Walk 31: Lathkill Dale via Magpie Mine

Essentials

Parking

Weather

Route Map

Guidance

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Safety First

Please do not rely on this walking guide to solely navigate the hike. Always take a paper map and compass with you and make sure you know how to use them. Hiking is generally safe, but there are always potential risks. Use common sense, plan your route beforehand and make a reasonable judgment at all times.

Directions

1. Turn left out of the car park and cross over Long Rake Road/Back Lane and head through the stone stile in the wall opposite the roadside parking area. The initial section of the walk is part of the Limestone Way, a long-distance footpath that crosses Derbyshire/Staffordshire.
2. Continue diagonally across several fields following the footpath for roughly 900 metres before meeting Low Moor Wood. Briefly head through the wood and continue across another field up towards Calling Low Farm.
3. Continue on the path and take the stile in the wall to the right of the farm. Follow the path through another small wood as it bends westward across more fields and slowly descends towards the trees in the valley ahead.
4. Upon meeting the final wall before the trees, head through the stile and drop steeply down the well marked stone steps into Cales Dale.
5. At the bottom, turn right and continue for about 300 metres until meeting the River Lathkill.
6. Cross the footbridge over the river and turn right. Continue along the path for just under 2 miles, with the river close to your right. Look out for the ruins of Bateman’s House, built in 1830 by the Lathkill Dale Mining Company to cover a 12m deep shaft housing a novel designed water-powered pump to drain their lead mines. It later also served as the family home for the company’s agent James Bateman.
7. Eventually the track will meet a small road with a large house on the right. Continue up the road as it steeply snakes upward, first left and then right, up to the village of Over Haddon.
8. After the main car park (with toilets), head left up to Monyash Road. Continue on Monyash Road for about 200 metres until meeting a stone stile in the walk with accompanying fingerpost on the right. 
9. Leave the road over the stile, taking the path north west, ascending across fields.
10. Cross over the B5055 road and continue across more fields. The path will pass to the right of Bole Hill and begin to drop down to a small road.
11. Cross the road and continue up along the walled track that eventually leads down to Magpie Mine. Magpie Mine is a well-preserved disused lead mine and is a protected Scheduled Monument.
12. Leave the path to the west of Magpie Mine and continue until meeting the road. 
13. Turn right and continue on the road for about 250 metres, looking out for a gate on the left with an accompanying fingerpost. 
14. Head through the gate across the field, through the Hard Rake Plantation and down to Horse Lane. 
15. Turn right and continue on Horse Lane before it eventually meets Chapel Street at the edge of Monyash.
16. Turn left on Chapel Street and head into Monyash – the perfect time for a pitstop at the pub or cafe.
17. At the main cross-roads, turn left along Church Street, past The Bulls Head and continue for about 800 metres, passing the Lathkill Dale Campsite on the left.
18. Upon reaching a small car park and toilets on the right, head through the gate, back towards Lathkill Dale. Continue for about 1.2 miles until reaching the footbridge from step 6.
19. Cross the footbridge, retracting your steps back to the car park.

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