Oakamoor and the Churnet Valley, Staffs

A cool day over Staffordshire, with blue chinks in a milky, almost static sky.
First published in: The Times Click here to view a map for this walk in a new window

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Down in the thickly wooded Churnet Valley, Oakamoor was full of vigorous white-maned ramblers greeting each other with the easy familiarity of those who’ve walked for decades in company: ‘Now then, Stan! How do, Bet! Got your legs on today, then!’ Strangely enough, we saw neither hide nor hair of any of them again. It was as though the woods and streams of the Churnet Valley had swallowed them all alive.

Oakamoor is a centre for walkers these days, a peaceful little town where the Churnet rushes down a stepped weir and under the bridge. It’s hard to picture the industrial past here, the copper and iron manufactories, the steam and furnaces, clangour and fumes. Now the once-blackened houses stand pink-faced among their trees. We climbed the lane out of the village, and were soon high over the cleft of Cotton Dell in quiet woods that might never have echoed to hammer or axe.

At Side Farm a kennel full of foxhounds greeted us the best way they knew how, with fierce howls and contradictorily wagging sterns. Tall foxgloves and flimsy wands of yellow-flowered wall lettuce fringed the lane, which yielded to a side path and sudden, tremendous view west over ten miles of Staffordshire hills and woods. We passed Rock Cottage, a handsome pink stone folly with a giant sandstone boulder for an end wall, and came across Whiston Golf course to find a pint and a sandwich in the snug little Sneyds Arms.

The flowery old green lane of Ross Road brought us down the valley slopes to find the Staffordshire Way shadowing the extravagant meanders of the River Churnet in the dale bottom. These riverside meadows are a wanderer’s dream in late summer: head-high meadowsweet, grasses and Himalayan balsam to walk through, every flower-head and grass stalk a holding pen for jewel-coated beetles, snails and spiders, and the chuckle of the river as a lazy guide.

East Wall Farm, handsome in red brick, lay at ease in the roadless valley. Before tackling the woodland paths homeward we leaned on a gate and savoured the scene: geese and ducks on the pond, bean sticks and marrow patch in the garden, smoke trickling from the chimney. A tenant of East Wall in Victorian times, returning through a crack in time, would find – give or take a tractor and a plastic tub or two – not too much changed in this view of the farm he knew.

Start & finish: Oakamoor car park, Oakamoor, Staffs (OS ref SK053447).

Getting there: Bus (www.firstgroup.com) Service 32A Uttoxeter-Stoke.
Road: A52 Stoke-on-Trent-Ashbourne; B5417 to Oakamoor. Cross bridge, 1st left (‘Ramblers Retreat’) to car park.

WALK (7 ½ miles, moderate grade, OS Explorer 259):
Recross bridge; left by Cricketer’s Arms; right by Lord Nelson PH, up road. In ¼ mile on left bend, ahead past gate (055454; ‘Orchard Farm, footpath’). Up steps to left of house; on up walled lane. At gate into wood, right (057457, yellow arrow/YA). In 150 m fork left (YA; ‘Moorland Walk’/MW). In 350 m pass Weaver Walk waymark, go through stone gateway (059460). Ignore left fork; keep ahead over crest and along hillside lane (MW) above Side Farm (059464). At cattle grid enter Access Land (055469); in 100 m look out for post on left with 2 YAs pointing ahead. Hairpin back left here up track through bracken; through squeeze stile at top (054470). Ahead by wall for 2 fields; left (YA) along walled path to road (052466). Right past Rock Cottage; left (fingerpost, YA) across field, through wall gap, over stile in wall opposite (049466). Keep ahead with trees on left. On through fields with wall on right; cross Whiston golf course to road (041471). Left to A52 at Sneyds Arms PH (037472).
Left up road for 200 m; left down Ross Road (036471) for ¾ mile, past Eavesford Farm, to join Churnet Way/CW (031460). Cross railway (030459) and River Churnet. Ignore right fork in meadow beyond. Keep ahead across stream; left along Staffordshire Way (SW/CW). In ¾ mile at East Wall Farm, aim right of buildings; cross stile (035448; SW/CW) and go uphill with fence on left. Follow farm drive; in 200 m, fork right (037447; CW/SW) through Hawksmoor Wood to B5417 (039442). Left for 150 m, right by bus shelter (CW/SW); through Sutton’s Wood to road in Stoney Dale (045440). Right (SW) for 200 m; at summit of road, left up lane (SW). In ½ mile pass huge sycamore; in another 50 m, left over cattle grid along drive (052438). In 10 m, left along walled lane, through gate into wood (SW). Keep ahead, steeply down Moss’s Banks. Cross 2 forest tracks in quick succession, and keep ahead on steep path down to lane (053441). Left to road (053442); right to car park.

NB: Online maps, more walks: www.christophersomerville.co.uk

Lunch: Sneyds Arms, Whiston (01538-266171) – small, snug, friendly.

INFO: Stoke-on-Trent TIC (01782-236000); www.churnet.co.uk; www.enjoystaffordshire.com
www.ramblers.org.uk www.satmap.com
www.LogMyTrip.co.uk