A recent conversation left me surprised to find that someone who lived on Storrs Road had never walked round Linacre Reservoirs. So this set us thinking, we'll draw up some walks that highlight the routes many of us have been using over lockdown to readers who may not have walked the same paths.
This route follows footpaths, bridleways and tracks and contain stiles, gates and some uphill sections, and when open has the opportunity for ice cream and drinks at Adam's Happy Hens.
This walk starts at Storrs Road car park, covers just over 3 miles and should take about an hour.
Start from the car park, cross the pedestrian crossing and turn right along Storrs Road.
Turn left up Upper Moor Street and right at the end. Follow this path behind Brookfield school classrooms and up between two hedges with the school buildings on the left and the sports fields on the right.
At the end you enter an open field. Head diagonally across the field (1) following the path to the coppice.
Pass through between the edge of the school grounds and the end of the coppice and head up the field with open views of the countryside to your right. Stay on the left-hand side path until you reach the top of the coppice, here head slightly right (2) along the side of the top hedge.
Reaching a gate pass through the stile and head along the gravel path to your right.
Pass through the gate and continue up the path ignoring the left-hand junction (3), until you reach a T junction of tracks (4) by a house.
Turn left here along this track, Piper Lane.
Stay on the wide gravel track, a bridleway so watch out for horses, cyclists and the occasional vehicle accessing the farms.
The track crosses a small bridge over the brook (the bridge constructed by prisoners of war) (5) and climbs uphill.
Pass through Broomhall Farm with a horse jumping area on the right.
Ignore the footpath on the left and the bridleway on the right (6) and continue round the left hand bend and up the hill (7), the gradient steps up for a short while as you climb towards Westwick Farm and becomes a tarmac track.
Continue past a bungalow opposite Frith Hall Lane and pass a house on the right, after the house look for a gap in the hedge on the left (8) and a footpath that heads straight downhill.
Here you get views of Chesterfield town centre (9) and can clearly pick out the Crooked Spire.
Follow the path downhill across open fields, through two gates and towards the farm. As you cross a stile over a wall, you’re at the farm, home to Adam's Happy Hens.
The footpath continues straight ahead alongside the bungalow, over a stone stile and then straight ahead over a fence (10).
Customers can walk right through the farm buildings to stop at the farm shop for ice cream, fabulous cakes, coffee and hot chocolate, plus you can buy food to feed the goats and chickens, always a hit with the kids … and quite a few adults!
PLEASE NOTE: There is no access to Chatsworth Road through the farmyard when the shop is closed, the footpath is over the fence at (10).
Our walk continues down the fields, over a dry stone wall (11) to the corner of the next field.
Go over a second stile turning right (12), head towards the next stile over a dry-stone wall, turn left here and head through a small stile next to a gate to arrive at the corner of a field with a wooden footbridge (13) over the brook.
Head across a small field, through a wooden gate (14) and head up the hill (15). At the top of this field, you pass through a gate and enter the coppice you walked past earlier in the walk.
Follow the well-worn footpath on the right and diagonally across the field leaving the coppice.
Reaching the far side of the field continue downhill to reach the path behind Brookfield School to retrace your steps back to Storrs Road car park
Words & Images: Paul Chapman
Map: Courtesy OS Open Data