NEW MILLS MILLENNIUM WALKWAY WALK
THE WALK
Many who have only driven through the town before will find the New Mills Millennium Walk inspiring. Entering the Torrs Riverside Park, deep in a gorge below the centre of the town, it immediately becomes apparent that this walk is different from any other in Derbyshire. It is very special as only a few years ago, Torrs Gorge, now so beautiful, was notorious for dereliction and a heavily polluted river.
After leaving the gorge behind, the walk follows an easterly route through a nature reserve, before joining the Peak Forest Canal for a relaxing stroll along the busy canal bank, passing New Mills Marina on the way, before going under the A6015 to walk through open countryside.
On the return journey to New Mills, your walk takes you through the Torrs Riverside Park by the side of the River Goyt. A further surprise awaits in the form of the spectacular Torrs Millennium Walkway. For about half of its 125-yard length, it hugs a tall retaining wall before running along pillars rising from the riverbed. The walkway forms the final link in the 225-mile-long Midshires Way.
LOOK OUT FOR
Route Point 1 – Torrs Riverside Park is hidden nearly 100 feet below the town of New Mills in the Torrs Gorge, an area of fascinating geology and heritage. Here, the Rivers Sett and Goyt meet; their joint power was harnessed for over 200 years by mills. Today, the mills are in ruins, but the weirs, cobbled tracks and arched bridges remain towering dramatically overhead.
Point 3 – The Peak Forest Canal is now only used for recreational purposes. It has a busy marina at Newtown, New Mills. Constructed between 1794 and 1805 and designed to transport limestone from the Peak District to Manchester. The canal runs from Ashton under Lyne to Whaley Bridge. It links with the Ashton Canal and the tramways that carried the limestone from the Peak District quarries. An unusual feature on the canal at Marple Aqueduct, which carries the canal 100 feet above the River Goyt, is the 16 locks required to lift the canal boats.
Point 4 – New Mills Marina, with its beautiful surroundings and excellent facilities, is a popular starting place for water enthusiasts to enjoy the waterways and countryside of Derbyshire and the North West. Recent renovations have transformed the marina. The site even boasts New Mills first brewery.
Point 8 – The spectacular Torrs Millennium Walkway is well worth making a special journey to New Mills to cross the gorge, as many people already have done. The Derbyshire County Council’s in-house engineers, not specialist bridge designers as might have been expected, constructed it. The walkway spans the otherwise inaccessible cliff wall above the River Goyt – part on stilts rising from the riverbed and partly cantilevered off the railway retaining wall. It provides the final link in the 225-mile-long Midshires Way.
WALK DETAILS
Length: 4.5 miles.
Start: Hyde Bank Road, turn off A6015 opposite the Food store.
Location: On the A6015 off the A6 Buxton to Stockport Road.
Terrain: Easy. Flat walking, apart from a short ascent and descent to the Torrs Riverside Park.
Refreshments: There is a good selection of cafes, pubs and restaurants in New Mills.
THE ROUTE
1. Walk up Hyde Bank Road, turn right at the Leisure Centre onto a track where you turn right again under the road bridge you have just crossed. In about 30 yards, turn left into Torrs Riverside Park, signed ‘Goyt Way Via Millennium Walk’. With the river on your left, continue to the point where the rivers Goyt and Sett meet, cross a wooden bridge and pass under a two-tier bridge.
2. Stay beside the river at first before continuing straight ahead along the track to the left of Goytside Farm. Turn right immediately after you have passed the farm to enter Goytside Meadows Nature Reserve.
3. Go straight ahead along the waymarked Meadow Path, which begins to swing gently left across the middle of the nature reserve and up to the Peak Forest Canal on the far side. Go through a gate and turn right onto the tow path.
4. Follow this for about one mile and a quarter. A few yards after passing New Mills Marina, you go under the A6015, at the next bridge, number 27 – DO NOT GO UNDERNEATH – Turn right down an unmade track and on reaching a minor road, go right and follow this along as it zigzags. About 100 yards past the bridge over the River Goyt, turn right for a path that re-enters Torrs Riverside Park.
5. Stay on the broad main track beside the river, take a short diversion by forking left for a grassy path across Hague Bar Meadows to visit the reedbeds and elevated viewing platform. Turn right and return to the riverside.
6. Follow the well-trodden path upstream, into Mousley Bottom Nature Reserve, keeping close to the riverbank all the way until you reach an old gateway. After which you take the path leading diagonally to the left, waymarked ‘GW’ (Goyt Way).
7. At the end of the path, turn right to leave the nature reserve through a gate by some houses. Go left on a path past a plaque commemorating the opening of Torrs Riverside Park, then across a road to the path to the Millennium Walkway.
8. Follow the Millennium Walkway through the deep gorge. At the end, continue by the river until you reach the steps which you descended into the riverside park. Climb the steps and retrace your steps back to the start of the walk.
NEW MILLS
