Milldale

Cottages, bridge and the Hopedale pub

In the middle of Milldale a wooden signpost reads "Pub 1m" and points up the lane. The pub is about 1.1 miles away in a straight line, in Hopedale; the walking route is longer. The village itself is a dozen or so grey limestone cottages, most of them 18th-century, set at the head of Dovedale where the River Dove is crossed by a narrow packhorse bridge. Ducks have the run of the place. There is no phone signal and no internet.

The pub the sign points to is the Watts Russell Arms, an 18th-century stone freehouse named after James Watts Russell, a wealthy local businessman. The kitchen does tapas-style small plates, made from scratch with local suppliers and changing with whatever's in, with vegetarian and gluten-free options. The ales are a reason to make the trip: an ever-changing Thornbridge range including Jaipur, plus a local flat cider. There's a beer garden and dogs are welcome. Children under ten are not permitted inside. The hours are limited enough that you should check before setting off.

The mill barn

The other building of note is the National Trust information barn, which has toilets and a water tap and occupies the converted stables of the corn mill that gave the village half its name.

Lost mills and Viator's Bridge

The mills are gone now. Milldale was named for two of them. The corn mill stood until the mid-19th century, and the Ochre Mill, on a small island in the Dove, ground powder for red-lead paint until it was demolished around the same time. Its foundations and a millstone remain. Upstream, at the entry to Wolfscote Dale, Lode Mill ground corn until 1929.

The bridge is the thing everyone photographs. Viator's Bridge is a medieval packhorse crossing, built without side walls so panniered horses could get across, and it carried silk and flax from Wetton and Alstonefield for centuries. It takes its name from Viator — "traveller" — a character in Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton's *The Compleat Angler*, which made Dovedale famous. Viator's verdict on the bridge, in the book: "Why! A mouse can hardly go over it: 'tis not twelve fingers broad."

Walking the dales and getting there

From here the walking is the main event. It's about two and a half miles through the limestone valley to the Dovedale stepping stones. The path north leads into Wolfscote Dale and on toward Hartington. A national park car park serves Milldale.

There's no station close to Milldale; Ashbourne is the gateway town, reached along remote lanes.

Temperance and bridge-side refreshment

In 1898 William Hambleton was refused a drinks licence and opened a temperance hotel instead. Decades later, Nancy Bennington sold mineral waters, sweets and postcards by the bridge, and the Manchester Evening News called her "the grand old woman of Dovedale."