Peak District

16th May - Thursday

The Mousehole 

Which way now? 

Old railway bridge 

Buxton Opera House 

Which will I have first? 

Stone fences on the way into Castleton 

I'm not really convinced this wall is leech free 

Why do they always build castles on the top of a hill? 

We got here first! 

Castleton 

Made it to the top - and still upright! 

Typical village 

Sacrificial lambs???

It was a terrible start to the day – apart from the heating not being turned on until 7.00 am, instant coffee was served at breakfast! One of us does not cope well unless she has her proper coffee at breakfast time. The owner of The Mousehole explained the history of the cottage and showed us a couple of the family’s private rooms while we were anticipating coffee for breakfast. Build in the 1600’s as a barn, the building was converted to four cottages (one room wide) in the 1800’s before gradually being acquired by the current owners and made into one dwelling. The scrambled eggs on Himself’s plate were definitely farm fresh – the colour, and the chooks outside the bathroom window attesting to this fact.


The Peak District was beckoning, so we headed for the town of Leek – and the first coffee shop we came to for a caffeine intake – before leaving this old market town behind and travelling to Buxton. Originally intending to bypass Buxton, we noticed a yellow sign advertising an Antique Fair happening now, so we quickly turned Doris off and started to follow the signs. The pilot became quite excited at the prospect of an English antique fair and started following every yellow sign he saw – until we ended up in a Waitrose carpark! We eventually found the correct venue at the Opera House, beside a beautiful park, and after being admitted by a security guard and paying our entrance fee (we could come back as many times over the weekend if we wished), we quickly realised why there was so much evident security. Oh for a bigger suitcase and a much bigger credit card – there was some amazing furniture and jewellery (which doesn’t take up very much room in a suitcase!). We talked to a number of dealers, who were quite happy to talk even though we obviously weren’t buyers, and discovered we were in a very up-market fair. The Edwardian pearl pendant really was very nice …

We were so glad we made the detour into Buxton, because it was a lovely town, with beautiful parks and buildings. Anyway, on to Peveril Castle and into the Peak District proper. This was the most beautiful country, so different from what we have seen so far. There was a small patch of high moor country with its heather, but mainly rolling hills and tors, very green and lots of stone fences and sheep. Castleton was a gorgeous village nestled at the foot of the high hill, on which was perched the castle. There were lots of B & Bs and lots of walkers and school groups in the village. Our Heritage Pass doesn’t expire until tomorrow, so we headed up the steep (make that extremely steep) hill with its zigzag path to make the climb easier. There were many seats (with oxygen supplies) along the path, some of which were being enjoyed by the locals and the poor, struggling tourists had to continue even higher. After one or two (maybe even more) stops and a great aerobic workout, we eventually made the top and had some spectacular views of the surrounding countryside. Of course, what goes up must come down – one or two moans about knees were heard.

Back in the car – the mutterings today about manual cars, gears, clutches, not being able to see properly, etc, did seem to be more pronounced – and Doris was given her head to find the local stone circle. Needless to say, if there is a country lane to be travelled in preference to a main road, that is where Doris takes us. However, she really excelled herself today with the width of the roads – we even had to pull off to allow a bicycle to pass in the opposite direction!

Although a heritage site, we discovered the stone circle was on private land, but access was available to visitors. After parking in a free car park (and we have a Heritage sticker so we don’t have to pay!), it was a short walk along a lane beside the cow shed drainage area, past the cow shed and sillage heap (by this time Cat and I were nearly blue in the face from holding our breaths) before passing through a gate into a cow paddock. Because cows like to congregate around gates (so he who knows this things assured me), there was a large collection of sloppy green matter to negotiate before arriving at the next gate and entering a sheep paddock (AQIS are really going to love us). At least the stones were in this paddock! The circle was probably a good 50 metres in diameter (maybe more), with two altar stones in the middle and surrounded by a henge. A short distance away was a 5000 year old barrow. Dare I say it, we had to return via the same route, only this time the cows had appeared and were congregating at the gate!

With a mostly sunny day and the temperature actually getting to 12 degrees, it was a very enjoyable day driving through some very picturesque country.