It’s shameful to admit that I’ve known of this spot all my life, but never visited until now. Possibly the best way to sing its praises is to add that I instantly intend to make up for my mistake.
Padley is part of the National Trust’s Longshaw estate and one of the few patches of ancient sessile oakwood in a county dismally short of such places (woods cover just 4%). It runs either side of fast-flowing Burbage Brook, so that you are instantly immersed in a soundscape that has greeted every visitor since the last ice age.
Its visual impact relies on three elements. The rising ground on the west slope is smothered in boulders which were once instrumental in feeding the nation. Peak District millstones were the most famous in England and taken by horse and cart to all four corners of the land. They were mainly valued for milling coarser grains (French or German stone were preferred for wheat). Even now, you can see many protruding from the ground and it’s moving to reflect that each of those abandoned half-tonne monoliths employed a skilled workman for 10 days, just to add this momentary sense of wonder to your walk.
Out of the layer of gritstone arises an oakwood like few others. The trees were coppiced (felled at ground level) then appear to have been pollarded (the trunks recut above head height). The whole sense of an oak as a coherent sky-seeking organism has gone and in its place are hydra-headed beasts often with seven or eight lesser trunks, curved or twisted or even swooping sidewards before trending back to light. The fountain sprays of boughs are shaped like bouquets of flowers, except these are blooms that are grey, gnarled and hundreds of years in the making.
Over everything – stone, ground and the magnificently misshapen oaks – are thick, drape-like moss layers. One abundant species is mamillate plait-moss, a plant that grows like long-stranded plush fur and it often so smothers the place in photosynthesising emerald that Padley has come to resemble a single organism; and perhaps, that is exactly how we should view it.
• Under the Changing Skies: The Best of the Guardian’s Country Diary, 2018-2024 is published by Guardian Faber; order at guardianbookshop.com and get a 15% discount
