Walk Diary                Wednesday 15 February 2012   Weather, 8⁰ C  Good.

Beeley Village (Margaret Pooley walk) 7 miles           Depart 10 am       Leader: Gerry White

Our annual memorial walk, a tribute to a former walker, started out from this compact little village, where fifteen of us found enough parking spaces to satisfy us all. We set off, the way we have been many times before, on a lovely brook side trail, through the beautiful Hellbank Plantation. Beeley Brook, our constant companion, rising some six hundred feet from the village to the edge of Beeley Moor, where we parted company from it and took to the road. Many times I have tried to describe the views in this wood, the falling water, the moss covered trees, the path that never ceases to climb as it follows the diktats of this once powerful stream, meandering down as we meandered up. We walked downhill now , along the road below Fallinge Edge, before turning onto the long track that leads to Fallinge, it was just onto the track that we found our usual rocks and sat down for a break.

For the next section, read mud, the recent thaw had made everywhere soft, great ruts filled with water needed to be avoided, as a farm vehicle approached slowly but still with enough force to splatter the unwary
. We passed cautiously by the two farms, chained dogs barking and straining at their restraints, eventually gaining the Rowsley road. A good uphill stretch, with a stop near the top, to turn and look back at what I consider to be one of the finest views in Derbyshire, looking towards the valley in which Chatsworth lies. On Little Bumper Piece, the farmers were sorting their sheep and releasing some onto the grazing on the moor and it was here that we stopped for our lunch break, with sheep looking on and us looking out at the excellent views. The sun shone on us and on the distant hills, we could even see Minninglow, with Royston Rocks as a backdrop to this ancient burial place of a bygone age.

A belt of woods stretches from Northwood in the east to Beeley in the west, to name them all would be a bore, suffice to say that we passed from one to another, through former quarry sites to make it to the rolling fields on the outskirts of Beeley. Our eyes resting on the beauty of the sunlit architecture, a place seemingly with no church as none can be seen, but there is one there, surrounded by giant Beech and Copper Beech trees. Even from within the village, it is difficult to locate, a village with many roads but only one main thoroughfare - all the rest being dead ended or cul-de-sacs. The weather had been very kind, the company great, and we departed feeling fulfilled in having completed, this, our annual pilgrimage.