Walk 5 – A walk to the Gang Mine , Dene Quarry and Rose End Meadow Nature Reserve

This walk explores three major influences in the development of Cromford – lead mining, farming and quarrying. The walk is approximately 3½ miles and will take about 2 hours. Parts of the route are fairly steep.

Start from the car park at Black Rocks, which is at the top of Cromford Hill (B5036). Walk from the car park back to Cromford Hill. Continue a short way downhill and cross over this busy road at the large road sign (Cromford Hill long descent 1 in 8) and take the lane opposite, which goes sharp left. After about 300 yards go through a gate on the right leading to the Gang Mine which is a Site of Special Scientific Interest. A notice on the entrance to the site states: “This fencing has been erected by English Nature and the landowners in order to adjust grazing to benefit the internationally important plants which grow on this site…”

The name Gang Mine comes from the word ‘gangue’, meaning waste, for the waste minerals which were dumped around the shafts. The lead spoil heaps are of little agricultural use, and only a small number of plants are able to tolerate the high concentration of minerals. Among the species that thrive here are the nationally rare spring sandwort, and alpine pennycress. Both are locally known as leadwort. The landscape inside the site is the result of hundreds of years of lead mining and would have been seen on hillsides all around Cromford. The whole area is covered in hillocky mounds and hollows, the surface sandy and stony with a thin covering of short grass. Some of the spoil heaps are topped with capped mine shafts. The underground mines and the surface workings were called groves or grooves. In one corner there is evidence of a water course and a small quarry. Gang Mine was part of the ore-rich Dovegang mines which extended for about a mile from Cromford to Middleton Moor. Signs of the workings can also be seen in the surrounding fields. Many of the veins of lead ore had become unworkable by the first years of the 17th century because of flooding. Attempts to drain them were unsuccessful until the driving of the Vermuyden Sough from 1632-1651. According to a Petition to Parliament in 1641 a thousand people were working in the Dovegang mines “when it is in work”.

After exploring Gang Mine return to Cromford Hill. To the left of the road sign (Cromford Hill long descent 1 in 8) there is a stile. Climb over and cross the field to a stile opposite. Climb over here and follow the path ahead through trees to the viewing platform overlooking Dene Quarry. An illustrated information board gives the history of the quarry and explains the production processes.
There is a plaque in memory of quarry worker Don Harris 1924-2000, “who on 6 May 1942 walked onto this hillside with a wheelbarrow and hand shovel and started Dene Quarry”. The quarry is now on a vast scale, the lorries and trucks working below looking like toys. A steady stream of lorries can be seen going under the hopper to be loaded with asphalt and stone from the huge piles of processed limestone. There are enough reserves under the hills to keep the quarry working for many years.

Part of the Arkwright Estate sold off in 1924, was bought by Mr Wheatcroft of Wirksworth and used for cattle grazing. Mr Herbert Hardy bought the land from him and began quarrying for limestone in 1942. Production concentrated on a fine calcium powder which was in great demand in the war. The quarry is now owned by Tarmac Quarry Products Ltd., employing 45 people. A million and a half tonnes of stone are produced every year, used for roadstone and construction purposes, industrial products and powders. Now take the path to the right which follows the edge of the quarry, with trees on your right. Listen for the warning siren and you may see blasting on the rock face of the quarry. The path finishes in steps coming out on to the drive to the quarry from Cromford Hill.  Be aware of lorries going in and out of the quarry. Turn left. There are yellow arrows here marking the path and a warning sign “Pedestrians Crossing”. On the other side of the drive is the wheel washer through which all exiting lorries must pass. Carefully cross the drive beyond the wheel washer, the ground here is wet with fast running streams of dirty water and puddles. Go straight ahead to a footpath which goes between the Dene Laboratory to the right and power cables to the left. This path passes behind houses on Cromford Hill. Soon if you look up to the hill to the left you will see the Information Board at the entrance to the Nature Reserve beneath the power cables. Follow the path left at the fork and as it curls to the left up the hill.

The entrance to Rose End Meadows Nature Reserve is up a steep climb on the right. Pause here to look back at the view over the upper part of Cromford. Black Rocks with the TV mast at Bolehill behind is to the right. A map on the Information Board shows paths, stiles, ponds and access points. The Nature Reserve has been classified by English Nature as a Site of Special Scientific Interest, and is maintained by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust. It consists of eleven fields with hedges and three small woods. The site is important as the fields have never had artificial fertilizers or herbicides and are as farmland in this area looked 100 years ago. The two dew ponds were originally used to water cattle and after restoration are home to frogs and the great crested newt. As you explore the area you will see seasonal wild flowers in profusion. The humps and hollows and the concrete railway sleepers capping old mine shafts are evidence of old lead workings. The soils on old spoil heaps contain high levels of lead and zinc, ideal for thyme, alpine pennycross and lichens.

Rose End Meadows was bought by the Derbyshire Wildlife Trust in 1987 for £20,000. It had been farmed by the Ollerenshaw family and had not been ploughed or treated with fertilisers or pesticides. People in Cromford can still remember Miss Ollerenshaw carrying pails of milk on a yoke down to the village. She and her brother lived in a cottage on Scarthin overlooking the Pond. The Nature Reserve is high above Cromford and you can glimpse the village through the trees. Opposite are the fields with Ferny Rocks. Further afield Riber Castle, Rock House, Crich Stand and Oakhill (Alison House) can be seen. It seems that Oakhill was built for Willam Melville, the “occupier” of Masson Mill and Cromford Mill, sometime in 1841 or 1842. There are 5 exits from the nature reserve, three are on Alabaster Lane. Follow the lane downhill, it is a track here but lower down turns into a road passing modern houses. Just before its junction with Cromford Hill there are several late 17th and early 18th century houses. To return to the Black Rocks car park turn right and walk up Cromford Hill. Or if you would like to avoid the traffic cross the road and a little further up go down Bedehouse Lane, picking up walk 1 and then following option 2. Bakers Lane brings you back on to Cromford Hill. Turn left and take the footpath signposted to Black Rocks to reach the car park.