A Trip to Stoney Middleton via Baslow

A trip to Baslow and Stoney Middleton by bus

The Peak District National Park is a great place to explore for its geology, as I once discovered when I was commissioned one summer – more than 20 years ago - to assess its RIGS (Regionally Important Geological Sites) for its Geotourism value. 

Map of the Peak District National Park. © Crown Copyright

Nowadays, living in Treeton and being reliant on public transport and my own two legs, I have become much more limited in my ability to explore the geology of the Peak District and I joined the Sheffield U3A Geology Group for this reason. 

A geological map of the area between Treeton and the Peak District

Having turned my attention to the investigation of the standing buildings archaeology of mediaeval churches, after visiting more than 40 of these in and around South Yorkshire I was beginning to run out of places that I could visit without travel time taking up a disproportionate part of the day out. 

Diocese of Derby Parish Churches

Looking at a website produced by the Diocese of Derby, however, after visiting the church of St. John the Baptist in Dronfield - my eyes were opened up to the possibilities of undertaking further investigations of churches in Derbyshire. 

The Peak District Bus Timetable

After all, I had already easily managed to visit Bakewell, Ashford-in-the-Water, Edensor, Castleton, Hathersage and Buxton on the various bus services that run from Sheffield through the Peak District National Park. 

Bus routes from Sheffield to the Peak District

With a bit of careful planning, a willingness to do a fair bit of walking to take into account very irregular bus services - which often run no more than once every 2 hours - I discovered that it is quite possible to explore some of the villages of the Peak District, albeit with the need to make various diversions and changes of route on the way. 

St. Anne's church in Baslow

I started my investigation of the Peak District by taking the Mainline 218 bus to Baslow, which I had passed through very many times before without stopping, to look at St. Anne’s church - before catching the Hulleys 66 bus to Stoney Middleton, where I wanted to take another look at the geology that I briefly seen on a Sheffield U3A Geology Group trip to Eyam.

The geology of Middleton Dale