A holiday in the Peak District
One day I will post something that isn't a belated holiday write-up, but today is not that day. Once again, there will be far too many words and pictures, and a good few comical lions. There is also a guest appearance by my other favourite art thing: the drunken eagle.
So. Four weeks ago, we had a week in Derbyshire, staying in Ashford in the Water. My grandma lived in Derby throughout my childhood, and my mum is a very proud Derby... um... Derbyite? Derbist? ("The best county IN THE WORLD!"), so I had many childhood excursions to the southern reaches of the Peak District. However, I have to admit that our main reason for choosing Derbyshire wasn't nostalgia, but convenience. We'd vaguely intended to go to Suffolk, but Pellinor had a conference in Birmingham on the last Friday in September, so it made sense to choose somewhere for which Birmingham was en route.
While Pellinor was busy conferencing about tax, I got a train to Lichfield, where I amused myself for a few hours until Pellinor turned up after work. The cathedral contained the Whole World within its walls!
Unfortunately, the spires was covered with scaffolding. But all was not lost. Unlike common or garden cathedrals, Lichfield has not one, not two, but THREE spires, and the other two were more than happy to pose for photos. By the way, I simply could not persuade myself that the cathedral was actually old. There's something about red stone that just shouts "modern" to me, no matter how many times I'm told otherwise.
I liked the poodlish king.
The following day, we drove up to Derbyshire, and went to Hardwick Hall. Or, rather, Hardwick Halls, since Bess of Hardwick, having built a palatial mansion on the site, built another one - "the New Hall" - right next door barely half a dozen years later. Here is the new one as seen from the old.
Hardwick is heaven to the keen embroiderer, and I've done several crewelwork pieces based on Hardwick designs. They were kept in low light, so I couldn't photograph many, but I enjoyed peering at them.
There is also lots of excellent plasterwork. Here is a hunting scene, with added elephants. The elephant in the foreground appears to be wearing jet boots.
Comical water beasts:
Not quite sure what's going on here, but it would be quite a surprise to find this in your drinking horn at dinner:
Yay! Comical lions!
There was an enormous number of small embroidered panels with comical faces at the top of their borders. The panels illustrated solemn things like virtues and such-like, but the figures at the top where much less solemn. It was too dark to photograph them well, but here is an example:
Much to our surprise, it was raining when we left the house - the forecast in the morning had suggests good weather all day - which was unfortunate, since I'd planned to wander the gardens taking pictures. Oh well. It rained all the way to our cottage, too, so we were unable to see the pretty riverside garden that was key to our choosing it. (Although, to be fair, we'd been well aware that in early October, we were unlikely to spend much time in it.)
So we did a jigsaw instead. This was one we'd bought from the second-hand bookshop at Hardwick, which urged us to read the story, do the puzzle, then shine a light on it to reveal the glow-in-the-dark answer to the mystery. How could we resist? The pieces were immensely wacky, including some which were tiny and shaped like a semi-squashed pea, and others shaped more like pound signs or the British Isles. The story was dreadfully written - my favourite line reading something along the lines of "you have a dozen questions ringing in your head - or, rather, ten." The glow-in-the-dark element led to us pretty much brass-rubbing the entire puzzle with our phones.. and we still didn't understand what on earth was going on. But it was great fun, nonetheless.
On Sunday it rained all day, so we had leisurely morning with the jigsaw, then went to Matlock Bath for the lead mining museum, which was very good and informative - and fun, too, with multi-level tunnels built into the walls for crawling through and climbing. We paid extra for a mine tour, with a small group of people, and two very handsome salukis who exuded an air of mildly disdainful tolerance throughout.
Then we went to the aquarium, where - as well as fish - there's a Victorian thermal pool (now teeming with carp), a petrifying well, a hologram collection and displays on Victorian tourism.
Wet all day, though, so no pictures.
On Monday we walked to Bakewell (which was heaving, it being market day) and thence to the Monsal Trail, for a walk along the former railway, with exciting long tunnels to traverse. We had lunch at Monsal Head, where a large film crew were preparing the film... something. There were dozens of cameras, interesting snatches of conversation overheard about how "they" were "in make-up" and intriguing Bags of Things being walked past us. A 50s-ish car was involved in things, too. We loitered as long as we could, but having set everything up, the crew went off for lunch, so we walked on without ever learning what was going on.
