A 27 Mile Gravel Bike Route Using The High Peak & Tissington Trails

In this video we explore a popular route that uses the High Peak and Tissington trails, together with route 547 of the National Cycle Network to form a 27 mile loop of mostly traffic free riding. This is a glorious route taking in some of the best gravel riding in the Peak District.

Video on the Tissington and Manifold Trail loop:

Route links:

https://www.komoot.com/tour/2291451472?share_token=aSCXbn9cjLzAbQGnEuGLzhf7KslPMTDAp8Nch6XFgFBMx3dqPN&ref=wtd

https://connect.garmin.com/modern/course/325907402

Buy me a beer here:

buymeacoffee.com/cyclingn8

Thanks for Watching!

hello and welcome to Carington Water just south of the Peak District in Darbisha today we’re going to be heading out on a 27mi mixed surface ride taking in the High Peak Trail and the Tissington Trail this is a fabulous ride where stretches of tarmac are few and far between so stick around as I guide you around this 27mi loop [Music] we’re starting the ride from Sheepwash Car Park on the northern end of Carington Water it cost £4 to park here for the day and there were plenty of spaces when I arrived on this sunny Friday morning although I imagine it can get busier on Saturdays there are some other car parks around the loop and I’ll point those out as we make our way around so let’s get going we’re first going to head out of the car park and back towards the main road that you would have turned off to come into the car park we’re then going to cross over that main road which is a 60 mph road so do take some care and head up route 547 of the National Cycle Network towards the village of Carington this first section of the ride is along roads but they’re very quiet roads and it is worth it as this section takes us from the car park at Carington up to the High Peak Trail where we can hit the gravel after joining the High Peak Trail we’ll carry on up its length until we make our way to its junction with the Tissington Trail where we’ll turn south and head back down to the village of Tissington from there it’s the final stretch along route 547 of the National Cycle Network that uses a bit of tarmac and a bit of bridal way to take us back to Carington Water as always I’ll leave the Kimoot and Garmin Connect links to this route in the video description and if you want to say thank you for that route or thank you for the video you can buy me a beer via the link in the description also we’re not even half a mile into this ride yet but after a short climb we’re already starting to get some fantastic views as we approach the southern edge of the Peak District after passing through the pretty village of Carington we head into the village of Hopton where we take a left turn and if you haven’t already now would be a good time to get into that lower cog on the front that is of course if you haven’t already moved to a one by system and believe that multiple cogs on the front should be consigned to history i’m personally running a 4832 cog setup on the front and 11 to 36 on the back which I find works well for me and most of the riding that I do but I’d be interested to know what you guys are running have you all converted to one by and what sort of cassette ratios are you running on the back i’m currently definitely in my 36 to car on the back and that small car on the front and that ratio is getting me up this hill the first two and a half miles of this ride has some pretty steep climbing but then we’ve got a rather flat section before we gently wake our way down the Tissington Trail to Tissington before a couple of small clims before the end of this ride i did gain a bit of company partway up the hill to take my mind off the climbing i was joined by a sheep and then a little further on a lovely little lamb hopping about after summiting the climb we wake our way down a short descent to the High Peak Trail we have to cross over a small road and take a right turn to make our way up to the trail which runs over the top of this arch there are little blue signs directing us in the right direction as we’re still following Route 547 of the National Cycle Network however when we get up onto the High Peak Trail we’re then joining Route 54 of the National Cycle Network and here we are at the High Peak Trail where we’ll take a left turn to follow the trail towards Parsley Hay the High Peak Trail follows the track bed of the Croford and High Peak Railway this was completed in 1831 and it was built to carry minerals and goods between the Cromford Canal at High Peak Junction and the Peak Forest Canal at Wley Bridge one of the most important minerals to be carried along this line is limestone which is abundant in this part of the Peak District limestone crowing in the Peak District dates back centuries and is still an active industry in the Peak District today and the first part of the high peak trail that we ride along is right up against an active limestone quarry qu limestone gets used for various purposes including aggregate for road making and construction as well as industrial processes and cement production you may also notice that the surface of the high peak trail as well as the tissing trail is of limestone which may well have come from this quarry that we’re passing now at the far end of the quarry we come to Hopton incline this is a pretty steep section of trail in fact Hopton Incline was the steepest stretch of conventional railway in the UK when it was open but it was originally steeper than this when the line was first opened in 1831 there was a winding engine at the top of the incline and this used chains to haul the trains up the hill in 1877 the winding engine was removed as it came to the end of its useful life but fortunately trains had improved enough by then to make their own way up the incline although it was indeed a struggle and trains would often need a couple of goes to get up the hill in 1903 the gradient was eased a little bit and this made it easier for the trains to make it up to the top however by the time this section of track was handed over to British railways it remained the steepest stretch of conventional railway in the country at the top of the incline you’re greeted with an area of old railway buildings and some picnic benches so you have got a place to rest if that bit of climb has taken it out of you and it’s not a bad view from here either