Twenty one walkers and two dogs met in the lower car park at Coal Aston Village Hall on a bright Autumn day. The idea of the walk was to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Dronfield Round Walk so we tried to follow the route as much as possible. This meant turning right at the bottom of Birches Lane and crossing fields until we reached Cook Spring Wood, although we might have skirted the edge of Whinacre Wood, it’s had to tell on the OS map.
We continued on through the wood passing through the meadow known as Dowey Lumb and then up the steps and field to reach the Rotary bench. This was an ideal place to have a short break. We continued on to join Owler Car Lane, passing Sicklebrook Farm. At the junction with Sicklebrook Lane three of our party opted for a shorter version of the walk back to the village hall via Sicklebrook Lane and Eckington Road. The rest of us made our way through the woods to the pile of logs near Troway Hall farm. This has become a popular place to eat lunch on quite a few of our walks.
At this point we had to adjust the route of our walk to avoid the usual path leading to the road through Troway as it had been blocked by a collapsed wall. Our walk leader Graham had a word with the people at Troway Hall farm who allowed us to pass through their property.
Continuing on the Dronfield Round walk we made our way up the road to meet Eckington Road by the former “Inn @ Troway” pub/restaurant. For the last stage of the walk we crossed the airfield and returned to the start point via “The Riddings” and the top end of the estate.
Many thanks to Graham for leading us round the walk which for many evoked memories of the original walk in the year 2000.
