Longnor - land of cheese! Trail Summary - Thedms.co.uk

How We Ate........Longnor 

Transport 

Distance 

4.3 km 

2.7 mi 

Allow 

2hr 

Diffi culty 

Trail Summary 

Gentle slopes with some stiles to 

climb over and farmyards to pass 

through. Occasionally wet underfoot 

– boots advisable. 

Start and finish: 

The Market Place, Longnor. Map: Ordnance 

Survey map OL 24 White Peak Area SK 088 

649. 

Access: 

By public transport: There 2 or 3 buses 

each day between Buxton and Longnor. 

Buxton is well connected to other towns 

and villages. By car: On the B5053, off the 

A515 Buxton to Ashbourne Road. Parking 

is available in the market place. 

Work up an appetite on this 2.7 mile 

circular walk around the glorious Manifold 

Valley near to the historic market town of 

Longnor. Our walk begins and ends in the 

cobbled market square. On your way you’ll 

discover traditional farms, stone barns 

and walled fields with herds of cows and 

flocks of sheep. You’ll see land that produced 

oats and many thousands of tons of 

cheese each year. On your return, you can 

take tea in the Victorian market hall, and 

sample delicious local produce. 

Part-funded by the European 

Union European Regional 

Development Fund 

Longnor - land of cheese! 

This map is reproduced from Ordnance Survey material with the permission of Controller HMSO. Crown 

Copyright. All Rights Reserved. Peak District National Park Authority. License No. LA 100005734. 2005


5,000 tons 

Transport 

of cheese 

The aptly named Glutton Circular Bridge, walk a mile of from roughly 4½ 

Longnor, was home to a km cheese along factory moderately in the easy 

1800s. 5,000 tons of cheese tracks a year through went downriver 

in 1813 Distance – and that doesn’t woodland include and all heather 

streamside 

cheese made to be eaten locally! 3 of the 4 farms 

4 km moorland, including some 

at nearby Hollinsclough sold all their milk to the 

Glutton Bridge 3 cheese ascents. Option to add a 2½ 

miles factory. 

km round trip through the 

Allow National Trust’s Longshaw 

Estate via a tea room and 

2hr shop in a former hunting 

lodge. 

Diffi culty 


Oats are not just for porridge! 

These days English people eat lots of wheat as 

bread, and most only have oats in breakfast cereals 

or flapjack. In the past, oats were a staple food. 

Our medieval ancestors 

farmed oats on the 

land around 

Longnor for many generations and this continued 

all the way into the 1800s. In 1725, the writer Daniel 

Defoe noted the region’s food was all ‘oatcakes, 

cheese and ale’. Traditional Staffordshire and Derbyshire 

oatcakes (below left) are similar to taste, 

but Derbyshire oatcakes are bigger and thicker 

than Staffordshire’s. 

1. Longnor Market Place 

The Victorian market 

hall (right) was built in 

1873. Look up above 

the entrance to see the 

original list of market 

tariffs. The hall is now 

a craft centre and 

coffee shop. It’s a great 

place to try traditional 

Staffordshire oatcakes 

and local cheeses, as 

well as lots of other 

tasty cakes and light 

meals. Stilton is the 

area’s most famous 

cheese (top left). 

Leave the market place and head left along the 

roadside. About 50 metres after the Cheshire 

Cheese Pub take the track on your right marked by 

a public footpath sign. 

2. Folds End Farm 

Folds End Farm dates from the 1600s and was extended 

in the 1800s. The fields ahead are all sown 

with grass as pasture for livestock. The grazing on 

the lower land is good-quality grass, fit for cows. 

These fields once fed the dairy herds whose milk 

supplied the local cheese trade. 

You might see sheep here too. More sheep graze 

higher up where only rough grass grows, as 

sheep can live on grass that is too poor for cows. 

Head left across the yard to the metal gate at the 

end of the cow sheds, leading into fields. Walk 

over the field, heading towards the footpath sign. 

At the stile the path 

splits. Take the route 

straight ahead 

signed to Brund via 

Crofts Farm and 

Boothlow Hayes. 

3. The shape of a field reveals its age! 

From here you have a good view down the 

Manifold Valley. You can pick out the line of the 

River Manifold from the wandering line of trees in 

the valley bottom. The landscape is criss-crossed 

with stone walls. The smaller narrow fields are the 

remains of medieval strip fields. The large square 

fields were created in the 1700s and 1800s, as a 

result of Parliamentary enclosure. At this time 

landowners passed laws to wall in the Common 

One of a suite of downloadable trails available from www.peak-experience.org.uk


Transport 

lands and keep them private − 

land where previously Circular everyone 

could graze their animals. km along moderately easy 

walk of roughly 4½ 

Look out for some old tracks hawthorn 

hedges Distance running woodland along and heather 

through streamside 

earthen banks, and for stone 


farmsteads and field barns. 

3 

ascents. Option to add a 2½ 

miles 

km round trip through the 

Keep the wall to your left and walk along until it 

Allow 

ends. Then carry on straight National across Trust’s the field Longshaw to a 

stile. 

