Wednesday 15 December 2021
Fritchley Red Lion 6.7 miles
Leader. John M.
Weather, Perfect 14°C
No on walk 23
After all the doom and gloom, not to mention the unreasonable weather of the last several days, today we had the best of everything. Sunshine, clear skies, a degree of warmth and a good turnout, which I think, always gives everyone a bit of a buzz. A well-prepared walk, with lots of interesting sites and the font of local knowledge giving us the benefit of his years of research into local history, thanks John.
It seemed like a fairly slow start, as in the first hour we only covered just over a mile, this due to the fact that around almost every corner, from Fritchley to Bullbridge, there was another place of historic interest, many marked with an information board. Just around the corner from our starting point, in the Red Lion car park, we visited the site of, now get this, the World’s earliest train tunnel, this before steam, when horses pulled railed wagons, along what was then called tramways. We followed this by visits to, Fritchley Church Farm, the Canal Inn, Cromford Canal, Drover’s stables and site of the Lime Kilns and Amber Wharf, where Lime and Limestone was loaded onto Barges for distribution throughout the country. We crossed over the River Amber and the main high speed rail line, into Sawmills and returned to walk under said railway, to make our way through Bullbridge to eventually climb up to the remains of Fritchley Windmill, passing along the way, a painted stone boundary marker, a later coffee break followed.
Onward now, from the four-path crossway at the corner of Mill Green wood, to Tithe Farm, north to pass west of Boden Farm, to the dam which was created to supply water to a watermill, now in ruins, which we passed by. Then to make our way uphill to Wingfield Manor and Wingfield Hall. We walked just into South Wingfield, to view a former pub, once the hub of local life and most likely built with some of the masonry robbed from the old Manor.
Murmurings in the ranks now, it was past our normal lunchbreak time, still, we made our way, westwards, towards the top of a rise, on our way to Rough Farm. We stopped, on the rise, before reaching the farm, for our lunch break, great views of the old manor to the east and all-over South Wingfield.
We now had less than two miles to go, so we pressed on passing by Rough Farm to Park Head and took a path to the west of Culland Wood, one I had never walked, strange, I thought I knew this area very well, yet this delightful path had hidden itself from me. This path, of considerable length, took us to Mill Green, we crossed over the minor road there, walking on to Fairfield Farm and then to follow the remains of the old Tramway back into Fritchley village, arriving there at two twenty. Good weather, good company, thanks to all.
