Big Hillsdale Farm - Peak District Camping Weekend

Come and join us for a weekend of simple camping in the South West of the Peak District. Big Hillsdale Farm is situated in between the two lovely villages of Butterton and Grindon, over looking the Manifold Valley. It is a small family run campsite alongside a working farm.

There are two possible walks and we might even get to do both.

The Manifold Valley is a limestone gorge which includes the famous Thor's Cave and Beeston Tor. A relatively easy walk of 18.7km (11.5) miles will take us down from the campsite, through the village of Grindon into the Manifold Valley, past the imposing cliff of Beeston Tor and up Thor's Cave.

We then visit Ecton, which was the source of much wealth for the Duke of Devonshire in the 1700s from a copper mine which had ore which was almost pure copper.

Boulton and Watt built a steam engine at the top of the shaft to lift the ore and this was completed in 1788 and the Engine House still stands and is thought to be the oldest mine-winding engine house in the world.

We may have a lunch stop at a pub in Wetton after visiting Thor's Cave or possibly later at Hulme end.

The Dragon's Back Walk

This walk takes us a long a series of steep pointed hills, which look like the ridged back of a dragon. In fact they are coral reefs from an ancient tropical sea some 350 million years a go.

We will need to drive a short distance to the village of Earl Sterndale to start the walk. The walk is only about 6 miles long but involves quite a lot of height gain which can bee seen in the profile in the pictures.

We will call at the famous time warp pub (1950s), the Quiet Woman at the end of the walk.