149km White Peak Trail — Where my wheels go

Ride overview
When this part of England sat astride the equator 350 million years ago, what is now one of the country’s most mesmerising landscapes, was a brackish lagoon. Over millions of years, the calcified collection of uncountable numbers of fish and other creatures which had accumalated on the lagoon floor, were pressed into rock as the landmass travelled northwards. There is still something of the sea about this land. The green grass may have replaced the blue waters, but the hills swell gently, the sky is huge. In spring the hedgerows bubble with white frothy blossom. In summer the air smells of grass as farmers collect the hay. There are superb pubs, camp sites and bed and breakfasts along the way. THe route combines some rough-ish gravel tracks with grassy by-ways with quiet back roads which even in the height of summer are all but traffic-free. It makes for the most perfect weekend jaunt.

Ride Practicalities
START/FINISH: Matlock Station/Cromford station On the same line - Comford is two stops before Matlock DISTANCE: 149km TOTAL ASCENT: 2464m TERRAIN AND SURFACES: Quiet country lanes, by-ways and bridleways, which are sometimes quite rough RECOMMENDED CAFÈS/PUBS; You are spoilt for choice all along the route. Most villages have a tea shop and along the trails there are several cafés. Recommended pub is the Blind Bull at Little Hucklow. (also does accommodation) ACCOMMODATION: There are many camping, BandB, Hotels, glamping spots along the way - A good half way stop would be Betonville Camping near Millar’s Dale (km78). Near Millar’s Dale there’s a YHA hostel and several BandBs. Little Hucklow. Derbyshire Hills Camping is a suggestion, as is The Blind Bull, which is not only one of the best pubs in the Peak, but also has accommodation. At Ilam, there’s another Youth Hostel (you don’t have to be a member to stay and they offer private rooms), and there’s glamping in Shepherd’s Huts at Milldale a few kilometres further on. Other accomodation is plentiful nearby HISTORIC SITES; Matlock; Peak District Lead Mining Museum and Templeton Mine, Cromford; UNESCO World Heritage Cromford Mill

The route can be undertaken as a two or three day adventure. Suggested half-way stop for a two-dayer is Betonville Camping near Millar’s Dale. Nearby are various BandBs a YHA. For a three-dayer, consider stopping at The Blind Bull, Little Hucklow, and at Illam (YHA) or Milldale, local glamping pods.

Ride the Route

Ride notes
Matlock, Derbyshire’s county town, is all things to all people - a spa town, a tourist destination, a mining town as well as being a little way up-river from he brithplace of the Industrial Revolution. And for lovers of the Peak District, it’s the start of both the Limestone Way and the White Peak Trail.

Having arrived, you might consider popping into the Peak District Lead Mining Museum and Templeton Mine, since you are about to ride past any number of now disused lead mines, many of which date back to the Roman period. Lead from the Peak District lead was in the seventeenth century Britain’s second major export, after wool.

You’ll see as you stand beside the river Derwent, ready to start the adventure that there is some climbing to be done. Snitterton Lane, and Chadwick Hill await. It’s not a severe climb, more gradual as you ride on both narrow roads and a short section on the B5957, through Winster, noting its market house (NT) as you pass. At Gratton, the off-road begins. It’s a rough-ish and rutted ride as you ride through the grass dale, before entering Long Dale, which is the complete opposite for you ride on a smooth grass path. The air smells green and rich, there’ll be sheep to bleat you on your way, any number of varieties of wild flowers, butterflies and other critters.

By Frinden you’re back on the roads and shooting downhill towards Middleton, an old mining village. Tempting though it may be, try to avoid haring down the tarmac hills for there’s always gravel lurking on a corner and of course you are sharing the road with horse riders and vehicles. Youlgreave is a classically pretty Peak village - a square towered church of great antiquity, a couple of pubs, a village shop and roses climbing the grey-walled homes. By the time you arrive on the valley floor at Alport, you’re back onto the rougher stuff, heading up hill on a decent track, through a farm and across the expansive fields which charaterize the White Peak.

Bakewell is a bustling and photogenic town, with mellow stone buildings, a medieval five-arched stone bridge and quaint courtyards. It’s famed for the famous Bakewell Pudding, which is not to be confused with Bakewell Tart. The former is far more delicious, created when a local cook made a jam tart that ‘went wrong’. in the mid-nineteenth century. There are at least three bakeries which claim to be the source of the original pudding. All are delicious and it would be a crime not to stop off and try one. Bakewell can be log-jammed with cars so once full of pudding, head through the town on the backroads until you arrive at the Monsal Trail.

Formerly a railway, the Monsal Trail is a traffic-free route combining sections of asphalt with hard-packed gravel. The embankments are protected wild-flower paradises, the views are extensive and wonderful. It’s a joyous ride. It’s worth riding past the turning to Great Longstone to Monsal Dale just to ride over a vertiginous viaduct. There’s no way off the trail at Monsal Head, so you’ll have to return to the turning (2km) for Longstone and Rowland. You’re riding up hill again, on quiet and quaint narrow lanes, lined with the famed dry-stone walls.

