Two outings in one week.. could the world be getting back to normal. Nope, sorry, not yet, but it was the last day of the human’s holibobs, so we couldn’t stay in. After our little uphill ramble earlier in the week, Mum wasn’t keen on the idea of a climb up Shutlingsloe, so instead settled for the (possibly) slightly less strenuous visit to Lud’s Church, located just 7 miles or so from home… or so they thought!
Sat nav on and off they went. Just a mile left and what… road closed ahead, no!!!! 30 minutes later and one considerable detour, we arrived at The Roaches – Gradbach Car Park, where we would begin our walk. The ‘slight’ diversion did take us through Flash, which has the distinction of being the highest village in England, at 1514 feet above sea level. Of course this meant that Dad blasted out a chorus of “Flash! A-ah!” a couple of times. The song by Queen was the theme track of the 1980 film Flash Gordon and to answer your question Mum… what is the difference between Flash and Flash Gordon? The Flash is the name of various superheroes from DC comics and Flash Gordon is a sci-fi space traveller from a series of comic strips from the 30’s.
The walk first takes you down Gradbach Mill Lane, past the mill itself and the lane soon becomes more of a track. We followed the track until we came down to the River Dane… where’s the bridge we wonder… there isn’t one! We somehow managed to cross to the other side of the river using stepping stones, but not without a few scares. Mum was very brave I have to say. We later found there was a bridge and a much quicker way as well! At this point we had entered into Back Forest and Lud’s Church, which is hidden high up in the woods, was signposted to the right.
We followed the path for about 15 minutes until we saw another sign at a small rock outcrop, which Dad of course had to climb. The new path took us up to the left and almost completely back on ourselves, but it wasn’t long before we arrived to see the day’s main attraction. Lud’s Church is most incredible “church” in the Peak District. Rather than a building, it is an 100 metre long, 18 metre deep chasm created in the gritstone caused by a giant landslip, which over time has been covered from top to bottom in vibrant moss.
It is full of history, myths and dark green wherever you look and is just breath-taking to walk through. If you’re wondering how it came to be called that, in the Fifteenth Century it was used as a secret place for worship for people who would have otherwise been prosecuted. Photos done and we stepped out of the end of the chasm and past a signpost back to Gradbach, only to see another signpost 30 seconds later with no sign of Gradbach on it. Dad took the lead only for Mum to question whether they were going the right way. There is a regular debate about who is the best “navigator” and I’m afraid Mum won on this occasion as we soon turned round and went in the other direction.
We finally arrived back at the entrance to Lud’s Church and retraced our steps back towards the car park. Just before we got close to the river crossing, we saw another sign for Gradbach and a bridge back over the river! This took us on a track right next to the river and then a public footpath through the grounds of Gradbach Mill. Not long later and we were back at the car and finally on our way home. The quick morning walk had turned into nearly fours hours door to door, so we cooked and ate our well earned full English breakfast at about 3pm!