B2B Day 73 Colton to Doveridge

For an OS map of today's walk as originally planned (12.68 miles; 20.41 km; 741 ft total scent), click here.

For OS maps of our revised walk: for Part One from Colton to Abbots Bromley (5.42 miles; 8.72 km; 387 ft total ascent), click here; for Part Two from Uttoxeter to Doveridge (2.50 miles; 4.02 km; 56 ft total ascent), click here.

Today we had planned to walk the Staffordshire Way from Colton to Doveridge via Abbots Bromley and Uttoxeter. You will see how the shape of our day altered.

We had a good sleep at our room at Ye Olde Dun Cow and enjoyed our breakfast of scrambled eggs on toast. Kristian was a good host to talk to, and he told us we'd like Abbots Bromley, and to watch out for his parents' home on the main street with its "Toad Hall" sign.

We began walking just before 10:00 a.m. in the sunshine, and Stockwell Heath, the first hamlet we came to, was pleasant.

From there our road took us to Park Farm, but we walked too far, despite Ken's careful map reading, and ended up in a farmer's garden which was not on the path. He was older, hard-of-hearing, and not terribly friendly. His directions to the path were confusing, and at first we thought he was referring to a different area of his property between a hedge and a barbed wire fence. He and his wife called us to their window a second time, and the wife explained the distance down the road to where we needed to turn to find the Staffordshire Way. The farmer did give permission for us to travel on his land, but we said that we wanted to keep to the official path. I also had looked at where we were thinking of going, and I wasn't sure there would be a way out at the end. 

We went back down the road and turned into the correct farm. The already wet field was all chopped up by cow hooves, as we've encountered many times before. It began to rain heavily when we were partway across the field, so on went the coats and pack covers. I could just see the next gate in the distance, and it looked like a mud bath. We quickly conferred and decided to do a longer, looping road walk to the west rather than stick to the Staffordshire Way, because we did not want to wallow around in muddy paths (or worse) all day trying to get to Abbots Bromley, which was only a third of the way to Doveridge, our final destination.

View from the causeway over the reservoir

We backtracked again, and went down a small lane which was nice. The rain eased off. Then we turned north and trudged uphill on a very busy B-road, which always feels a bit risky. We faced traffic and stepped aside as often as we could, but there were a lot of cars and not much of a verge to retreat to when they passed at speed. We finally crested the hill at Admaston and descended the road which became causeway across Blithfield Reservoir. This part of the road had a broad pavement for pedestrians, which was pleasant to walk on after the previous half hour of dodging cars. Halfway across, there was a long, slow procession of cars coming toward us, and we realized it was a funeral procession. We took our hats off and waited for them to pass. I wondered to myself if it was someone important, and then reminded myself, "Everyone is important." So it was a procession for an important person. 

Snails unlimited!

The reservoir was quite beautiful, with interesting estates on the hills nearby, and a field of cows. Just after we had reached the other side, I was fascinated by a gathering of snails on the underside of the stone wall.

The walk to Abbots Bromley was pleasant especially now that it was sunny, but it seemed to take a long time and be all uphill. The village had many beautiful old homes, and like Bednall, was competing for the best-kept village. We did see the house sign for Toad Hall, but decided not to bang on the windows as Kristian had jokingly advised at breakfast—fearing we'd be shot (see the picture)!

We arrived at Abbots Bromley much later than if we had taken our originally planned walk along the Staffordshire Way—at least an hour later than Ken had hoped. Worse still, Ken had heard that other walkers had struggled with multiple instances of poor and muddy paths in the miles beyond Abbots Bromley. I was also still a bit draggy from my cold, so we decided not to push ourselves. Instead of slogging along the Staffordshire Way and likely arriving very muddy and very late, we decided to take the bus from Abbots Bromley to Uttoxeter. There would then remain a fairly short walk walk from there to Doveridge.

So we settled in and relaxed at Abbots Bromley. We had lunch at a cafe called Antlers, which is where Ken was able to use the Internet to research the bus schedules. We each ordered the lunch special, a chicken club sandwich, completely forgetting our "strategy" of several years ago: to share one sandwich so that we had room for cake afterwards! The sandwiches were huge and the accompanying salads generous, so we were too full for cake at that time. 

It was quite cold outside, so for a while we followed a helpful little village tour booklet to view some of the village's historic buildings but then went to the church and had some time inside out of the wind. The church was an interesting one, and it is where the horns for the annual Abbots Bromley horn dance are stored (click the link for more information on this interesting village tradition).

The horns stored on the church wall

After visiting the church we went back to Antlers for tea and cake after all. Most of the cakes had been consumed, but we shared a toasted teacake, a smarties rice krispie square, and a pot of tea. We warmed up from the cold and then went back out to wait for the 4:05 p.m. bus that was scheduled to stop adjacent to the Butter Cross, an ancient market building at the centre of the village.

Beautiful Abbots Bromley (Butter Cross at centre)

We had waited there to see when the 1:50 p.m. bus came, just to make sure the buses were running regularly, and the 1:50 bus was ten minutes late. We still waited early for the 4:05 p.m. bus, and it was ten minutes late as well. But it was a fairly quick ride to Uttoxeter.

When we got off the bus at Uttoxeter, it was handy to see a Waitrose grocery store just a short distance from the stop. There was a great deal of fast moving traffic in the area, and I made a sudden move to cross the street quickly following Ken's lead, and I pulled my hamstring. Although it felt an honour to join the ranks of elite athletes with this injury, it was decidedly uncomfortable to walk around in the store immediately afterwards. Nevertheless, we bought our simple dinner to take with us to Doveridge: a Coronation chicken sandwich and some raspberries. 

After getting out of the town streets and moving onto a paved bicycle/pedestrian path, we began to leave the busyness behind. Along with his OS map, Ken had earlier used Google to view the streets in this area when he had thought we might be staying at a nearby Premier Inn, so he was quite familiar with how to exit Uttoxeter and get to Doveridge. We eventually left the paved bicycle path for a beautiful path across the fields.

Back to walking in green pastures

We met a man walking his black lab which had an enormous long branch in its mouth. Ken said that the dog looked happy, and the man said he had had the dog for six years, and it was always happy! We were happy walking to Doveridge through the sunbathed fields of early evening. The evening walk's highlight was arriving at a fantastic Victorian suspension footbridge over the river Dove shortly before we reached the village. After a spate of picture-taking by both of us, we walked over the bridge and into Derbyshire.

Sara at the king of all suspension footbridges!

 

Now in Derbyshire, looking across the River Dove to Staffordshire

 

After a brief bit of woods, we entered the village uphill on a road past the church, and made our way to the main street of the lovely village of Doveridge. 

The exterior of our Airbnb!

We arrived at our Airbnb at 5:50 p.m., and our host Angela met us and got us settled. We are in a self-contained annex. It should win an award for excellent design in a small space. Everything was so well thought out and well laid out. Anytime I thought, "I wonder if there is any . . .?", there was. It had a bathroom with shower, a small kitchenette that had more counter-space than one would imagine, and a bedroom with a little table and chairs. There were nine wooden mice hidden around the suite, and we enjoyed trying to spot them all.

Wooden mice on the roofbeam

We enjoyed our sandwich, raspberries, some toast and some biscuits for dinner. I washed two of Ken's shirts and my trousers and dried them on the wonderfully warm towel rack. We enjoyed seeing people walk past our window. The village shop is across the street. It was good to tuck into bed having enjoyed some beautiful walking but also having been sensible (for us, at least) and taken the bus to avoid a wet slog.