Set in a lovely stretch of Peak District dale scenery on a public footpath - part of a circular walk that takes you to parts where you can feel totally remote from civilisation.
To start this walk (it will take you an hour maximum) park by the wall below Brassington Church (St James). Walk up through the churchyard close to the left hand wall (the FP sign is clear). At the lane turn left and after 100 yds turn right through the wall at a 'Permissive Path' sign. Continue diagonally (NW) up the field to the left and through another wall. This takes you to the top of an overgrown lane. To carry on with this walk go into the field opposite through a gate and make for the obvious gap in the next wall (lots of walls hereabouts!).
Carry on (NNW) past lots of depressions in the ground. They are the remains of old lead-workings - open-cast mining carried out by just a few men per mine. In each depressions there seems to be a Hawthorn tree, presumably growing in its own private hollow as a result of the protection offered to the tree when it was growing as a seedling in the hollow.
This part of Derbyshire is in what is known as the White Peak - so called because the predominant limestone rock. The lead workings here and at many other places in the area were the basis for the growth of villages and towns, including nearby Wirksworth (a quaint town worth a look).
The walk takes you to a line of stately Beech trees on the right from where you can see the buildings ahead which are your next destination and turning point on this circular walk. Walk down the field diagonally firstly to where broken walls meet and make for the attractive-looking group of walls/grass just before the buildings of Pasture Barn. The cache is near here.
Walk up the right hand side of the buildings (they are private and there is no access to them). Go through a gate and at the end of a track turn Left and walk down the field (sheep maybe here) keeping near to the left hand wall. Eventually you see a farm gate, but a few yards before that is a gate on the left with a small blue 'bridle way' sign pointing right (a few years ago there was a wooden sign saying 'Bridal Way).
Walk down the (perhaps muddy ) path with the wall on your right. The grass path then re-appears and you skirt round a small hillock with rocks on top (my two small grand-daughters, then aged 3 and 5, called it 'Knobbly Mountain').
The grass track bends right to the corner of the field where you meet the lower end of the overgrown lane (see earlier); you can walk up that lane to the top and retrace steps back to the car - or otherwise walk ahead on the public road going south and at a T-junction turn left from where it is less than a mile back to the starting point, past the Olde Gate Inn, recently voted by The Times as the cosiest pub in England.
The cache was placed by kind permission of Spencer Bros (1906) Ltd.