One of Britain’s rarest naturalised animals ekes out a living at the fringes of the Staffordshire Moorlands. Rarely glimpsed over recent decades, sightings over the past year or two have reignited interest in the plight of these invaders and add spice to an already inspiring ramble in these gritstone moors and vales high above Leek. Gentle ways on farm roads thread from Tittesworth Reservoir through verdant countryside, watered by the headwaters of the River Churnet, before steeper approaches rise towards the stunning escarpment of The Roaches – a line of crags, cliffs and bluffs marking a sudden end to the Dark Peak’s south-western moors. Views are truly memorable and will detain even panorama-hardened ramblers, but always keep half an eye open for furtive shufflings in the deep heather. It may - just possibly - be a Bennett’s Wallaby, descendants of animals released from a private zoo hereabouts in the 1930s.
[1] Start from the visitor centre (SJ993602), return to the lane, turn left and then fork right at the Lazy Trout pub. Remain with this lane and at the sharp-right bend, keep ahead on the tarred road signed ‘Private – to farms only’ (SJ988617). Pass through the farmyard, keep right and keep to the road for the next mile or so, crossing cattle-grids and ignoring access tracks off to left and right belonging to farms secluded in this fertile upland valley. At a marked junction, keep right to Meadows Farm. From the rear of the yard, use a well-waymarked series of four handgates/stiles, keeping ahead over the track. After the fourth, drift left through the line of oaks to a gate-side stile. Go left off this to a stile into a line of trees and, at the end, use a final stile to curl right uphill immediately left of a gully with large sycamores. Use another stile and stay by the left edge of the rising pasture, joining a farm track that climbs through Buxton Brow farmyard to a lane (SJ986642).
[2] Turn right and climb steeply above Clough Head cottage, continuing right over a cattle-grid to two higher gates at a sharp bend. Use the right one, joining a wall-side green track which rises gently to a tarred lane.
Magnificent views stretch south and west across the length of Staffordshire and to the shadowy Berwyn and Clwydian Mountains.
Go left uphill and round the bend beyond the cattle-grid.
[3] Turn right up the signed ‘Main Path to Roaches’ (SJ996645), commencing a gentle, continual climb up a soon-paved path, shortly passing the first of countless outcrops of gritstone worked into wondrous shapes by millennia of wind and water. The trig pillar is soon reached.
From here are breathtaking views all-round, including the distinctive pyramidal peak of Shutlingsloe – known as the ‘Matterhorn of The Peak’.
Enjoy a superb bristly ridge walk, with stunning crags plunging to your right.
(A) Pause at Doxey Pool.which is said to be haunted by a malevolent 30ft water sprite.
Continue for another 450m to the point a tumbled wall ends on your right. Slip down the cleft here, then turn left on a grassy cross-path beneath shady pines below the climber-haunted crags. As these fade, go right down rock-cut steps to find the quirky Rockhall. Turn right and work down paths to the tarred lane. Turn left, keeping an eye out for peregrines hunting at stately Hen Cloud. Pass The Roaches Tearoom and stick to the lane.
[4] When the lane bends sharply left at Butty Fold (SK010609), use the stile up to the right, crossing the foot of a field and then going ahead on a farm lane above barns. Go left at the fingerpost before a gate, then over the stile right and along another field. At the corner, cross the brook and use the handgate, going straight ahead to a corner gate into a rough lane. Head downhill to the tarred road and turn right to return to the visitor centre.