Ilam, Dovedale, Alstonefield, Stanshope & Castern Hall (the first day of BST, clocks go forward 2am)

Walk in the dramatic scenery of Dovedale that before the Romantic poets of the late 18th & early 19th century was scene as wild and forbidding, and now is familiar but still wonderful.  Walk on marvellous fossils from when this area was under a semi-tropical sea, and peer over Lover's Leap.  Cross the Dove at Viator Bridge, Milldale, to leave Derbyshire, into Staffordshire, then continue uphill to Alstonefield, which may have influenced George Eliot.  From there down steeply - and probably muddy - towards Stanshope and Castern Hall, once owned by the Hurt family, before re-crossing the Dove to return to Ilam Hall.