The Blue Waters
Glass-clear pools behind a dozen small Victorian weirs, where you can watch trout without trying.
Douglal — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Viking0161 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Peter Barr — CC BY-SA 2.0 · Jonathan Clitheroe — CC BY-SA 2.0
The River Lathkill vanishes. In an ordinary summer you walk the upper dale over a dry bed of pale stones, and then, further down, water simply appears from beneath the rock, so clear you can count the pebbles and watch trout hold station in the current. It pools behind a run of a dozen small Victorian weirs, built for the trout fishing, into what locals call the Blue Waters. That is the dale's trick: a river born from limestone that slips back into it, and in a wet winter pours straight out of the mouth of Lathkill Head Cave. What you see depends on the month, which is why Derbyshire people come back again and again. The valley is part of the Derbyshire Dales National Nature Reserve, run by Natural England, and it is one of the best-known limestone dales of the White Peak: white crags, ancient ash woodland, early purple orchids and cowslips in May and June, and the rare purple Jacob's ladder, a plant most people know from garden borders, growing here in its wild state in one of only a few English places. Among the trees you stumble on the leftovers of nineteenth-century lead mining: the tall stone piers of an aqueduct, the ruined engine house of Mandale Mine, which held a Cornish steam engine from 1847, and Bateman's House, built in the 1820s by the mine agent James Bateman over a shaft with a pumping engine at the bottom of it. Nothing is fenced off and there is little signage, which is part of the appeal. Entry is free and the dale never closes, but you need a car. The usual approach is the pay-and-display car park in the village of Over Haddon, a ten-minute drive from Bakewell, the main town of the Peak District; the dale itself lies about two miles south-west of Bakewell. From there a steep lane drops to Lathkill Lodge on the river, and you follow the water. Walking the full dale to Monyash is about five kilometres one way; most visitors do an hour and a half out and back to the mine ruins and the pools and call it a morning. For families: the lower half of the dale from the Over Haddon end is a level track that Natural England rates as suitable for pushchairs and wheelchairs, with disabled parking spaces a short distance away, but beyond it the path turns to loose stone and polished limestone that is slippery after rain, so proper shoes matter. There are no facilities in the dale at all, no toilets, no cafe, and mobile signal is restricted or absent across much of the reserve, so carry water and food; Over Haddon has a pub that serves food, and most people drive back to Bakewell for lunch. In winter the daylight is short, the path turns to mud and the rock gets treacherous, and the dale belongs to serious walkers rather than a gentle family outing.
Glass-clear pools behind a dozen small Victorian weirs, where you can watch trout without trying.
An 1847 engine house and aqueduct piers from the lead-mining era, unfenced and unticketed.
In summer you walk a dry bed until water surfaces from the rock; in winter it pours from the cave itself.
Over Haddon, near Bakewell, Derbyshire
Only the lower half from the Over Haddon end: a level riverside track that Natural England rates as suitable for pushchairs and wheelchairs. Beyond that it is loose stone and slippery rock, and the lane down from the car park to the river is steep. With under-fives, stick to that first section or choose the more famous and easier Dovedale instead.
Dovedale is far more famous and far busier, and its stepping stones are what draw the summer crowds. Lathkill is quieter and richer in history and wildflowers, but its river runs dry in summer. For guaranteed water and the postcard shot, go to Dovedale; for a near-empty valley in May or October, Lathkill wins.