Ticknall, Ingleby Repton Foremark

Date: 17 April 2011
Area: South of Derby

Distance: 12.3 miles 19.9 k

Start Location: Ticknall Village Hall Car Park

OS Sheet: Explorer 245

Grid Ref: SK 35295 24060

I apologise for not getting this posted last week but we had a landline failure last Tuesday, realised on Wednesday, reported on Thursday and on Tuesday the BT man came to call.

Route

These notes are provided to enable the walk to be plotted on a 1:25,000 map.

From the car park cross the road S and E into Chapel Street, at its end take footpath on left across the first field, bear right at second and head up the E side of Robin Wood. At Woodend Cottage take track W to Ingleby Toft. Walk N to footpath on left to Ingleby. At W of village take footpath on right heading W to Caves and on to Mill Plantation, turn right and follow paths towards Twyford and W across the fields to Repton. Walk down Monson Lane to Milton Road follow SE take first road on right, Springfield Road, near far end take footpath on left head E to Milton, Foremark and Seven Sprouts Farm. Take track heading towards Ingleby Toft, in about 400m turn right just after the small lake, back to Ticknall

Journey

Sunday was a stunningly good day for a walk, warm with gentle breezes and Spring really hitting the high notes everywhere we looked.

The aim of this walk was to take Mrs G to parts of this area she'd not seen before mainly Robin Wood, Ingleby and the walk along the River Trent passing Anchor Church and the Caves. We were also using it as a training walk for our holiday in June when we plan to walk the Cumbria Way from Ulverston to Keswick taking four days, then spending a couple of days on short walks in the area, making time for shopping, I'm sure.

I am sorry to say that after the very good way marking on the Hallaton walk in Leicestershire a few weeks ago, here the sign posting was frequently not always obvious nor clear and many of the stiles were in poor order. This did not detract from the walk except for the bad language from Mrs G, as she struggled to climb over yet another over height stile, she’s only 5ft tall and as we know all the men who build stiles are 6ft 6 inch tall with 36 inch inside legs.

Ticknall, as well as being the gateway to Calke Abbbey and Park is a super little village, well worth spending sometime wandering around. We parked at the Village Hall where part of the car park is for public parking, there are also some decent toilets here.

The walk from Ticknall to Ingleby is straight forward, across the fields and through some new woodland areas then through or up the side of Robin Wood and across the top. The path down to Ingleby was not clear it actually heads towards the north west corner of the field to join the road outside the John Thompson Free House, which I am assured by the lady who lives next door to the landlords father says is the best pub in Derbyshire with terrific food. This wonderful lady, with whom we spent some twenty minutes chatting, tends to the spring flower garden alongside the rock pool and well in the middle of the village.

At the west end of the village there is a short steep climb to a fantastic viewing point overlooking part of the village, the River Trent and its flood plane to the north of the river with Derby in the distance. We sat here in the sun drinking in the view and eating Kit Kats before they melted.

I have visited the caves a couple of time when it’s been cold and dank and found them a bit forbidding. This time we spent quite a few minutes exploring and sort of poking about. I have no knowledge of the caves and Church’s history but we could begin to imagine how the very poor or outcast or even monks or hermits may have lived here and what a cold, damp, miserable place it must have been and how desperate or driven the people had to be to live here.

From there across the fields towards Twyford and on to Repton the way was flat and a little boring, relieved by the butterflies (can anyone tell me what this one is) and hundreds of the sheep and their lambs. Ohh Mint Sauce!!

Needless to say we had a roast beef dinner at Repton Tea Rooms

The way back to Ticknall from Repton was by way of Milton and Foremark Hall and school (above). Then along the tree lined track to Heath Wood, on to Seven Sprouts Farm where we managed to take two wrong paths within 500 metres of each other, the first was a few metres down the wrong track and back, the second took us passed some interesting old ruins and up the stream along the small valley beneath Coppy Hill, passed the lake at the head valley and a 10 minute faff trying to cross the brand new sheep fencing. What we should have done was to take the track on the right at the bottom of the small spur, well before we reached the ruins.