One of the many delights of the White Peak is well dressing, an ancient pagan celebration. Nowadays, the wells are ‘dressed’ with flower petals, often totallying many thousands which are pressed into wet clay to create pictures celebrating local or national anniversaries.

The limestone has been quarried for centuries and has been a key component, since at least Roman times, of concrete and mortar. The quarries continue to employ local people and the stone is widely used for floors, stairs, walkways and road aggragate. You ride past one such quarry on Longstone Moor, but you’d be hard pressed to see it, for it’s neatly concealed by trees. After all the up-hill track riding, there are stunning views as a reward, before a juddering descent - followed by a road climb - up to Eyam.

Late in the summer of 1665, the cloth which the village tailor, Alexander Hadfield, had ordered from London arrived. His assistant George Viccars opened the package and seeing that it was a little damp, he hung it up to air in front of the fireplace. Within two days he was dead, and was quickly followed to the grave by his two stepsons, and later the tailor himself. During the autumn, more villages succumbed to the the plague, caused we now know by fleas living on a black rat, transmitting the bacterium Yersinia pestis. The rector, Rev. William Mompesson and his predecessor, the Rev. Thomas Stanley, with the agreement of the villagers, introduced a strict quarantine to prevent the spread of the disease beyond the village boundary. In effect the village was sealed off from the rest of the world. They were supported by the Earl of Devonshire, and by other charitable but less wealthy neighbours, who provided the necessities of life during their period of isolation. In the fourteen months whilst the plague lasted, it is claimed that 260 villagers died out of a population of 800. Every year a commemorative service is held at Riley graves, where Elizabeth Hancock buried her husband and six children in a field away from the village centre. The village itself is typical of the Peak - a couple of tea shops, a historic church, a small green and gardens overflowing with summer plants.

From Eyam, it is a bit of a haul to the highest point of the ride on Eyam Edge, but as with most climbs, the views from the top are worth every beat of the pounding heart. From here you can see the darker mounds and edges of the Dark Peak, topped with a purple haze in mid-summer as the heather bursts into flower. And to the south, there are the undulating green fields criss-crossed by the ever-present dry stone walls. There’s also the Barrel Inn where you may rest and slake your thirst.

The run back down is on a by-way which at the last time of riding (August ‘24) was a bumpy affair as new aggregate had been laid and had not yet settled into a firm surface. From Little Hucklow (where there’s a superb pub, ‘The Blind Bull’), you ride on nearly empty roads, bounded by walls with stands of sycamores rustling in the breeze. More by-ways and single-track roads lead you down to the utterly picturesque Millar’s Dale and along another section of the Monsal Trail to Cressbrook.

For all its serenity and beauty, the Dale and the grand building of Litton Mill, this was a hellish place, as graphically told by Robert Blincoe, who was indentured as an orphan to work in the cotton mill at Litton. Blincoe worked job as a mule scavenger, picking up loose cotton waste from the spinning frames. The work was dangerous and hard, the hours long, the food little more than gruel. Beatings were common. Blincoe lost half a finger in the whirring machine. It was to take his biography, along with the actions of social reformers including Charles Dickens, before indentured child labour was abolished in the mid-nineteenth century.

The route continues over hill and dale, always picturesque, always visually arresting, to the Manifold Trail, which was the country’s first failed railway to be re-imagined into a cycle path. Built at the turn of teh 20th century, the narrow guage line ran until 1934 carrying milk from the local dairies and a few passengers to the many scenic spots along the route. The railway's locomotives were yellow and modeled after those in India. Whilst there are no trains, the scenic spots have not changed, and the ride in the deep-sided vale is wonderful with towers of limestone rising to the sky, the river twinkling beside you and a scattering of tea shops to refresh you.

You’ll know by now that travelling in a deep dale eventually means having to haul yourself back up to the limestone plateau. The views expand as you rise, passing Throwley Old Hall, after which it’s a plunge back down to re-join the river Manifold which has taken a more circuitous route. The village is known for its Swiss styled cottages, it’s church and Hall, which is one of the grandest of all the Youth Hostel Association’s properties.

After climbing again to Hope (that you don’t have many more climbs to do), you descend to Milldale on the River Dove, which is often described as being the prettiest of all the Dales. Enjoy the bridge, the river, the setting before taking another deep breath and riding up narrow, hedge and wall bounded lanes to Tissington, perhaps the most picturesque of all the picturesque villages on this route.

Thereafter, it’s a matter of heading East on quiet roads back to the last of Peak’s Trails, the High Peak, and descending to Cromford in the Derwent Valley. This is where the whole notion of industrial factory working began and the Mill is a UNESCO World Heritage Building. Should you have time before your train home, it is a fascinating hour or so to wander around the world’s first factory. Cromford is on the same line as your departure point at Matlock so your return ticket will be valid back to Derby and beyond.