Youlgreave & Bradford Dale

Paul and I had originally planned to do a walk that took in most of Lathkill Dale too.  We parked up at Alport and tried to follow Lathkill Dale upstream, but as before when I tried this with Mum and Dad, the river was up, full of melt water, and the field was completely flooded.

The flooded footpath heading upstream into Lathkill Dale.

So we decided to modify our walk somewhat (probably more than halved it!!!) and headed off up the road and through Youlgreave itself.  It's a really nice village with plenty of services and it was one of just two villages that we considered moving to when we found Kirby House (the other being Tideswell, which was really a bit far north).

Looking north towards Lathkill Dale.

One of the many very nice large houses just outside the village.

The Bulls Head Hotel, one of three pubs in Youlgreave.

The village fountain.

Another very nice house near the centre of the village.

We followed the main street right through the village and continued along the road, taking a left turn towards Middleton.  On the second tight bend, the second valley that the road contoured around, we took a footpath that dropped us down the valley...

Paul on the steep and very icy path down into Bradford Dale.

and we emerged above the bridge in between the fish ponds in Bradford Dale.

Looking back upstream in Bradford Dale.

The path along the main valley was absolutely treacherous with ice and after skating our way through the gate, we tottered along on the edge furthest from the water.  We stopped at one of the weirs and I took a photo looking back upstream.  When I turned back to Paul I saw that he was taking a photograph of the bare branches of an ash tree on the other side of the river.  There was piece of bright turquoise plastic caught on a branch, or so I thought, until it moved and turned to look at me!!  It was a beautiful little kingfisher, sat on a branch with it's back to us.  I'd never realised that they have a brighter turquoise patch on their backs.  Paul took some photos of it, which came out really quite well.  See Paul's blog.

We continued down the valley, bumped into Ben Stevens and his girlfriend Susan, who were also out walking, and emerged into the open valley.  Normally if I go walking in Bradford Dale (usually with my friend Joan) I leave my car at the bottom of Mawstone Lane, but we still had to walk through to Alport, so we crossed the lane and continued along the river.

Downstream towards Alport.

When we reached the village we left the footpath right by the river and it became apparent just how high water levels were when you saw how little of the arch was left under the bridge.  The water was within six inches of the top of the wall of the garden on the far side of the water!!

The road bridge in Alport.