the cottage here next to the line is a former railroad men’s cottage built here to house the staff that worked on the railway and it’s now available as a holiday let if you’re looking for somewhere to stay in the area a little further down the trail I was a little surprised to hear a lot of gunfire this is the Harbor Rocks Clay Pigeon Shooting Club as the pigeons are clay no animals were harmed during the filming of this video having come up what was the steepest incline on the mainline railway system in Britain we now come to the tightest curve on the mainline system and you’ll notice as we make our way up the High Peak Trail that this is quite twisty for a disused railway trail that’s because this line was built on the principle of canals and that it kept to the contours of the land rather than using large cutings and large embankments and that’s no surprise really as this was built to connect two canals together as the area wasn’t seemed suitable to build a canal in although the line was eventually connected to other railways at the north end at Bookston and at the south end at Cromford we’re now coming into what was Long Cliff Station this didn’t open when the line opened in 1831 as the primary purpose of the railway was to transport goods not people it wasn’t until 1855 that this station opened and a passenger service begun to run along the line however it wasn’t very longived as this is obviously quite a sparsely populated area and the goods traffic always took priority so any passenger trains were quite slow to navigate the line the passenger service was closed in 1877 and the station closed with it you might say that passenger services on the high railway were not very high up the pecking order moving on through scenery that just seems to get better and better we come to a rather interesting spot with a barn on the left this is the former Daisy Bank farmhouse which is now a barn and during World War I the locals can remember horses being loaded onto trains from here destined to fight on the Western Front i did say earlier in the video that this rail line was built much like a canal following the lay of the land so there aren’t many cutings on it but not far from the old farmhouse we head through a cutting with rather steep rockface walls one of the few cutings on this stretch of the High Peak Railway and not long after coming out of this cutting we come to a fairly important junction on the National Cycle Network this is where Route 548 of the network branches off from the High Peak Trail and this could potentially be used as a shortcut on this ride so this is where we currently are and we’re going to head up the High Peak Trail to where it meets the Tissington Trail just south of Parsley Hay and then head back down the Tissington Trail but you could potentially cut out this northern section of the ride if you wanted to shorten it by using route 548 of the National Cycle Network to cut across to the Tissington Trail route 548 is well signposted you can see here it’s telling us left off the main trail and it’s all you’d have to do is go through this gate and follow the bridal way and route 548 from here to the tissant trail is mostly bridal way so you get to avoid the roads it does look like a very pleasant route and the countryside is looking spectacular you can see in the distance the high peak trail there continuing north on an embankment with that arch underneath and we’re going to carry on towards that arch heading north of the High Peak Trail or Route 54 of the National Cycle Network but before we get to that arch we do pass somewhere rather interesting well at least I found it interesting this is the now disused Mining Low limestone quarry which sits right on the High Peak Trail and even has some equipment here left behind from the days when this was operational mining limestone which was then loaded directly onto the trains and taken off down the High Peak line to its destination continuing up the High Peak Trail it makes its way north as it twists and turns through the spectacular countryside after a few more twists and turns we get to Mining Low where there is a road crossing there is actually quite a few road crossings and quite a few farm track crossings on the High Peak Trail here at Minning Low there is a car park so another potential start point for your ride if you don’t want to start from Carington Water there’s also some picnic benches here if you want to stop and have something to eat as well as an information sign to let you know where you are after crossing a few more farm tracks we come to the only major road crossing on the High Peak Trail this is where we cross over the busy A5012 this is a fast busy A road so there is some caution required safely onto the other side and another helpful cyclist let me through the gate to carry on my journey up the high peak trail a little further up the line and I get lucky again with another helpful cyclist holding a gate open for me we’re now coming into what was the site of Freeden station this was opened in 1855 but like the previous station that we passed closed in 1877 as this was not a very popular line for passenger traffic although nothing remains of the station here there is a car park here so another potential place to start your ride there’s also a sign here that lets us know we’re 2 and a half miles from Parsley Hay parsley Hay is just past the junction with the Tissington Trail so we have just over 2 miles left on the High Peak Trail just after Freeden Station we passed by the Darbasha Silica Firebrick Company or DSF for short the factory was opened in 1892 by a man called John West but they weren’t making tuna here they were making fireresistant bricks or heatresistant bricks that were used in many industrial processes this site was chosen as many of the minerals used in these bricks could be mined locally including a substance called silica it was also important that this site was on the railway this meant that the coal needed for the production of these bricks could be brought in by train and the finished product could be sent out by train the factory is still operational today and is one of the biggest employers in the area however it no longer uses the local minerals to produce its products as modern methods no longer require it and obviously the products are no longer shipped in and out by train everything comes