Estate via a tea room and 


4. Crossing the medieval lodge. strip fields 

This is the Diffi first culty of several stiles taking you 

across the strip fields. Medieval farming families 

ploughed their fields over the years into ridges 

and furrows. Now this land is used for animals, 

but the ridge and furrow traces reveal that medieval 

farmers grew crops here instead, almost 

certainly including oats. 


By the 1800s Peak District farmers 

grew vast quantities of oats. Oats 

grew better than wheat on high 

ground and because of this, they 

formed a staple part of poor 

people’s diets. Try our local oatcakes 

to make a tasty connection 

with Staffordshire farming history. 

After the last field, the path takes you past a barn 

and then passes in front of Crofts Farm and out 

into a field. Walk past the farm building on your 

left and head to a tree marking the corner of a 

hedge field boundary. Continue to follow this 

boundary hedge, passing over a stile and small 

stream, then continue with the boundary to your 

left. You’ll pass Boothlow Hayes hill up on your left 

and a ruined farm building. 

5. Improving the land 

Farmers improved the land to grow better grass 

for cows, by adding lime to fertilize the ground. 

Look up to Boothlow Hayes on your left to see 

the difference between the rough grazing on the 

higher slopes and the improved grazing land you 

are walking through. The lower fields here are 

large and square because they were created in the 

1700s or 1800s as part of the parliamentary enclosures. 

Continue following the boundary through the 

next field. In the following field head to the 2-storey 

field barn (still in use). 

6. Stone field barns 

In medieval times, people’s narrow strip fields ran 

straight out from the back of their house. Farmers 

began to build field barns when fields were enclosed 

far from the house. Field barns save farmers 

time and energy because there’s no need to carry 

everything to and from the farmhouse each day. 

They use the barns to store equipment and shelter 

their animals. 

Follow the path from here across the field to 

Overbooth Farm, which dates from the early 

1800s. The footpath goes through the farmyard 

and past the farmhouse. Follow the path diagonally 

across the field to a stile in the hedge halfway 

down the field. 

7. Ridge and furrow, ancient farm traces 

Look at the fields rising from the River Manifold 

on the right, and you should be able to see lines 

of ridge and furrow running up hill. Our farming 



8. 8. Medieval Transport 

ancestors created farm the ridges traces 

and furrows as they 

ploughed the land year Circular after year walk after of year. roughly 4½ 

km along moderately easy 

Now you have a choice. tracks You can through move straight streamside on 

to point 9 and Distance follow the woodland walk back to and Longnor, heather 

or you can take a detour to point 8 and see some 


‘nearly-new’ Belgian Blue cows! 

3 

ascents. Option to add a 2½ 

miles 

To see the Belgian Blues, km follow round the trip path through the 

straight along Allow the hedge National and then Trust’s field walls Longshaw to 

Lower Boothlow Farm. Estate via a tea room and 


To continue without the detour, face towards 

lodge. 

Over Boothlow Diffi culty Farm and head diagonally across 

the field for the bottom left-hand corner. Cross 

the field, crossing the farm track linking Over 

Boothlow Farm and Waterhouse Farm. There are 

the remains of old wooden stiles either side of 

the track. Continue following the line of the river 

through the next stile. 


8. The Belgian Blues 

Lower Boothlow Farm dates from 

the early 1800s, but its Belgian 

Blue cows are much more recent 

imports to Britain. The first 

Belgian Blues were bred in the 

1960s. They were imported to Britain in the 1980s 

and are prized for producing huge amounts of 

beef on each cow. 

Now head back the way you came to point 7 and 

continue from there to point 9. 

9. The Manifold River 

The river now runs a much straighter line than it 

used to. Ancient parish records and modern aerial 

photographs show a far more winding path. 

The path continues near the river through the 

next five fields, with the stiles near the Crofts 

Farm painted white. 

At the second field boundary you cross, you’ll see 

a brook. This used to mark an old parish boundary 

between Sheen and Longnor. The next two 

walls you cross link upslope with the lines of the 

narrow strip fields you crossed earlier, showing 

that some of the medieval strips continued down 

to the river. 

10. Back to the market place 

At the next stile head diagonally across the field 

back up to Folds End Farm. From the farm, walk 

back up the track to the market place. 

You’ll find some very welcome refreshments to 

enjoy and local arts and crafts to browse in the 

old market hall. Don’t forget to try some local 

cheeses and oatcakes! 

We hope you enjoyed your walk. Please tell your 

friends. There are more Peak Experience selfguided 

trails for you to download at 

www.peak-experience.org.uk 

Inspired by the landscape? 

Send us photos or stories from your walk to share 

with others on www.MyPeakExperience.org.uk 

And if you or your children were inspired to 

create poetry, songs, paintings or drawings we’d 

love to see them. 

And finally... 

More cheese! If you’re interested in finding out 

more about local cheese production, we recommend 

this very informative online article: http:// 

www.aboutderbyshire.co.uk/cms/9/hartingtonthe-kings-stil-2.shtml 

Written by: Melissa Peet & Bill Bevan, ed by G Litherland. 

Photos by: Georgia Litherland, Ray Manley (PDNPA).

Longnor - land of cheese! Trail Summary - Thedms.co.uk

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