Ingleby and 3 Churches

• Walked: 10 November 2007
• Distance: 7.5m
• Terrain: fairly flat
• Summary: Park at Stanton by Bridge, pass Robin Wood to Ingleby, past Anchor Church caves, on to Foremark and back via Hangman's Stone.
• Time: 3 hours start to finish

This was one of those days where the forecast says one thing, but a check out of the window says something else. Promised by the BBC and Met Office that it woudn't rain today, it certainly did rain in the morning. The afternoon looked a little bit brighter, but only a little. Putting faith in Gore-Tex, we set off hoping for the best.

We start in Stanton-by-Bridge. It's worth starting this walk by taking a wander in the direction of the causeway. This beautiful arched stone construction carries the road over a flood plain. At the other end of the causeway is a stone bridge over the River Trent. Together these make a Scheduled Ancient Monument about 3/4 mile long. You can only see it properly on foot. When you're driving over, you can only see the tarmac and a short wall each side of you.


This is Stanton's church. It only has a small cross on the map because it doesn't really have a tower or spire.


We went wrong almost immediately - the footpath we picked up crosses fields, which were perfectly passable today, but the planned path is 100 yards over to our right and is more of a farm track. We carried on because they are parallel and come out in the same place.


We pass Robin Wood, this is a very pleasant track.


We arrive in Ingleby very close to the John Thompson pub, famous for brewing its own beer. Having walked along the road through the village, we take a path to our right and after a very short climb the Trent valley opens up below us. This is one of my favourite views in this area.


I've called this walk '3 churches', but this one is a little bit of a cheat. These caves are called Anchor Church. It's partly carved out by nature and partly by man. It's said to have been a place of worship for early Christians who were being persecuted and needed a secret place. This footpath was just a bit muddy today, but can be impassable when the Trent is high. Once before, when it was flooded, I did take my boots off and wade through.



These next two pictures show the inside and outside of St Saviour's church, Foremark. It's small but interesting. I was particularly interested in the stained glass at the top of the rood screen - the first time I remember seeing stained glass in one of these screens. Unfortunately it was difficult to appreciate it without very much light behind it.



This is a typical view of rolling South Derbyshire. It also shows the heavy grey sky. We're close to Hangman's Stone, which I usually pass on one of my more regular walks, but approaching it from a different direction today.


I thought that this was a beautiful autumnal view. A little bit shaky because although we had a mile or two to go yet, the light, which hasn't been brilliant all day, is now fading fast.


If the lettering on this sign was peelable, I'd have taken off those apostrophes! note to self: take some Tipp-Ex next time.

The route above was generated using Meander.

Image produced from the Ordnance Survey Get-a-map service. Image reproduced with kind permission of Ordnance Survey and Ordnance Survey of Northern Ireland.