July 4th to July 6th
One
night and the question is why? Why did I come here? Why did I come
for only one night? Did I subconsciously want to go pot-holing or
rock-climbing? I don't think so. But there is nothing else to do
here, except perhaps to go on a pub crawl. Castleton is half the size
of Billingshurst and it's got six pubs. It's a lovely village at the
heart of the High Peak, set at the end of a valley before it goes
into a narrow pass over the top towards Kinder Scout. It's a centre
for spelunkers but I managed to survive my stay without spelunking.
The
drive over was quite unpleasant, largely because of Chesterfield and
it's appalling signage. I needed diesel and air, but couldn't
actually get into the filling station at the Tesco superstore because
it was so busy. Then by mistake I managed to get into the covered car
park of the store, which, given the height of the van and no height
restriction signs anywhere, was really scary. I got into a fury and
stormed off back the way I had come to the Sainsbury's superstore. I
got my diesel but no Tesco Card points. I needed the A619 from
Chesterfield to Bakewell, but it disappeared when it got to
Chesterfield. There were no signs to Bakewell at all, so I went down
a wide dual carriageway called the “Great Central Way”. It had
obviously been designed as an urban through-way for the town, but was
completely empty. I soon discovered the reason; all the traffic was
sitting in jams on other roads around the town. I discovered the
revived A619 after I had driven through the town centre and thought I
was escaping when I encountered my own personal bête
noir; lane arrows on the road. This is how it works; you see an
arrow on the road showing you should be in the left-hand lane if you
want to go straight ahead and a bent arrow showing you should be in
the right-hand lane if you want to turn right. So, which shall I
choose? Well, I don't know, do I, because they haven't given me a
sign telling where the two choices would take me. They wait until I
make my choice and then give me the sign or write the information on
the road, where I can see perhaps some of it peeping out from under
that giant artic.
All
this changed the indifference I felt towards Chesterfield to
something much more toxic.
On
the way I saw a road sign to Eyam. This was the village with the
remarkable plague story. In 1665, when the plague was raging in
England, although largely confined to London, a tailor ordered some
cloth from London and it was infected. When the first villager died,
the others, in an amazing act of altruism and self-sacrifice, decided
to seal-off the village and quarantine themselves to save the spread
of the plague. In all, 260 villagers died but the contagion was
successfully contained. Good story. There was an excellent TV drama
about it a few years ago. The BBC could show it again if they could
find time amongst all their cooking and property programmes.
I
walked into Castleton, bought the most expensive loaf of bread in the
world and counted the pubs. That really was the extent of the
excitement to be had. Walking back I saw a sign saying “Footpath to
Hope” (Hope is the next village up the valley). A walker was just
coming to the end of it and he looked very cross and disappointed.
Perhaps the sign the other end says “Footpath to Despair”.
The
setting of the village is quite beautiful. Look up in three out of
four directions and you see hills, really quite high, green and
rounded and soft pillowy-looking. In some places the meadows had just
been mowed almost right up to the summit. It was quite warm and there
was the sort of frowsy, laid-back atmosphere you get in the West
Country or Kerry or Brittany. I got back home just before the skies
opened, and it was still raining, banging on the roof AND WAKING ME
UP AT THREE THE FOLLOWING MORNING.
On
to Buxton on Saturday morning, a fabulous drive. A roundabout route
because the more direct route through Chapel-en-le-Frith goes through
the Winnatts Pass, a graveyard of caravans and motorhomes. I passed
through Tideswell, where the church of Saint John the Baptist is
known as “The Cathedral of the Peak”. I soon saw why. It
is exquisite, just like a cathedral in miniature and the lovely stone
village matches it. Tideswell, and the next village, Miller's Dale,
are mentioned in Flanders and Swann's great song “The Slow Train”.
Every time I play it I hear the little devils cackling as they pop
another coal on the fire burning eternally under Doctor Beeching's
fat backside.
After
Blackwell I picked-up the A6 which made its way into Buxton along the
narrow, gorge-like, heavily-wooded Wye Valley. The river, clear and
fast-running over a shallow rocky bed, runs alongside the road for
most of the way. This must be the most beautiful major road in
Britain. Well, maybe the A9 in the Highlands. A fabulous drive.
The
site is about two miles south-west of the town on the Leek road and
sits in a limestone quarry in a country park. The bus service is
non-existent, so tomorrow I will walk through the country park to the
town, which, according to the warden, will take me about forty
minutes. In the meantime, I've been writing this and watching the
first stage of the Tour de France in Yorkshire. 230,000 people at the
start in Leeds this morning and an estimated 800,000 in total to-day.
Such fantastic enthusiasm and some brilliant TV coverage. I've just
seen Hawes and the entrance to the site where I stayed.
At
this point I should apologise, dear reader, for not having written
for a while. I've been rather unwell for a while now and have spent
most of the last week lying-down. It's very difficult to type while
you are lying-down. There, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it.
Bit better to-day (Sunday, July 13th) so here goes.
The
walk into Buxton through the country park was very pleasant. The park
is riddled with lime-kilns and the houses built by the lime-burners
from the burned-out kilns. Kilns and houses and the piles of spoil
are now just mounds against the hill, covered in vegetation. The Duke
of Devonshire, who seems to own most of the world around here,
planted the woods in 1820 to hide the lime workings overlooking the
town. The path through the woods brought me to a car park at the top
of the town and I carried on down through Buxton's quiet leafy
avenues to Pavilion Gardens, a lovely public park with boating lake,
sunny seats and shady footpaths. On the boating lake a fine model
yacht and a remote-controlled speedboat were happily avoiding each
other and the many circling ducks who seemed totally oblivious to
them. I walked along the side of the gardens on Broad Walk, which is
flanked by impressive stone three-storey buildings, originally the
houses of the super-rich who came to take the waters and now mostly
doctors' or dentists' surgeries, insurance brokers' offices and the
offices of charities.
I
reached the Old Hall Hotel at the end of the park. The very common
plaque “Mary Queen of Scots slept here …..” That
flaming woman slept in so many places and spent so much time sleeping
I don't know how she had the time to cause so much trouble.
 |
| Pavilion Gardens |
The
main street, pedestrianised, is quite scruffy, given that I was
expecting a Guildford High Street in a posh town like this. Then I
spotted the new shopping centre. Ah. I didn't go into it, but walked
up the steep Terrace Road to Higher Buxton, the old town. Not much to
shout about here, and I made my way back up the hill to the top of
the woods. I needed a long rest and took it on a wooden bench
dedicated poignantly to a young local man killed in the army.
A
bit of an anti-climax, then, Buxton, but I wasn't on top form myself and
possibly didn't do it justice. One boarding
house on Broad Walk bore a sign calling it “Buxton's Victorian
Guest House” and I had a feeling that Buxton wanted to think of
itself as a Victorian town.
A long journey tomorrow.
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