Walk #7 Chrome Hill & Parkhouse Hill, Staffordshire

Chrome hill (left) & Parkhouse Hill (centre)

Walk 2 out of 100

Walk #7 - Chrome Hill & Parkhouse Hill Staffordshire 

Overall Rating - ✪✪✪✪

Suggested Difficulty - Challenging

My Difficulty Rating - ✪✪✪

Suggested Time - 3h 30m

Actual Time Taken - 2h 12m

Distance in book - 7.7km

Map my walk Distance - 7.38km

Hollinsclough, Start/Finish.

Hooray! I didn't just start the blog and leave it forever, I actually did a second walk! 

For walk number 2 I chose a wise travel companion in Twister (no his parents didn't call him that) a university buddy who conveniently lives under an hour away from the Peak District, handy! We were spoilt for choice as I think there are a total of 5 walks in the book across the Peak District but this one appeared to be one of the more challenging walks from the picture of Parkhouse hill which looked like a mini mountain.   

Approaching Chrome Hill

We found ourselves starting in the tiny village of Hollinsclough which consisted of a church, a school, a farm and maybe 4 houses? Probably the smallest village I've visited, very pretty even though the 'country smell' a.k.a the stench of large amounts of poo was quite potent! Easy to find from the map and easy to park for free as I think there may only be 5 car owners in the whole village. 

Looking back from summit of Chrome Hill

I have given the walk an overall 4 star rating, may live to regret that in the future when I have done more, but the views were great and the hill climbs were good fun. We couldn't quite understand why the route was classed as challenging (the same as the likes of Ben Nevis) after completing the walk as the route was easy to follow, the terrain pretty good, and the climbs not too tough or long. The hardest part was the short but very steep climb up Parkhouse hill, but this took less than 5 minutes once we got our heads down. You can always just walk around the hill if you don't feel up to the challenge.

Me, Twist & Jim on top of Chrome Hill

Parkhouse Hill

The steady but rugged climb up Chrome Hill was much easier than first expected and I would not have liked to climb the steep grassy bank we walked down on the other side. Parkhouse Hill, despite being smaller was the harder to climb out of the two, in the end we just took a direct 'sod it' scramble to the top which was worth it when we got to the top. It was pretty easy to navigate the area so didn't really matter which route was taken. 

Chrome Hill from Parkhouse Hill summit

I would recommend this walk for anybody who wants to do a couple of hill climbs in the Peak district. It probably wouldn't be worth it if the weather was bad and you lost the views but that is the case with a lot of walks! Don't be disheartened by the challenging rating as we found it pretty straight forward and we passed several elderly folks (they were probably fitter than both of us to be fair!) who had climbed Chrome Hill if that makes you feel more confident about it.  

2 down!

Thanks for reading, 

Stef.

Here's the link to the walk on 'Map My Walk'

And follow me on Twitter @stefanvilla1991