What with all this excitement, I almost forgot to photograph Monsal Head. So here it is, with added random dog.
There was a small amount of drizzle on the rest of our walk, although not too much. Still, it was pretty gloomy, and I didn't take pictures. However, it was a nice walk, to Tideswell, back to Cressbrook (where we holidayed back in 2009 or so) and then back home via Monsal Head. The film people were still there, but we still couldn't see what was going on.
Erudite graffiti on the Monsal Trail:
On Tuesday we took the bus to Matlock for The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! via an exciting cable car ride. (There was a discount for people coming by bus, which made it quite a lot cheaper, given that otherwise we'd have had to pay for parking.) Arriving at the top, we were greeted by a Victorian impressario, who welcomed us to The HEIIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM!, telling us repeatedly - and loudly - how amazing we would find The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! Cable cars come in clumps of three, so as we wandered off to explore said delights, we kept hearing The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! echoing in the distance, although he seemed to get bored of greeting people later, and moved on to other things.
The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! is an early Victorian pleasure park on top of the cliff, with promenades to promenade on, and towers from which to marvel at the view. It has two show caves, and we went on tours of both. On one, our guide made non-stop bad jokes and puns - which would have been fine (I like puns) except that he then went on the draw attention at length to the poor quality of his joke in a way that got incredibly tiresome. There were a few facts in there, but you had to work to uncover them.
Although it was a place entirely sold on the quality of its views, I failed to take any decent pictures of them. But here's Riber Castle, on the other side of the gorge:
Amusement came from standing under the cable cars, watching a visiting school party go back at the end of their visit. A chorus of squeals and screams as three cars went over. A long pause. More screams as the next three go over. A long pause. More screams. Pause. Three more cars come over... in silence. Silence? Ah yes. Each of these cars of children also contains a teacher.
There was a truly torrential downpour as we had a cup of tea outside on a covered terrace, which was fun - towering over Matlock, watching the rain sweep in. But it was over within 15 minutes, in time for us to go back down and kill some time playing with a very friendly cat while waiting for the bus.
On Wednesday we walked via Bakewell to Haddon Hall: an excellent early Tudor manor house. Its owners virtually abandoned it for centuries, preferring to live in their more palatial possessions, so it's never really been "improved" over the years, hence its charm.
Sparkly irregular windows:
Wall paintings in the chapel:
The Long Gallery - not quite straight, but it's the best I can manage:
Walking back to Bakewell, we paused for a little while for a quick drink in a beer garden, taking advantage for the fact that it was Actually Sunny! (Well, if you ignore the very brief shower that caused us to scurry inside for about half a minute.) I think this was the day we even managed to sit outside in our riverside garden for about ten minutes, too, before deciding that we'd Done That, and heading inside.
We had a very nice dinner in the local pub - The Bull's Head - in the evening. There were LOADS of pubs called The Bull's Head in this area of Derbyshire, but I could find no answers as to why. It's not the badge of any big local family - those would be stags and peacocks.
On Thursday we went to Chatsworth, because, well, you have to, really. Chatsworth does what other stately homes do, and turns it up to 11.
This isn't just a rockery; this is a CHATSWORTH rockery, full of veritable mountains:
A rabbit!
A mysterious hare:
Not a rockery, but a headery. No explanation as to why.
A modest water feature:
The maze was very good. It took us a good long while to reach the centre, with many moments in which you think you're almost there, only to find that you're... not. I have to admit that I cheated and crawled through a gap in the hedge.
Inside the house, there was a one-way system in place, with actual gods employed to point the way:
Comical lions!
I've posted before about how I believe that almost all eagles in statuary are drunk. They're especially legless when they get together with their very besht friend Ganymede for a night on the tiles. I've posted some before showing them staggering home from the pub. Here they are a little earlier in their drunken evening.
Lion!
A very brief moment of almost-sun!
On the way back, we stopped at the Chatsworth Estate farm shop to buy a couple of dinners. Their goats cheese and caramelised onion pizza was SO nice!
