Country Images Magazine May 2015 - North Edition | Page 61

THE WALK
• From the car park walk down Tideswell Dale
following the well made path. Take the right
fork beside the wooden sculpture of a water
vole – ‘Ratty’ from the ‘Wind in the Willows’.
Look up to your left beyond the sculpture. The
hillside hollow was once a quarry exploiting
brown dolerite, the remains of pre-historic basalt
left behind by volcanic activity. The limestone
ramparts of Raven’s Tor are ahead and slightly
to your right. Above the crag is the popular youth
hostel in the one-time home of a country gentleman.
• Turn left along the macadamed riverside road
and follow it past the one-time millworkers’
cottages and as far as the entrance to Litton
Mill.
Litton Mill. This old textile cotton spinning mill
founded in 1782 has a notorious history from the
time when it was run by on the virtual slave labour
of orphans and other unfortunates who fell into the
‘care’ of the ‘Guardians of the Poor’.
• Do not enter the mill yard, but turn right to
follow a signposted path beside the mill, over
the river and up to the trail.
• Turn left along the trail and follow it through
two tunnels.
The trail follows an almost alpine section of the old
London to Manchester Midland main Ɩ