Once over the fence it was through a small dish of a valley and over the hill back down into Ticknall. A good walk that we very much enjoyed

Foremark to Repton

Date: 6 February 2011

Area: South of Derby, N E of Burton on Trent

Distance: 9 Miles 14.5 k

Start Location: Foremark Reservoir Car Park

OS Sheet: Explorer 245

Grid Ref: SK 3359 2419

Route

These notes are provided to enable the walk to be plotted on a 1 : 25,000 map. They are not walking instructions.


From the car park head north to the road, turn left to bridleway on right, uphill to meet bridleway from Ticknall, left to the Saw Mill at Milton. At road head north, taking footpath into Repton, at road go right to end, left downhill following the road left up to roundabout.

Turning left, take road south to last house, take path on left follow path right and south along the valley, then up track past Loscoe and Fairview Farms to Bondwood Farm, take footpath left down to the reservoir. Using the permissive paths, head north back to the car park.

Journey

The area south of the River Trent, west of East Midlands Airport, east of the A38 is very pleasant walking country. It’s mainly farmland and can get a bit sticky in wet weather, there’s good chunks of woodland, several lakes, well three, all artificial but lovely. Melbourne, Repton, Breedon on the Hill and Ticknall are its main towns and villages. It has its share of stately homes, churches and other antiquities Calke Abbey, Staunton Harold Hall, Melbourne Hall, Repton, Swarkstone Bridge, Breedon and others. It is an area that has been shaped by old industries that are long gone now, however, surprising glimpses still appear when you least expect it.

We’ve done dozens of walks around the area from short ones up to an 18 miler, most of them have gone through near to Foremark and Repton. Fortunately Repton has a special draw, the very good Repton Tea Room on Brook End. It’s open on Saturdays and Sundays and can be found on the right next to a small river between ‘follow road left’, and, ‘up to roundabout’. See  TeaRoom  for details.

For a couple of months now getting out for a proper walk has been fraught with difficulties but Sunday was officially our first proper walk of the year. Even then it nearly didn’t happen due to last minute faffs and indecisions, only overcome by the offer of a roast dinner at Repton. Followed by hurried throwing of things in to the rucksack, plotting a route, printing a 1:50k map and down loading geocaches.


From the forecast we knew the day was going to be windy, but pulling into the car park and seeing the height of the white topped waves on the reservoir was a bit of a shock. Trying to get the car doors open was a real battle. Despite this once we got into the walk we realised that the day was relatively warm and occasionally, when out of the wind, pleasant. On the way down to Milton the Derbyshire Hills were visible beyond the cooling towers of Willington power station.

As we passed by the cottages at the Saw Mill we spotted our first Snowdrops of the year, quickly followed by some Crocuses and a tree, possibly Hazel, full of Catkins, three sure signs
that spring is not too far away.

Repton was very quiet and we were able to get a table in the tea rooms. Once our glasses de-misted and we could see the menu boards we ordered two roast beef dinners, followed by sticky toffee pudding for me and a marmalade bread and butter pudding for Mrs O-n-G plus a pot of tea each, for under £24. It was a very good meal.

Instead for following the plan to take the road south from the roundabout we walked westward a further 100 metres or so, on the way passing a sign saying Basil Rathbone (who played Sherlock Holmes) went to school here, and took a footpath left taking us through a series of alleys and back paths, where we nosed at the houses and gardens, eventually coming out on the road. Dropping down the footpath from the road we walked through a bunch of small paddocks with pigs, geese, ducks and hens. It felt as if we had walked into a re-construction of a medieval peasant farm.

Along the valley and up the track to Bondwood Farm the wind was right in our face which was tiring and unfortunately brought on Mrs O-G’s asthma, not too badly this time, but even a mild attack is not easy for her.

From the track above Bondwood, the footpath passes through several horse paddocks and drops down through woodland down to the reservoir. On the way down we found the first of three geocaches hidden in a bit of a bog, later we found two more (geocaches not bogs). We’re still novices at geocaching, but using my GPS this time I was able to navigate to within about a metre of the caches which is about 10m closer than the iphone got me previously. We were both well chuffed with finding them, it brought a bit of excitement, a buzz, to the walk. I had planned to pick two more up in the first part of the walk, but forgot!

While walking along the side of the reservoir and later while sitting in the car drinking coffee we could not help seeing the wide sandy orange band around the lake dividing the water from the trees. We’ve all heard that water levels were low due to low rainfall this winter, here was proof, the water level was down some 8 to 10 metres.