Friday's weather looked questionable, but we went to Castleton anyway. Last time we went there, we fled down hill from Peveril Castle in a sudden downpour, and run straight into an outdoor shop to buy better waterproofs. This time we set off on a walk in dry but gloomy weather, only for the cloud to come right down on us, wrapping us in wind-blown fine rain.
Undaunted (well, I was somewhat daunted), we headed up onto the ridge, anyway, trying not to worry that our destination, Mam Tor, was pretty much invisible in the rain. Surprisingly, numerous other idiots were out there on the ridge, walking in the rain on a gloomy weekday in October. But then the rain stopped and the clouds lifted, and it was really rather nice. Enormously windy, though, so much so that I could barely stand.
Wet roads shining in the sun:
Down below, the Winnats Pass looked like a gaping rent in the earth. Which, really, it is, I suppose. It's a bit less mouth-of-helly when you're in it, though.
"Winnats" means Wind Gate, and, oh, it was windy to walk down it beside the road!
We intended to have a light lunch in a cafe, but accidentally (*ahem*) went to a pub (The Bull's Head, naturally) for something rather larger, with a drink or two. And then to the Treak Cliff cavern, the only place where the very scarce Blue John is mined. I fancied a Blue John souvenir, then saw the price, and hastily rethought. The tour was self-guided, via an app, which was good. There were lots of stalactites and stalagmites. ("Stalactites hold on tight," my Mum told me when I was very young, and I've never once had a problem remembering which one is which. Everyone else says "tights come down," and then get confused, since tights also go up.)
On Saturday, we packed up, then headed to Bolsover Castle, where the "Little Castle" at its heart is covered with lavish paintings. I like it very much, but have been several times before, so took few pictures. We spent much of our time attempting to see Hardwick Hall from the ramparts, since the information board told us that we could, but we failed.
A... goat? sheep? in the fountain, smoking a cigarette:
And then home. It had been really quite cold at Bolsover, with a brisk wind, but it got warmer and warmer and sunnier and sunnier as the day went on, and turned into something approaching a summer day. Throughout our holiday, the weather turned out to be duller and wetter than forecast - the day we left, the Met Office was suggesting no rain all week - but we really can't complain, given the bad floods that have struck the county since then.
So. Four weeks ago, we had a week in Derbyshire, staying in Ashford in the Water. My grandma lived in Derby throughout my childhood, and my mum is a very proud Derby... um... Derbyite? Derbist? ("The best county IN THE WORLD!"), so I had many childhood excursions to the southern reaches of the Peak District. However, I have to admit that our main reason for choosing Derbyshire wasn't nostalgia, but convenience. We'd vaguely intended to go to Suffolk, but Pellinor had a conference in Birmingham on the last Friday in September, so it made sense to choose somewhere for which Birmingham was en route.
While Pellinor was busy conferencing about tax, I got a train to Lichfield, where I amused myself for a few hours until Pellinor turned up after work. The cathedral contained the Whole World within its walls!
Unfortunately, the spires was covered with scaffolding. But all was not lost. Unlike common or garden cathedrals, Lichfield has not one, not two, but THREE spires, and the other two were more than happy to pose for photos. By the way, I simply could not persuade myself that the cathedral was actually old. There's something about red stone that just shouts "modern" to me, no matter how many times I'm told otherwise.
I liked the poodlish king.
The following day, we drove up to Derbyshire, and went to Hardwick Hall. Or, rather, Hardwick Halls, since Bess of Hardwick, having built a palatial mansion on the site, built another one - "the New Hall" - right next door barely half a dozen years later. Here is the new one as seen from the old.
Hardwick is heaven to the keen embroiderer, and I've done several crewelwork pieces based on Hardwick designs. They were kept in low light, so I couldn't photograph many, but I enjoyed peering at them.
There is also lots of excellent plasterwork. Here is a hunting scene, with added elephants. The elephant in the foreground appears to be wearing jet boots.
Comical water beasts:
Not quite sure what's going on here, but it would be quite a surprise to find this in your drinking horn at dinner:
Yay! Comical lions!