in and out by lorry before we get to that junction with the high peak trail we need to go under the A515 and we do this by going through the New Haven tunnel this is 51 yards long or 47 m in New Money it’s one of two tunnels on the High Peak Trail the first one being at Hopton unfortunately we missed that as we get on just after the tunnel that first tunnel is 418 m long so considerably longer than this one this tunnel at New Haven is more of a cutting with an extended bridge over the top we’re now approaching the junction with the Tissington Trail where we’ll take a left turn onto the Tington Trail and head south there is the option here that many people take to carry on north of the High Peak Trail just a little bit further to go to the cafe at Parsley Hay there’s also toilets and a car park there you’d then come back on yourself down the High Peak Trail and onto the Tisington Trail but I’m going to go straight onto the Tisington Trail and head south and make a stop further down here for something to eat we’re going to be on the Tissington Trail for 10 mi today but our stop comes at Hartington which is 2 mi away and our end point on the Tiss Trail is the village of Tissington itself which as you can see is 10 mi away from the junction with the High Peak Trail the Tiss Trail as I’m sure you know is another disused rail line this was built in 1899 almost 70 years after the Confederate High Peak Railway that we’ve just come up it was built to connect Ashborne to Parsley Hay where the link with the confident high peak railway was made having been built nearly 70 years after the High Peak Railway construction methods and technology had moved on quite a bit you’ll notice that the cutting is a lot larger on the Tissington Trail the trail is generally straighter and wider and the curves that are on the trail are much wider than the tight curves that we saw on the high peak trail there’s also no road crossings on this trail as there are no level crossings to negotiate for the trains using this stretch of track a couple of miles down from where we joined the Tissington Trail we’re pulling into Hartington Station this is where I intend to stop to refuel for the second half of this ride and what a great place this is too with this refurbished signal box toilets and car park the station here is actually about 1 and a half miles from the actual village of Hartington the station was opened in 1899 and remained in service until 1963 the station itself as well as the platforms were all built out of timber and the signal box is all that remains today of the station and luckily for me inside the bottom of the signal box is a small cafe so this is where I’m going to stop and refuel there is no inside seating but there’s plenty of benches outside it has a fairly good menu i went for the beef onion and Stilton panini which was delicious definitely recommend that fully fueled it’s time to pull out of the station and continue our journey we have another 8 miles to cycle down the Tissington Trail as we head towards the village of Tissington not far from Hartington we pass under this bridge which had a great sign underneath that I just had to stop and take a picture of dream of noise and wheels and coal and steam i like that because although today this is a very tranquil area and we are in a national park back when the trains were running it would have been a very different scene here about one and a half miles from Harington we come to where route 548 of the National Cycle Network intersects with the Tissington Trail now when we were heading up the High Peak Trail I mentioned that there was a shortcut that you could take to make this ride a little bit shorter by using route 548 of the National Cycle Network and this is where you would come on to the Tissington Trail and what a beautiful spot it is back at the end of last year I actually rode up the Tissington Trail and used Route 548 to make my way over to the Manifold Trail to form another fantastic loop in this area i’ll leave a link to that video in the description it’s quite nice actually to be riding down the Tissington Trail last time I rode up from Ashborne and it was mostly uphill so it’s nice to be going downhill and have some more energy to take in the scenery in 1899 when this line was opened there were six trains a day that ran between Bookston and Ashborne however even though it was more popular with passengers than the High Peak line it was still running through a fairly sparsely populated area so mineral traffic and goods traffic were what really made the money on this line passenger services ran up until 1954 on this line well before the infamous beaching report freight traffic closed in stages with the final stage of closing happening in 1967 eventually the track bed was bought by Darbisha County Council and the Peak National Park and in 1971 this fantastic walk-in and cycling route was opened that we now know as the Tissington Trail just before we get to Alop Enleydale we head under the A515 in what could be considered a tunnel it’s about 50 m long and more of an extended bridge and at the other side we come to the former site of the OLOP Enley station here you’ll find some parking and some picnic benches but there’s no sign of the station or the platforms that used to be here again like most of the stations on this line they were built out of timber and so have completely been demolished and disappeared with a good downhill gradient it’s not long before we’re rolling into Tissington Station our final stop on the Tissington Trail here again you’ll find a car park and toilets and there’s also a small shop as well here we’re going to turn off the Tissington Trail and make our way along route 547 of the National Cycle Network towards Carsington Water and the car park where we started if you’re worried about missing the turnin I’ve left the Kimoot and Garmin Connect links to this route in the video description if you want to say thank you for those or thank you for the video you can also buy me a beer via the link in the description you can also say thank you by subscribing to the channel it’s absolutely free and it makes a huge difference it really helps the channel keep steaming along and allows me to continue making videos like this after coming out of the car park at Tissington we make a right turn and head over the top of the Tissington Trail we