Wirksworth

Old lead mining workings west of Middleton

No lead is mined in Derbyshire any more but for a thousand years it was a vital resource. The Romans knew about it and Derbyshire lead was even exported to Rome and Pompeii. Little mining towns and villages grew up on the back of the lead mining industry - Bradwell, Stony Middleton, Tideswell and Wirksworth to name but four. They were characterised by a jumble of small mine workers' cottages - most of which still stand today even though the lead miners have all gone.

One day I really must visit the lead mining museum in Matlock Bath. I passed it yesterday on my way to Middleton-by-Wirksworth for a nice, long country walk in beautiful summery weather. From Middleton I headed westwards by a hillside that is still peppered with the evidence of mine workings - piles of stones and hollows and broken walls. The hillside was still being worked in the early nineteenth century.

Then onwards .past old limestone quarries and down into the valley past Arm Lees Farm then up the other side where I decided to veer away from the course of the public footpath to investigate an ancient tumulus in Field 40 on Perasons' Farm. The mound is now covered with nettles. I tarried there a while, close to what was probably a burial site - maybe four thousand years old though little seems to have been written about it.

To the left, the ancient tumulus on Pearsons' Farm

Down to the course of the former High Peak Raulway and then down Hopton Incline which for many years was the steepest piece of railway track in England at 1 in 14. Old steam trains often had to have two or three runs at it in order to make it to Hopton Top. I sat on a bench there, ate my apple and swigged one of my bottles of water.

Old railway cottage at Hopton Top

Then onwards through Hopton Tunnel before leaving the old railway track and striking out in a south westerly direction to Wirksworth, past old mine workings and quarries. Down The Dale to the charming town itself. On a hot July afternoon it looked quaint and lovely though I was very aware that the place was built on hard toil. Appearances certainly can be deceptive.

Church of St Mary the Virgin in Wirksworth
Below - an old Saxon stone found beneath the chancel in 1821.
It is approximately 1200 years old

It was half past three and schoolchildren were about. Time to get my camera back in its case before the two mile hike up the hill to Middleton. Several of these secondary schoolchildren were doing the same and I felt a pang of pity for them - having to do this laborious walk day after day. Back in Middleton I entered "The Rising Sun" where the charming barmaid provided me with a pint of thirst-quenching bitter shandy and a packet of Lincolnshire-made potato crisps.

It had been another super walk, filled with such wonderful sights. As well as visiting the lead mining museum in Matlock Bath, I really must return to Wirksworth in the not too distant future. Shirley would appreciate that little town too.

"The Rising Sun" in  Middleton

Proboscis

The Proboscis Monkey (Nasalis larvatus) is a medium-sized tree-loving primate that is found exclusively in the fast diminishing rain forests of Borneo. The male Proboscis Monkey is not only one of the largest monkeys in Asia but they are also one of the world's most distinctive mammals, having a long and fleshy nose and a large, swollen stomach. Although having slightly larger noses and a protruding stomach are defining features of the Colobine (Leaf) Monkey family, these features on the Proboscis Monkey are more than double the size of their closest relatives. The Proboscis Monkey today however, is extremely threatened in its natural environment with deforestation having a devastating impact on the unique habitats where the Proboscis Monkey is found.

The male Proboscis Monkey is significantly larger than the female measuring up to 76cm in height and weighing more than 20kg, both having a long tail which can easily be the same length as the body, which is used to help the Proboscis Monkey to balance whilst it is leaping through the trees. Adults are mainly pale orange to light brown in colour with a richer coloured head and shoulders and grey limbs and tail, and a light pink face. The protruding nose of the Proboscis Monkey develops with age with infants having more monkey-like noses and older mature males having larger and more bulbous ones. Although scientists are still unsure as to exactly why the nose of the Proboscis Monkey grows so big, it widely believed to be to do with attracting a female mate as the noses of females are much smaller.

Although the Proboscis Monkey is technically an omnivorous animal, the bulk of their diet is comprised of tough mangrove leaves which are pulled from surrounding trees. It is because of the fact that they are leaf-eating monkeys, that the Proboscis Monkey has a large and swollen stomach that is made up of chambers containing a special cellulose digesting bacteria that helps to break down the leaves. This is however, a very slow process and means that the Proboscis Monkey's stomach is often full and can contain up to a quarter of the individual's total body weight. The Proboscis Monkey supplements its diet by eating other plant matter including shoots, seeds and unripe fruits along with a passing insect on occasion and does so predominantly in the trees, preferring not to come down to the ground.

