We never have a dull moment on our Branch Line. Rev. W. Awdry – Branch Line Engines (The Railway Series, number 16).
The Manifold Track is not in Derbyshire. But it nearly is: Hulme End is a few hundred metres the wrong side of the border. When the narrow gauge railway ran between 1904 and 1934, Hulme End Station claimed that it was Hulme End for Hartington – 3 miles away, in Derbyshire.
As I hadn’t walked along this path since 1968 (Hulme End was the site of the very first Caravan Club rally I was taken to, aged 4) I thought I’d stretch the map a little, rather like the railway owners did.
The main traffic on the line was milk. Ecton Station was the primary loading point for trains heading to Waterhouses, where the milk would be transferred onto the main line. As the dairy at Ecton decided to switch to road transportation in 1930, the line’s fate was sealed.
There’s a short 1933 newsreel of a train heading from Hulme End, through the tunnel at Swainsley and on to the station at Thor’s Cave and Wetton, the route I walked today.
I also scrambled up the footpath to Wetton, a pretty little place that seems largely unchanged since the 1924 map was published.
There were very few people around today, but most were cheerful. One rider was hilariously scolding her horse for eating everything that grew alongside the track. Another couple I met just after the tunnel at Swainsley thought they’d missed the track, but it follows a quiet road after the tunnel for a mile or so before turning back into a footpath and bridleway after Wetton Mill. There’s a cafe there where I bought a mug of tea and cake (£5.15), eaten under the watchful gaze of a hen.
Today I covered 14.09km in 3hours, 11 minutes and 12 seconds, taking 18,780 steps in the process.
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