There was an enormous number of small embroidered panels with comical faces at the top of their borders. The panels illustrated solemn things like virtues and such-like, but the figures at the top where much less solemn. It was too dark to photograph them well, but here is an example:
Much to our surprise, it was raining when we left the house - the forecast in the morning had suggests good weather all day - which was unfortunate, since I'd planned to wander the gardens taking pictures. Oh well. It rained all the way to our cottage, too, so we were unable to see the pretty riverside garden that was key to our choosing it. (Although, to be fair, we'd been well aware that in early October, we were unlikely to spend much time in it.)
So we did a jigsaw instead. This was one we'd bought from the second-hand bookshop at Hardwick, which urged us to read the story, do the puzzle, then shine a light on it to reveal the glow-in-the-dark answer to the mystery. How could we resist? The pieces were immensely wacky, including some which were tiny and shaped like a semi-squashed pea, and others shaped more like pound signs or the British Isles. The story was dreadfully written - my favourite line reading something along the lines of "you have a dozen questions ringing in your head - or, rather, ten." The glow-in-the-dark element led to us pretty much brass-rubbing the entire puzzle with our phones.. and we still didn't understand what on earth was going on. But it was great fun, nonetheless.
On Sunday it rained all day, so we had leisurely morning with the jigsaw, then went to Matlock Bath for the lead mining museum, which was very good and informative - and fun, too, with multi-level tunnels built into the walls for crawling through and climbing. We paid extra for a mine tour, with a small group of people, and two very handsome salukis who exuded an air of mildly disdainful tolerance throughout.
Then we went to the aquarium, where - as well as fish - there's a Victorian thermal pool (now teeming with carp), a petrifying well, a hologram collection and displays on Victorian tourism.
Wet all day, though, so no pictures.
On Monday we walked to Bakewell (which was heaving, it being market day) and thence to the Monsal Trail, for a walk along the former railway, with exciting long tunnels to traverse. We had lunch at Monsal Head, where a large film crew were preparing the film... something. There were dozens of cameras, interesting snatches of conversation overheard about how "they" were "in make-up" and intriguing Bags of Things being walked past us. A 50s-ish car was involved in things, too. We loitered as long as we could, but having set everything up, the crew went off for lunch, so we walked on without ever learning what was going on.
What with all this excitement, I almost forgot to photograph Monsal Head. So here it is, with added random dog.
There was a small amount of drizzle on the rest of our walk, although not too much. Still, it was pretty gloomy, and I didn't take pictures. However, it was a nice walk, to Tideswell, back to Cressbrook (where we holidayed back in 2009 or so) and then back home via Monsal Head. The film people were still there, but we still couldn't see what was going on.
Erudite graffiti on the Monsal Trail:
On Tuesday we took the bus to Matlock for The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! via an exciting cable car ride. (There was a discount for people coming by bus, which made it quite a lot cheaper, given that otherwise we'd have had to pay for parking.) Arriving at the top, we were greeted by a Victorian impressario, who welcomed us to The HEIIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM!, telling us repeatedly - and loudly - how amazing we would find The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! Cable cars come in clumps of three, so as we wandered off to explore said delights, we kept hearing The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! echoing in the distance, although he seemed to get bored of greeting people later, and moved on to other things.
The HEIIIIIIGHTS! of ABRAHAM! is an early Victorian pleasure park on top of the cliff, with promenades to promenade on, and towers from which to marvel at the view. It has two show caves, and we went on tours of both. On one, our guide made non-stop bad jokes and puns - which would have been fine (I like puns) except that he then went on the draw attention at length to the poor quality of his joke in a way that got incredibly tiresome. There were a few facts in there, but you had to work to uncover them.
Although it was a place entirely sold on the quality of its views, I failed to take any decent pictures of them. But here's Riber Castle, on the other side of the gorge:
Amusement came from standing under the cable cars, watching a visiting school party go back at the end of their visit. A chorus of squeals and screams as three cars went over. A long pause. More screams as the next three go over. A long pause. More screams. Pause. Three more cars come over... in silence. Silence? Ah yes. Each of these cars of children also contains a teacher.
There was a truly torrential downpour as we had a cup of tea outside on a covered terrace, which was fun - towering over Matlock, watching the rain sweep in. But it was over within 15 minutes, in time for us to go back down and kill some time playing with a very friendly cat while waiting for the bus.
