Above: Following the disused railway track on the approach to Whaley Bridge (27 on map).
Click for a pdf with stage-by-stage details of the route including photos and a map, as well as links to car parks and public transport. A walking app GPX file is also available.
Length: 9.4mls | Av. time: 4hrs | Ascent: 1158ft
Start: Buxton Railway Station | Google Map
Walk description, map & GPX | Download
A 9.4-mile linear walk following – as far as possible – the route of the Cromford & High Peak Railway, from Burbage on the outskirts of Buxton to its end point at the canal basin in Whaley Bridge. There’s a vivid account from 1883 of a journey along the whole line.
The walk starts from Buxton station, and the easiest way back is the regular train from Whaley Bridge, every half hour or so – see Public transport. If you’re driving, the nearest car park is at the Pavilion Gardens – or you can park closer, at the end of Macclesfield Old Road, if you’d rather not walk all the way from Buxton.
The first section of the old track, between points 3 and 7 on the pdf map, has been closed off by the landowners, so the route takes a short diversion. An application has been made to have it recognised as a public right of way.
Along the old line
There are great views across the moorland as the line snakes over the hillside to the Bunsall Incline, the steepest of six on the railway. A small pond beside the track fed the steam-powered cable system that hauled trains up and down – and in hard winters it was used for ice-skating.
The line then runs along the shore of Fernilee Reservoir. Beneath the water lie the remains of an extensive gunpowder factory. Licensed in 1801 – probably the first in Derbyshire – it once employed over 120 men and saw many fatal explosions.
Beyond Fernilee, the old track can get muddy and overgrown, so the walk is perhaps best earlier in the year. Look out for the Shall Cross, an 8th-century stone pillar whose cross, legend says, was stolen by the Vikings.
The Shallcross Incline then leads down into Whaley Bridge. The last and shortest incline on the line was worked by horses, and old rails are still embedded in a narrow footbridge, just before the basin of the Peak Forest Canal.
Click for a pdf with stage-by-stage details of the route including photos and a map, as well as links to car parks and public transport. A walking app GPX file is also available.
Route photos
Stages 1-6 of the route. Click any to enlarge and scroll through.
Relive video
Click to play and use the expand option to view in full-screen. More Goyt Valley Relives.
