Always love a circular walk.  There is nothing worse than having to retrace your steps and follow the same route back.  In theory, a gorge seems a pretty unpromising topographical feature for a circular walk.  After all, by its very nature, it is pretty much straight and pointy, the epitome of ‘there and back’.  Unlike, say, the perimeter of a small island, a gorge remains defiantly linear.  Nevertheless, in the case of Padley Gorge in the Peak District, it is possible to square the circle, by walking on one side of the gorge on the way out, and the other side of the gorge on the way back.

My starting point is the train station at Grindleford.  Another plus-point this, a train that will take me to the very start – and end – point of my walk.  The train emerging from the 3.5 mile-long Totley Tunnel, I suddenly find myself transported from Sheffield-suburbs to deep inside Peak District walking territory. 

It is raining – when has it not been this year? – but I am undaunted.  The route finds a degree of shelter under trees, which line the path.

This is a route walking above the gorge, rather than along the gorge and, as such, involves a certain amount of uphilling and, inevitably, downhilling.  No matter how much I might study a map – and, in my case, this is never for very long – I always find myself caught out by the contour lines.  The actual land is always more hilly than the – flat – map would give me to believe.  I wonder if, in another life, I had been a flat-earther. 

Up, up, up, always keeping the fall-away slope of the gorge to my right-hand side.  It is autumn – late autumn – and the colours of the gorge are predominately golden; the hue of leaf, either ready to fall, or already fallen forming a Yellow-Brick-Road litter on the ground.  Below, the Burbage Brook, burbles noisily, following a rocky course, occasionally breaking into distinct waterfalls, always finding a route where I am less deft to follow.

Amongst the trees to my left, a short path leads to a small, ruined brick bunker, once part of Bolehill Quarry, and further on, a tree sculpture, distorted and truncated, looks like the hide of some ancient reptile.

Underfoot, it is muddy and rocky, and I help to his feet an elderly walker who has slipped whilst taking a photograph.  I make sure that he is okay and carry on, my pace faster than his pace, wondering whether I should have stayed, whilst the impatience to keep to my itinerary is already driving me on.

It is nearing my turning point.  The wooded path, which skirts the gorge, ends abruptly, and I emerge onto a wide plateau with a view across grassy fields to Owler Tor.  A small, wooden bridge seems an unassuming crossing point from where to begin my return journey.

I make a slight refreshment detour to the National Trust property at Longshaw, where there is a café, which serves hearty bowls of soup, and it is upon leaving here that I make my mistake; think that I can be clever; decide I can cut off a corner by taking an unmarked path by the side of the pond.

I find myself in a walled paddock.  Sheep stare at me like the stranger than I am.  Is that a gate on the far side?  It isn’t, but it takes me the time to walk across the paddock to discover this.  I retrace my steps.  The very thing that I had been hoping to avoid on a circular walk, I am obliged to do, because I have ventured off piste. I am momentarily distracted watching a small roe deer, but she appears to be just as lost as me.

I am conscious that the afternoon is drawing on, and it will begin to get dark shortly.  The rocky paths of the gorge are no place to be walking in the twilight, let alone in darkness.  I hurry on, reassured that I have the steep sides of the gorge beside me again.  It is not long before I have a distant view of a road still far below, and close to it what appears to be Grindleford Station.

The track heads steeply down; more treacherous than the going-up.  I wonder how far this path will take me, when, as if by magic, I find myself on a short track directly beside the station café.

The rain is still falling, but I only have ten minutes to wait for a train to take me back to Sheffield, and it is not yet dark outside by the time that the Totley Tunnel engulfs me once more.

© E. C. Glendenny

E. C. Glendenny is forever walking in circles. And straight lines.