On Wednesday we walked via Bakewell to Haddon Hall: an excellent early Tudor manor house. Its owners virtually abandoned it for centuries, preferring to live in their more palatial possessions, so it's never really been "improved" over the years, hence its charm.
Sparkly irregular windows:
Wall paintings in the chapel:
The Long Gallery - not quite straight, but it's the best I can manage:
Walking back to Bakewell, we paused for a little while for a quick drink in a beer garden, taking advantage for the fact that it was Actually Sunny! (Well, if you ignore the very brief shower that caused us to scurry inside for about half a minute.) I think this was the day we even managed to sit outside in our riverside garden for about ten minutes, too, before deciding that we'd Done That, and heading inside.
We had a very nice dinner in the local pub - The Bull's Head - in the evening. There were LOADS of pubs called The Bull's Head in this area of Derbyshire, but I could find no answers as to why. It's not the badge of any big local family - those would be stags and peacocks.
On Thursday we went to Chatsworth, because, well, you have to, really. Chatsworth does what other stately homes do, and turns it up to 11.
This isn't just a rockery; this is a CHATSWORTH rockery, full of veritable mountains:
A rabbit!
A mysterious hare:
Not a rockery, but a headery. No explanation as to why.
A modest water feature:
The maze was very good. It took us a good long while to reach the centre, with many moments in which you think you're almost there, only to find that you're... not. I have to admit that I cheated and crawled through a gap in the hedge.
Inside the house, there was a one-way system in place, with actual gods employed to point the way:
Comical lions!
I've posted before about how I believe that almost all eagles in statuary are drunk. They're especially legless when they get together with their very besht friend Ganymede for a night on the tiles. I've posted some before showing them staggering home from the pub. Here they are a little earlier in their drunken evening.
Lion!
A very brief moment of almost-sun!
On the way back, we stopped at the Chatsworth Estate farm shop to buy a couple of dinners. Their goats cheese and caramelised onion pizza was SO nice!
Friday's weather looked questionable, but we went to Castleton anyway. Last time we went there, we fled down hill from Peveril Castle in a sudden downpour, and run straight into an outdoor shop to buy better waterproofs. This time we set off on a walk in dry but gloomy weather, only for the cloud to come right down on us, wrapping us in wind-blown fine rain.
Undaunted (well, I was somewhat daunted), we headed up onto the ridge, anyway, trying not to worry that our destination, Mam Tor, was pretty much invisible in the rain. Surprisingly, numerous other idiots were out there on the ridge, walking in the rain on a gloomy weekday in October. But then the rain stopped and the clouds lifted, and it was really rather nice. Enormously windy, though, so much so that I could barely stand.
Wet roads shining in the sun:
Down below, the Winnats Pass looked like a gaping rent in the earth. Which, really, it is, I suppose. It's a bit less mouth-of-helly when you're in it, though.
"Winnats" means Wind Gate, and, oh, it was windy to walk down it beside the road!
We intended to have a light lunch in a cafe, but accidentally (*ahem*) went to a pub (The Bull's Head, naturally) for something rather larger, with a drink or two. And then to the Treak Cliff cavern, the only place where the very scarce Blue John is mined. I fancied a Blue John souvenir, then saw the price, and hastily rethought. The tour was self-guided, via an app, which was good. There were lots of stalactites and stalagmites. ("Stalactites hold on tight," my Mum told me when I was very young, and I've never once had a problem remembering which one is which. Everyone else says "tights come down," and then get confused, since tights also go up.)
On Saturday, we packed up, then headed to Bolsover Castle, where the "Little Castle" at its heart is covered with lavish paintings. I like it very much, but have been several times before, so took few pictures. We spent much of our time attempting to see Hardwick Hall from the ramparts, since the information board told us that we could, but we failed.
A... goat? sheep? in the fountain, smoking a cigarette:
And then home. It had been really quite cold at Bolsover, with a brisk wind, but it got warmer and warmer and sunnier and sunnier as the day went on, and turned into something approaching a summer day. Throughout our holiday, the weather turned out to be duller and wetter than forecast - the day we left, the Met Office was suggesting no rain all week - but we really can't complain, given the bad floods that have struck the county since then.