Today we decided to go for a walk.
The cottage was provided with a number of handy Peak District walk books. Several of these volunteered that the walks were “Strenuous” so we gave these a miss and chose “Dales & Valleys” (ISBN 978-1-908632-05-0) which sounded more like us!
Walk 6 was not too far away and looked easy so we gave it a go.
Soon after starting and walking beside the river Dane we came across an elderly gentleman walking his dog. He engaged us in conversation and was keen to show us a weir which used to supply a water mill.
He was convinced that the old weir could be re-purposed for a micro-hydro project and indeed, looking at the arrangement this did look at least possibly practical.
There was another slightly taller weir a few hundred metres further downstream and Dad suggested that if these could be combined via a pipe into one drop then more power could be obtained. There did appear to be a tunnel which for some strange reason ran between the weirs so perhaps this would be practical.
In practice we have no idea how such a scheme would be organised or financed and there would still be the question of getting a good enough connection to the grid but we left our elderly companion with some new thoughts.
Continuing round the walk and passing an interesting medieval farmhouse, we met some quite lengthy climbs which left us out of breath. We were certainly pleased that we hadn’t opted for a “strenuous” walk!
Returning to the car, we opted to have lunch in the adjacent pub.
After a rest back at the cottage, we visited Biddulph Grange Country Park. This provided a pleasant, shorter and less strenuous walk with views of the lake. Interestingly, it also contained a micro-hydro scheme!
