"The man was a most uncouth spectacle...he was lean as a skeleton, pale as a dead corpse...his flesh lank and...something of the colour of the lead itself". Thus wrote Daniel Defoe, author of Robinson Crusoe, on encountering a miner emerging from one of the Brassington leadmines. That was in 1720, then a century later came the Cromford and High Peak Railway. But now all has reverted to nature, with sheep grazing the old workings on a hillside sprinkled with sweet-scented thyme.
LOCATION: Peak District, ten miles south of Bakewell
START: B5035 near Carsington village, Sheepwash Pay & Display car park
Grid ref: SK249529 Postcode: DE4 4JN
DISTANCE: 7.5 miles
GRADE: Moderate
TIME: 4 hours
MAP: Explorer OL - White Peak Landranger 119
REFRESHMENTS: Miners Arms Carsington & Miners Arms Brassington
EN ROUTE: Haboro' Rocks
This walk was originally published by
The Manchester Evening News