Lud's Church etc

We parked in Flash, over in the midst of the Staffordshire moorland and crossed the fields to the Bald Stone, an outcrop across the valley north of the Roaches.

The Bald Stone

At the end of the line of outcrops, we dropped down into the valley and followed the small Black Brook as it wound it's way along the bottom of the valley into Gradbach Woods.

Looking back to the south east along the Black Brook

Once past the buildings of Goldsitch Farm, we stopped for a bite to eat where the stream wound it's way through a narrow valley.

Paul enjoying his lunch

After our break we crossed the stream and climbed up away from the water across open moorland, with expanding views across the woodland below.

Looking across the moorland towards Gradbach Wood and Hill

We finally emerged came to a track at an outdoor education centre and shortly afterwards took a stile through the wall and started dropping back down into the trees of Black Forest. The woods were beautiful, with the leaves just starting to change, particularly the beeches. We followed a path along the very top of the woods for about a kilometer until we came to a path to the left that was signposted for Lud's Church - this we followed.

Lud's Church

Lud's Church

Lud's Church is a natural split in the gritstone caused by a landslip, but it gets the second half of its name from the fact that the Lollards, followers of John Wycliffe in the early 15th century, used it as a place to worship. There's supposed to be an air of peace and tranquility about the place (so I've read), but frankly I found it spooky!!! Probably not helped by the fact that after walking for several miles in perfect solitude, we were suddenly mobbed by a horde of people.  I just wanted to run away!!

We stopped a little way away in a small valley off the main path and had our lunch and then continued onto a track that lead down through Forest Wood into the bottom of the valley to cross the Black Brook and take us into the grounds of the Gradbach Youth Hostel.

The Black Brook near Gradbach Youth Hostel

Walking through the grounds of the Youth Hostel we followed the road up the valley for about a kilometre, until we crossed the river and a small field, took another short section of road, before heading along the top of a ridge through the fields with spectacular views in all directions.

Looking back towards Gradbach Youth Hostel

Our route from there was a little convoluted and involved crossing open boggy ground, dropping to a stream, following it upstream through a very overgrown scrubby area, more fields...

Sheep and llamas

some strange sheep, another stream with a small waterfall and then out onto a very steep section of road that shortly lead back to the village of Flash and the car.

The view behind - any excuse to stop and catch my breath!!