Today, the Proboscis Monkey is listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature as an animal that is endangered in its natural environment and could face extinction in the near future if better conservation measures are not put into place. Population numbers are thought to have dropped by up to 80% over the past 30 years with numbers continuing to decrease. There are thought to be around 7,000 Proboscis Monkeys left in the wild today and very few are found in captivity as they simply do not respond well to the artificial conditions.

Summertime

The Proclaimers in The Botanical Gardens

How time flies! It's almost ten years since we last saw The Proclaimers in concert. I blogged about it here.

We saw them again on Saturday evening in Sheffield's Botanical Gardens. The local Rotary Club had organised a series of evening concerts to raise money for charity. Imaginatively, they titled these evenings "Music in The Gardens"

It was a balmy summer's evening. I was in hiking shorts and my "Yorkshire Pudding" T-shirt and I was carrying two old deckchairs that I unearthed from our underhouse area. We hadn't sat on them in years.

Finding a good space with a nice view of the stage wasn't easy. Some concert goers had claimed extra large spaces and clearly resented the possibility of intruders even though they  can only have arrived minutes before. One miserable bloke said,"You're not going to sit there and block my view are you?" Obviously, not one of the Woodstock generation. Peace and love man!

A woman said, "You can't sit there! We're saving that space for friends!"but we squeezed in anyway and her "friends" never did arrive.

The Proclaimers were as professional, tight and entertaining as they had been in 2005. Their set included old favourites like "I'm on My Way" (made famous by the film "Shrek"), "Sunshine on Leith" (Which features in the film of the same name) and "I'm Gonna Be - 500 miles". They must have played these numbers hundreds of times.

Yes, they were brilliant with the twins from Auchtermuchty in Fife, Scotland - Craig and Charlie Reid  - supported ably by a drummer, lead guitarist and keyboard player. The crowd bounced along and flags were waved. Shirley was danciug like a teenager but curiously I felt rather detached - as if I wasn't truly in the mood for this very good concert in the gardens on such a lovely summer's evening.

Anyway, while watching, I snapped some more pictures:-

Dedicated to Gerald England

Craig Reid

Charlie Reid

This is one of their best known songs.Unashamedly delivered in a broad Scottish brogue, it speaks of Scottish emigration - "If you go will will you send back a letter from America?..."

Dartmoor

Bell over the main gate at Dartmoor Prison

Dartmoor is a national park in the far south west of England, Until last Monday it was an area that I had never explored. 

Before leaving the university in Exeter last Monday morning  I had mapped a ten mile walk I planned to undertake after visiting Princetown which is the location of the infamous Dartmoor Prison. This grim granite edifice was built in the early years of the nineteenth century - mostly to house American prisoners from The Forgotten War. It is still in use today.

I didn't begin my circular walk till half past two in the afternoon - parking in the hamlet of Jurston before looping up on to the moor itself. The highlight of this walk was discovering the stone row on Hurston Ridge. It runs for 143 metres and consists of two lines of ancient stones leading to the site of a cairn. There are ninety nine stones in total and it is very likely that the arrangement is over 4000 years old - first constructed when Dartmoor was probably forested.

Nobody knows for sure what the stone row was all about but one compelling argument suggests that it was to do with procession and the ritualistic honouring of  ancestors. There are numerous other very ancient sites on Dartmoor as well as more recent tin mine workings.

If you lived down there, so many walking adventures would be possible - preferably in clement weather - but the paths are not as well signposted as in Derbyshire and South Yorkshire. You would need to have your wits about you.

I just got a taste of Dartmoor - not the full menu - but it was delightful to be out there plodding through unfamiliar country and that haunting stone row will live long in my memory.

Dartmoor Prison seen from afar

High Jurston Farm - where I parked before my walk

The stone row on Hurston Ridge

Dartmoor ponies are semi-wild

Bennett's Cross

Allotment

Old stone weir and packhorse bridge in The Rivelin Valley

Sheffield has five rivers though some people might think of them as streams. In the eighteenth century and onwards through the nineteenth century, these rivers powered much of Sheffield's industry. It was in this city that silver plating first happened and where stainless steel was invented. For many years the name Sheffield was synonymous with fine cutlery and underpinning the city's historical expertise in metal working were our five rivers - The Sheaf, The Porter, The Loxley, The Don and The Rivelin.