then have to negotiate a cattle grid there is a gate to the side if you don’t want to go over it and there is a cattle grid here for very good reason and that is to stop the locals who sometimes like to block the road from escaping from their field i was a little bit nervous passing these so closely i suppose I could have gone around the grass but I didn’t bother them and they didn’t bother me i think if they had young calves I would have been a bit more cautious but fortunately no problems this time and I’m on my way after negotiating a couple more cattle grids we make our way down an extremely steep hill i don’t think the video does it justice here but I really did pick up some speed going down here and gave my hydraulic disc brakes a good workout coming to the bottom here and at the bottom we are presented with this absolutely idyllic looking ford what a gorgeous spot this is now there is a bridge as you can probably see on the left of the shot here but I was really interested to see if I could make it through this ford fortunately a car went through and so I was able to see that actually the ford wasn’t that deep and that I might be able to make this so let’s give it a go although I made it through I could tell that the cobbles under the water were extremely slippy that’s not something I would advise so do as I say and not as I do and take the bridge following the ford we’re going to continue to follow route 547 of the National Cycle Network nicely marked out by these little blue signs it crosses over the road and we get to do some traffic free cycling again the first part is a bit of a rocky ascent but we soon pass over the top of the hill and head back down to cross over the Bradborn Brook again fortunately this time we’re crossing on a bridge and not through a ford there’s another small climb after we’ve passed over the brook again as we follow this idyllicl looking limestone trail sandwiched in between two farmer’s fields the trail then seems to enter into a farmer’s field as we descend down the final part of this short bit of trail back to a small country lane and when we get back to the road we’ve got the little blue sign to send us the right direction we’re going to go right here and carry on along Route 547 towards Carington Water as you can see by the elevation profile of this ride towards the end of the ride around 23 mi in we have a couple of hills to negotiate the top of the first one is here in the village of Bradbourne where we took a right turn make a small descent and head up the next hill and once we get to the top of this hill that’s all the major climbs out the way and we can sit back and enjoy the view once we’ve made our way to the bottom of the hill we need to cross over the B5035 and continue down Route 547 again always marked by the little blue signs and we’re back to off-road riding it’s a little overgrown here but it is the start of spring and it’s been exceptionally sunny recently so I think that’s helped the vegetation grow quite a lot the trail does open up a bit before we cross over the entrance to a campsite and things get a little bit gnarier at this point all the mountain bikers are laughing their heads off cuz I’ve used the word gnarly for this section of trail but remember I am on a gravel bike and I am using 45 mm tires not the 2-in plus tires you would find on a mountain bike once we’ve crossed over the road here we’ve got a nice section of off-road downhill which will take us all the way to the edge of Carington Water this section was really good fun and again there’s a couple of little gnarly bits in there just to keep you on your toes towards the bottom of the hill it turns into a tarmac path and we eventually emerge at the Carington Water Visitor Center car park this is another place to potentially start your ride from as it has a car park toilets and a visitor center with a cafe and shops as well as some great views across the lake from here we’re going to carry on around the edge of the car park and continue down the reservoir trail which follows route 547 of the National Cycle Network and this will take us back to our start point at Sheepwash Car Park this is a really well surfaced section of trail and I really did enjoy riding this the trail does have some undulations but it is relatively flat and it affords some great views as a reservoir carsington Water is England’s 9inth largest reservoir and it has a capacity of 36,000 megal construction finished in 1992 making this the last major reservoir to be built in England and it was opened by the late Queen Elizabeth II route 547 continues around the reservoir on an access road for one property so although we’re on the road this is very quiet and as you go down this section look out on the right for an old RAF Quadrant tower this was built during the 1940s during that small disagreement with our European neighbors during the war the Henmore Valley which is now submerged below the reservoir was used as target practice by the RAF this tower along with another one at the opposite side of the valley were used to triangulate the position of hits the other tower has now been demolished but I love the fact that this one’s still standing and you can go up into it and have a look over the reservoir or the hit zone yourself a great bit of history to have a look at before we finish this ride we eventually come back to the access road in and out of Sheepwash car park we take a right and this takes us back to our start point and that’s it we’ve completed this 27mi loop around the southern edge of the Peak District i have to say I think this is one of my favorite rides I’ve done on the channel so far it’s got amazing scenery some really interesting history and what has to be some of the best gravel riding in the UK roots like this are why I bought a gravel bike i hope you enjoyed the video and if you did please do give the video a like and let me know in the comments what you like best about it and don’t forget to subscribe if you’re not already it really does help the channel massively and a final reminder that the Kimoot and Garmin Connect links to this ride can be found in the video description if you want to say thank you for those you can also buy me a beer via the link in the description or just to say thank you for the video thank you very much for watching it’s very much appreciated and happy cycling [Music]