Ladder Hill & Combs Reservoir (2025)

(S/E) Leave The Beehive Inn and turn right. Ignore the no-through road on your right and keep along the main lane, passing a farm building with a high open archway, and crossing a stream after 100 yards or so.

(1) Ignore the first farm entrance but take the second (Lower Thorny Lee Farm), with a footpath sign. (In very wet weather you might find it easier to keep to the road, rejoining the described route at waypoint (7) below.) At the farm buildings keep right through a field gate.

The path enters open fields and heads uphill, keeping to the right-hand wall in successive fields. As you approach the next farm, pass through a field gate and along a walled track between farmhouse and barn to reach the end of a public road.

(2) Take the signposted track on the left which climbs gradually uphill, with a craggy slope on your right. Shortly after a water trough within an L-shaped wall, double-back to your right, on a footpath through scattered gorse past a Peak and Northern Footpaths Society sign and into open pasture.

Aim slightly left of the TV mast and, once over the brow of the hill, head towards the far corner of the field. Pass through a gate by a grove of beech trees and follow the track beyond.

(3) The track descends through woodland then fields to meet a metalled lane; turn right. Follow the road, generally downhill, for 1⁄2 mile, passing Elnor Hill Farm and the Elnor Cross (in a walled enclosure on your left at a road junction).

(4) Beyond, opposite the entrance to Shallcross Road on your left, take a signposted footpath on your right that descends to cross a small stream. Climb the hill beyond then follow the field edge beyond.

(5) Having crossed another small stream, the path heads half-left down the slope. At the end of this field, beyond a well, pass through a narrow gate and continue along the field edge beyond with views over Combs Reservoir, until you reach a track that leads to Tunstead Farm.

(6) After passing between farm buildings on each side, turn left down the metalled road. Cross the railway then the canal feeder and turn immediately right into the reservoir compound.

Follow the path between the reservoir (on your left) and the canal feeder (on your right) for 3⁄4 mile, ignoring a footbridge on your right to keep to the reservoir when stream and path bend left.

(7) At the end of the reservoir, cross the stream via a footbridge on your right and follow the path beyond to pass under a railway arch. Rejoin the metalled road and turn left to return to the Combs and The Beehive Inn.(S/E)

One stiff ascent; this section and the path alongside the reservoir may be very muddy after wet weather.

Pdf link: http://walksfromthedoor.co.uk/i/walks/De...

The Beehive Inn
Combs, High Peak,
Derbyshire, SK23 9UT
Tel: +44 (0)1298 812758
Email: info@thebeehiveinn.co.uk
Website: www.thebeehiveinn.co.uk