Although only an hour or so from my sister's house in Bollington, I'd never been across to Dovedale and so thought it was about time I jolly well went!! It also happens that I was doing a photography tutorial in the Peak District the next day, so it was a good excuse to come and recce the area and find out how long it would all take. Wow, what a beautiful place!
I'm guessing that many of you may well have already been, as it is one of the most-visited places in England, but if you haven't been yet, I can only say "go... as soon as ever you can!!!" It's really, really lovely!
Having parked in the car park at Thorpe, first stop (after the toilets of course) was the little shop for a homemade ice cream. Mmmmm, strawberries and cream and it was so much creamily dreamily silkily (eh?) gorgeousness! Yum. Yum, yum, yum. Mmmmm, guess what? It was soooo good! Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, we were out for a walk along the Dove valley to Milldale.
The path follows the river all the way and twists through the most incredible landscape.
Caves, pinnacles, arches, and all kinds of limestone formations (er, at least I think it's limestone, apologies if I get that wrong!!); naturally weathered geological sculptures that are breathtaking both in scale and beauty. Tourists have been flocking here for years, and so much has been written both in poetry and prose, and artists have sketched, painted and drooled over the landscape ever since people first started sketching, painting and drooling over a landscape! There was a story attached to a sign halfway along the path to Milldale, relating the story of a hapless couple who decided to climb out of the valley on horseback.
Oops, bad choice! A hair-raising adventure indeed; the luckless... or lucky depending on which way you look at it... female was saved from death, quite literally, by her hair!! I didn't really believe the story, so have looked it up now I'm home and it turns out to be true! If you visit peaklandheritage.org.uk you can read a lot more detail about the story, but I'll show you some extracts from the letter Miss Laroche wrote to her mother in 1761. It's a story that Jane Austen would have been proud of... well, the old and rather chubby Dean would have to be replaced by a younger and more swarthy companion, but otherwise, it's straight out of the pages of a period novel... or from the script of a BBC period drama!!!
To set the scene... it is 1761 and a party of gentlefolk set out to explore the Dove Valley and to dine by the riverside. Leaving their equipage at the top in the lush meadows above the cliffs, the party wandered down on foot. They dined at 5, as is right and proper, and then started out to re-join the party at the top of the cliffs. The Rev. Mr Langton, Dean of Clogher in Ireland was rather old and rather rotund, and decided to return on horseback. Young Miss Laroche complained of feeling tired and was persuaded to mount in front of the Dean upon his steady old horse. All seemed well at first, but I'll let Miss Laroche tell the rest in her own words!
"Prepare yourself my dear Mother to hear a tale that will make the stoutest tremble and acknowledge the wonderful hand of God".
It's no surprise to imagine that the horse travelled faster than the rest of the party who were on foot, and very soon they found themselves separated from the group and accidentally upon the wrong path.
"I began to be afraid, we stopped but saw nobody and when we were within 8 or 10 yards of the top I was seized with a horror of it being almost perpendicular. I expressed my fear and the poor Dean bid me rely on him that he would carry me safe...
but God Almighty for our presumption hurled us down... I rolled and was dashed from rock to rock... when within a few yards of the bottom a furze bush so entangled my hair that it stopped me and I hung by it...
I have broke no limbs - my stays preserved my stomach and breasts the other parts of my body bruised as you may imagine... I was blind for 2 days and my head the worse... My face mends very fast, they say I shall not be disfigured. The poor Dean though alive has very little chance of recovery, he is still at Ashborn being old and bulky though he did not fall half so far as I did and good ground comparatively. N.B. The Dean died at four the next morning - he never spoke after he was found".
If you read the (very) old guide by W. Bott, written in 1800, ('A Description of Buxton'... or a new Guide), it tells that happily "The horse was more fortunate than the riders, for tho it rolled to the bottom of the precipice, the only injury it received from the fall, was a few bruises on its sides".
Mr Bott then goes on to say that "I would therefore advise the company that resort to Dovedale, to walk up the dale, and send their horses to meet them at the top, which is near New Inn turnpike, fifteen miles from Buxton".
Very good advice, but having no horses, no stays to preserve my stomach, fairly short hair and not knowing where New Inn turnpike was, we settled for a cup of tea at Milldale and returned to walk back the way we'd come.
I don't usually enjoy straight walks so much, preferring circulars where the scenery changes, but this walk is so incredibly different when viewed from the opposite direction! It actually feels like you're in a different place altogether. Quite bizarre!
Incredibly pretty though. On the way out, we'd noticed that there were tree stumps with coins bashed into them,
and saw several more on the way back. It seems every available stump is fair game for a penny or two! They also make handy perches for birdies and boxing bugs!!
It was fairly near to this stump that we bumped into Paul and Margaret, totally by accident and totally, shockingly , wonderfully unexpectedly! You may remember Roxy the Husky that our Hogy fell in love with in Lincolnshire? Well, he darted off in pursuit of a curly fluffy tail that looked so much like Roxy; in fact, I was within a breath of saying how much she looked like Roxy when the chap holding her lead turned around. It was Paul. We stood open-mouthed and staring at each other for a jaw-dropping surprised few seconds before leaping into the hellos and the "what the... ?'s".
Margaret had chosen that moment to have a stop for the necessaries (ladies will know what I mean), up the slope behind a bush, and she shrieked when Paul said who he'd found!! She came running down the hill, doing up her trousers (ok, so now gents will probably know what I mean as well), and gave me the biggest hug I've had in ages! It was so blooming lovely and wonderful to see them there. So unexpected but so perfect! So there we are, surprises for us and a hair-raising adventure for Miss Laroche (who, in true Jane Austen style, went to recover at Bath where she met her hero and married him to live happily ever after!). What a fantastic day out. Perfick!!
Rebecca, x
http://www.rtphotographics.co.uk/
rebecca@rtphotographics.co.uk
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