, means that Bakewell is a key tourist hub within the Peak District. It has played this role since it was a key staging post in the 18th and 19th Centuries (when Jane Austen wrote about it), one which was augmented in the Victorian era when the Midlands Railway opened a station on their line between London and Manchester in the town. The section of the route between Matlock and Buxton was closed to passenger trains in the late 1960s. But Bakewell’s status as a key tourist node was cemented, thanks to its location close to numerous Peak District attractions. These days the Monsal Trail has taken over the route of the old railway line across the national park forming a tourist attraction in its own right.
As is typical of national park hubs across the world, Bakewell has a distinctive food stuff, a dessert, the bakewell pudding. Known to have been made in some form as far back as the 1830s and likely somewhat earlier, there are a handful of shops in the town centre which specialise selling them. The bakewell pudding is the inspiration of the bakewell tarts which are made in various forms, most famously by Mr Kipling.
Route Notes
Get the route: via Ordnance Survey Maps or download the GPX. file from Dropbox
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This walk from Dore to Bakewell begins at Dore and Totley Railway Station in south west Sheffield.
On leaving Dore and Totley Station you reach the Abbeydale Road, the main road through this part of Sheffield and turn left, walking along the road through the large suburban village of Dore.
After some distance turn right just after the Crossed Scythes pub turn right and head down a road where you pick up a cobbled stone path downhill towards the outlying small village of Totley Bent.
Pick up a road running out of Totley Bent and then up out onto the moors, heading uphill past the vents for the Totley Tunnel.
Leaving Sheffield behind you, you pick up a wide, well worn path across the moors – known as Totley Moss – into the Peak District National Park.
On reaching the busy A6187, cross the road, and pick-up a narrower, but still well worn path, down, and along the base of a gritstone edge.
Cross the road again at a crossroads and then head along a wide track towards the National Trust’s White Edge Lodge holiday property which has commanding views across the River Derwent valley into the centre of the national park, and then pick up a path on the left, beside the lodge up onto White Edge Moor.
Follow the path along the edge of White Edge Moor for quite some distance.
Presently you descend towards a car park above the village of Calver which lies at the bottom of the Derwent Valley.
At the car park, head a little way along the lane down the hill and then turn left to head down a wide path across the moors, which leads downhill, back into woodland and pastoral land to reach the edge of the village of Baslow.
Walk through Baslow, picking up the Derwent Valley Heritage Way, and heading along a well made path, running near to the River Derwent, into the parkland around Chatsworth House.
Approach Chatsworth House, and upon reaching it turn right and cross a bridge over the Derwent.
On the far side head straight up a path towards the village of Edensor.
Walk through Edensor and then up a flight of steps, ascending away from the village uphill towards woodland.
Head through the trees, and then right across meadows at the top of the hill, before descending back towards the tree line, and the Wye valley where the town of Bakewell sits.
Walk through the trees, across a golf course, and the former railway line which is now the Monsal Trail to reach the edge of Bakewell.
From here it is a short walk past the town’s livestock market to the side of the River Wye and the town centre.
This is where the walk ends.
Getting Back
From the centre of Bakewell (at the time of writing in June 2024) there are frequent buses throughout the day, every day of the week but less frequent and finishing earlier on Sundays, south towards Derby, via Matlock, Cromford and Belper (where there are stations) with some buses also going via Wirksworth towards Derby. There are also buses west to Buxton (which has a station on the line north towards Manchester) and east to Chesterfield town centre and railway station. There is also a northeasterly bus to Sheffield, which stops at both the bus and railway stations. There are less frequent local services serving other Derbyshire locations and villages throughout the Peak District.