Tissington Trail to Alsop Station.

Only 3 of us this week, so a quick decision was made to go to Tissington and follow the trail up to the location of Alsop Station.
We parked in the cycle centre car park just on the outskirts of the village. This section of the old trackbed from Tissington to Alsop goes through some beautiful scenery but it must have been hell to build, there are long sections of cuttings and at least one huge embankment. Some of the cuttings we passed through had to be 60 feet deep through solid rock and the embankment must be close on 100 feet high, in fact we wondered why they didn't build a viaduct. Obviously they would have used the spoil from the cuttings to build the embankment, but its one hell of an engineering feat.
Along the way the iconic shape of Minninglow burial mound could be seen although it was several miles away.

Remnants of an old bridge over the trail

This field is on the outskirts of the village and shows the ancient farming method of  ridge and furrow.

Steps cut into the steep sides of the railway cutting 

Were not sure what this is, the slabs covered  what looks like a  water tank. Probably something to do with the railways.

Minninglow on the horizon.

Zoomed in on Minninglow.

This old barn had a date plaque on it 1855.

Most of these bridges were put in for the local farmers

This is Shaw's Farm, what a lovely location.

Ike & Rob

Lots of wild flowers along the trail

This must be connected to the old railway.

Spotted this cave

A bevvy of beauties marching up the trail

This is actually carved into a seat.

This is another one for Geoff to identify

Ike taking a pic of "Moat Low"

Lots of lambs about

Rob found this unusual sight, 2 dead mice laying beside each other.

On our way back to the car park

Right on the horizon you can just make out Minninglow. Its above the right hand side of the seat.

This is the gate into the car park.

This was a nice 6 mile walk on a gentle slope up to Alsop and we got back to the car park just after 10:00. We went back via Brassington and Hopton to have a look to see if there has been any progress on the wind turbines. There looks to be about 5 or 6 large bases in place and a brick building which must be the control house or something. Next week we may have a look at Moat Low.
Cheers