Back in 1982, I rented an allotment in The Rivelin Valley. For those who may not have encountered the term "allotment" before, it was and is essentially a defined patch of ground where you can grow vegetables or perhaps keep chickens. My allotment had an area of about three hundred square yards and I cultivated it for six years before we moved to our present house which has a big garden at the rear and plenty of room for vegetable growing. The garden at the previous house was the size of a postage stamp.

My allotment was on Hagg Hill next to Rivelin Valley Road. The old man who rented it before me had built a home from home in the top corner of the plot. There was a brick chimney and brick foundations with various glazed window panels, meaning that the structure was half shed and half greenhouse. He had passed away in 1981, leaving various useful tools and other interesting items behind. That is where I found the old grindstone that I recently made the centrepiece of our new flower bed. I also found an old stone bottle which was once the property of The Barnsley Vinegar Company.

Back then all of the surrounding allotments were occupied - mostly by retired working class men from Walkley, Crookes and Hillsborough. A couple of them taught me a lot about successful vegetable cultivation and there was a lot of sharing and friendly banter. With much hard work I made my allotment productive. There were rows of potatoes, onions, beans, turnips, peas and cabbages as well as some soft fruit bushes and I grew mushrooms in plastic sacks that I kept in the shed. But in 1989 I left it all behind when we moved house.

I already knew that during the past twenty five years, my allotment and those surrounding it had fallen into disuse and that nature was reclaiming them.However, today, while walking along The Rivelin Valley, looking at the remains of old mills that once powered metal working enterprises, I decided to make a detour and return to the site of my old allotment if I could find it amidst the nettles and saplings, the long grasses and wild privet hedges.

An archaeologist would have a field day at those allotments. Anybody walking by today would never even guess that there had ever been allotments there. But I found the remains of the old shed - no glazed panels any more and the old Victorian pine table must have disintegrated but I knew exactly where the little fireplace had been and the steps up to the entrance and when I rooted around in the debris I found one of my mushroom sacks from twenty five years back and yoghurt pots in which I once grew seedlings and there's an old slate mantelpiece that I plan to rescue one day soon.

Time passes and what once was can fade away into distant memory leaving little evidence behind. The first time round I never snapped one picture of my old allotment. The contrast with today's scene would have been almost  remarkable:-

The foundations of the old shed

Nature claims back my vegetable garden

One of my old mushroom sacks
found under the debris

Rules

Where there is a swimming pool, there just have to be rules. For all swimming pool managers out there, I have compiled the ultimate list of swimming pool rules. You are welcome to copy it and to use it as you will as the safety of people around swimming pools is of paramount importance. So here we go then:-

• Swimmers must shower before entering the pool.
• No food or drink in the pool area.
• No diving.
• No bombing.
• Chewing gum is strictly forbidden
• Children must wear armbands or life jackets
• Skimpy bikinis are not allowed
• Follow instructions of the lifeguard on duty
• No running round the pool
• No shouting
• No ball games or inflatables allowed
• No urination in the pool
• No petting or kissing
• Women must wear rubber bathing caps
• No singing
• Breast stroke only - no freestyle
• No deliberate splashing of other users
• No atheists
• No body piercings or tattoos allowed
• No plasters or visible injuries
• No fat people
• No non-swimmers
• Nobody who watches "Loose Women" on TV
• No armpit hair 
• No dogs or other pets
• No Welsh people or French
• No getting wet
• No holding on to the sides of the pool
• No swimming.

Have fun!

By order of the management.

Boat

We drove back from Exeter last evening - four and a half hours in the summer heat with a halt for dinner in "The Swan" at Whittington near Worcester. I still need to blog about my rambling on Dartmoor but this morning, having just got up,  I must get on and do things like have a shower and water the garden which is also crying out for rehydration. In the meantime, I forgot to include the following picture in my last post. It was taken close to Turf Lock where the Exeter Canal meets The River Exe. It was the best photograph I took on my hike from Starcross to Exeter. This composition would not have been half as effective if the sky had been blue and clear. I am rather proud of it:-

Please click picture to enlarge.