The glorious Peak District - even in the rain

I'm a bit late with this post - about a month and half late truth be told. Stuff just gets in the way, doesn't it?

Higger Tor from the Longshaw Estate

As regular readers will know, we usually have a large family get away in late October/early November, most often to the Peak District, but a couple of times to Devon. This year it was the Peaks again and a week away in Matlock. Slightly depleted this year, as a few couldn't make it, and more poignantly our first family get away after losing my brother in law to cancer in March (he was the one who'd booked this trip), a total of 11 of us made the trip. With only my daughter and wife's niece under 50, we're long past the days of hiking up the bigger hills on 10 mile traipses. A couple of miles and a nice coffee shop tended to be the order of the day for the most part.

We stayed in a large house - Riber House on a hill overlooking Matlock and underneath the imposing Riber Hall. The journey to the house was inserting. Up a 1:3/1:4 hill with a couple of sharp hairpin bends, before a quarter of a mile along a rough track, but worth it. The house was fantastically set up, and included a hot tub on the patio and a pool table in the basement. The only downside, it was remote, so no easy walk to a pub. Mind you, we had enough beer and wine to sink a battleship!

The hot tub was well utilised, and we did find a nice pub that served food for an evening meal out, and we were very comfortable in the well equipped house during our stay. 

Our accommodation is the house just below Riber Hall
Taken from a bridge over the river Derwent in Matlock

As is usual, we broke our journey up from South Wales with an overnight stop at my sister-in-law's house in Solihull. The following day we stopped en route to Matlock at Keddlestone Hall a National Trust property, for a wiser, coffee and a bite to eat. As most of the group are NT members, a lot of our visits tend towards places like this and it was a pleasant stop for a couple of hours.

(Some of) The grounds of Keddlestone Hall

After a week of decent weather, the forecast for our week away was pretty miserable. Our first full day was a bit of a washout with the weather, although we popped into Matlock in the rain. The next day we managed to dodge the showers on a lovely walk along the Cromford canal a couple of miles from Matlock. When the sun did peek through the rain clouds, it lit up the autumn foliage beautifully. 

Some of the crew

Cromford Canal

Chatsworth estate is a regular haunt on our visits to this area, but we're normally too early for the Christmas decorations and market. This year though we were better timed, and had booked tickets to see the festive decorations in the house. We began with a walk across the grounds to the house and around the Christmas market before going into the house at our allotted time. The place was heaving - the market especially so, but the timed entry to the house at least kept the crowds slightly more organised.

Chatsworth House
(the hundreds of visitor cars not visible in this photo!)

Inside the main hall at Chatsworth

The following day was another wet one (well they all were to be fair), and we had a leisurely walking from a car park close to Bakewell, into the town and a meander around the shops, stopping for the obligatory coffee and snack. Bakewell's a lovely spot, though obviously gets very busy because it's such a pretty and central spot.

Bakewell and the river Derwent

One of the things I defiantly wanted to see on this visit was the Derwent reservoir dam, just above the Ladybower reservoir. This was the series of dams that the Dambusters used as their training ground before their famous attack on the Rhur dams. Whilst that peaked my interests, I was rather more interested to see if the water was flowing over the top - given all the rain we'd had, I needed have worried. It was pouring over!

Water overspilling the Derwent Dam

Alongside the Derwent Dam

The Derwent Dam

Ladybower reservoir below the Derwent Dam

Our final day we parked at another NT place, Longshaw Estate and did a 5 or so mile circular walk through down through get impressive Padley Gorge. The weather was kinder to us and whilst it was wet underfoot, at least it didn't rain! The autumn colours, and gushing brook and waterfalls were fabulous.

Oh, and we stopped for coffee and cake...

Descending into Padley Gorge

Down at the bottom

Nearly back out

Once again, we had a fantastic week despite the rain which we mostly managed to avoid. Matlock is a little further south than we've normally been, but to be honest, nowhere's that far as to be unmanageable. Derwent Dam for instance was about a 45 minute drive. 

I love the Peak District. So many interesting places and superb walking to be had. If you haven't been, you should go. If you have, then you'll know...

We're back to Devon next year though, at a spot near Bideford, so that'll be a nice change.

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Lord of the Manor: A week in the Peak District

We're just back from a weeks family holiday in the Peak District. Until 2019, this trip was an annual occurrence, but after changing venue to North Devon in 2019 due to lack of our preferred accommodation availability and then a break for Covid in 2020, it's taken us until now to get back to Derbyshire.

Winster Hall dining room on Halloween

Our bedroom!
(Very creaky floorboards!)

Our base for the week was the impressively named Winster Hall, a three storey Grade II listed building dating back to the mid 1600's. Although it has clearly had work done (a nice kitchen and conservatory), it still retains much of it's old world charm and is an impressive building from the front. A large stone flagged, and dim dining room greets you as you enter through the solid wooden front door, draughty sash windows, creaky stairs and floorboards are par for the course. We even found some round pin electric sockets! It was however comfortable, well equipped and warm, and importantly able to accommodate up to 16 people (the most in our party at any one time was 15).

Situated between Matlock and Bakewell in the old lead mining town of Winster it was reasonably based for our break, although a little further south than we'd have liked, but not inconveniently so.

With a mix of ages from 6 to 73 and a range of mobility within the group, our activities necessary had to be adapted to suit. Days of 10 mile hikes across the peaks and valleys are probably behind (most of) us. A gentle amble at Carsington Water (although there wasn't actually much water in it!), and couple of miles along the Monsal Trail into Bakewell were comfortably flat, and punctuated as always by coffee stops.

Carsington Water reservoir - worryingly low on water

Bakewell

Later in the week, we were able to get into some more traditional walking as we completed circular trails around the Chatsworth Estate (plenty of deer to see), Birchen Edge and Stanton Moor, and although none were overly taxing or longer than about 4.5 miles, they definitely required walking boots, cake stops and raincoats.

Nelson's Monument on Birchen Edge

The Three Ships near Nelson's Monument
L-R: Victory, Defiance, Royal Soverin (sic)
The names are carved into the rocks

The Eagle Stone near Baslow Edge

The weather wasn't great, but one cataclysmic downpour at Chatsworth apart that soaked us to the skin in about a minute flat, we managed to avoid the wet stuff, although the sun was in generally short supply until our last day. The temperatures held up nicely, with just a hint of frost on the last day.

Chatsworth House

We enjoyed a couple of meals at the local inn, the friendly Miners Standard a short walk top the hill from Winster Hall, with what must have been a parliament of owls hooting madly in the dusk on our walk up. They'd probably do a better job than that other parliament.... 

The group by Wednesday

The Cork Stone, Stanton Moor

All in all, we had a hugely enjoyable week, and are already looking forward to returning to the Peak District next year.

There are more photos on my Flicr page in the Peak District 2022 Album.

Looking towards Matlock from Stanton Moor

Twitter: @Statto1927 

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