Burbage Brook & Padley Gorge

A general view of Burbage Brook

After being given directions at the Moorland Discovery Centre in the Longshaw Estate, I took a short walk through some woodland until I came across Burbage Brook. This rises in the moorland beyond Burbage Bridge to the north, where it cuts down through the Chatsworth Grit into the softer mudstones and siltstones of the underlying Marsden Formation, leaving a valley that is flanked by Higger Tor and Carl Wark to the west and Burbage Rocks to the east. 

A geological map of the area around the Longshaw Estate

On the geological map, the Burbage Valley and the areas surrounding these prominent topographic features are marked as being covered in large expanses of head, formed during the Quaternary Period, when the region experience periglacial conditions. 

A view across moorland to Higger Tor and Carl Wark

These form an unsorted and poorly sorted mixture of massive boulders, which have become detached from the rock exposed in the Gritstone edges, along with gravel, sand and clay that have formed by solifluction and soil creep and are moving downslope to the valley bottoms. Together with the blockfield and the scree slopes beneath the edges, with which they merge, they form a very distinctive part of the scenery to the east of the Derwent Valley. 

A view up Burbage Brook

From the northern boundary of the Longshaw Estate at Surprise View, Burbage Brook crosses the Chatsworth Grit and cuts through the head to expose large boulders along its course for nearly 2km, where there is a dramatic change in the landscape, where it enters Padley Gorge. 

Burbage Brook at the head of Padley Gorge

The brook, which until this point has been surrounded by heather and bracken covered moorland with very few trees, plunges into a steep sided gorge that contains several small waterfalls and is strewn with boulders and has densely wooded slopes, where the numerous oak trees were dropping their acorns – which are quite painful when falling on an unprotected head. 

A view down to Padley Gorge

Clearly seen as a characteristic v-shape on the geological map, this marks the point where Burbage Brook and its predecessor water courses have cut down into the Marsden Formation. 

A path alongside Padley Gorge

The well defined paths that are well maintained by the National Trust, and in part comprise lengths of riven flagstone, turn into often torturous routes through the boulder littered woods and which run high above the level of the brook in the gorge, where it is not possible to see exposures of the bedrock. 

A view along an old quarry face at Bole Hill Quarry

Not far from Grindleford railway station, the path branches up to Bole Hill Quarry, where there are extensive exposures of the Chatsworth Grit, which here is slightly reddened – unlike most of the gritstone from this formation that can be widely seen in the area. 

A sample of Chatsworth Grit from Bole Hill Quarry

Here, in the last week of September, there were several clumps of fly agaric which, even without trying to look for them – as other people that I met on my walk were doing – stood out amongst the trees and other vegetation. 

Fly agaric funghi in Bole Hill Quarry

Finally arriving at Grindleford railway station, I was unable to take advantage of the Grindleford Station Café - which was highly recommended to me - due to the imminent arrival of the hourly train service back to Sheffield; however, I did have time to take a few photos to the entrance of the Totley Tunnel, which was opened in 1893 and, at 5.7 km, has the distinction of being the second longest railway tunnel in the UK.

The entrance to the Totley Tunnel