June 12, 2015 - Eyam Hall, Haddon Hall and Home

Greetings All,

We headed out after breakfast to visit two properties before making our way home. The first stop was a National Trust property, Eyam Hall which is an unspoilt example of a gritstone Jacobean manor house. It was completed in 1672 by William Wright as a wedding gift for his second son, Thomas Wright. The hall has been in the Wright family for 9 generations with the last Wright moving out in 2013. The hall, still owned by the Wright family, is leased to the National Trust. The contents of the hall contain all the family history from family trees, portraits to house hold items. The interior has been adapted and evolved over the years to the needs of the family.

The picture on the left is one of the tapestries that hang on the wall in the tapestry room on the upper floor. The gardens though somewhat small for the era was lovely with vegetable patches and had a beautiful wildflower section in the middle.

Eyam, as a village, is noted for its outbreak of bubonic plague in 1665 when plagued-infected fleas were released into the village from a shipment of damp cloth that was received by the village tailor from a supplier in London. The villagers decided to isolate themselves, quarantining the village, and as such prevented the spread of the disease. The plague ran its course over 14 months killing 260 of 350 villagers. We did a short walk around the village, but did not do any of the walks that are available as time was short.

Our next stop was Haddon Hall whose origins date back to the 11th

century. William Peverel, the illegitimate son of William the Conqueror held the manor in 1087. It was acquired by Sir Richard de Vernon by his marriage to a Haddon Heiress in the 13th century and remained in the Vernon family until the death of Sir George Vernon in 1565.  Sir George's heir was his daughter, Dorothy who had eloped and married John Manners in 1563. The hall remains in the Manners family to this day.

The hall underwent major construction between the 15th & 17th centuries and in the 20th century John Manners the 9th Duke of Rutland made it a life's work of restoring the hall. The chapel which is in the oldest part of the hall is in very good condition considering the age of it. The paintings on the walls are still visible and depict life back in the day.

The Long Gallery as pictured on the left is from the 16th century. We spent a good hour exploring the house and then moving into the gardens. These were beautiful, terraced and walled in style. The scent of the roses was wonderful as we wandered around exploring and taking pictures. To see more pictures check out my Facebook wall or Fred's Flickr site www.flickr.com/photos/fredparkins.

Exploration done we headed off for home stopping first for lunch at the Devonshire Arms pub in the small village of Pilsley, just outside the Chatsworth farm shop. At the farm shop we bought some lovely oaked smoked  bacon and several types of sausages. We would have loved to buy more, but as  we did not have a cooler we were unsure of how things would keep as it was a 3 hour drive home (we were taking the back roads). Fred was also disappointed that he did not wait to purchase his beer at the farm shop as he could have gotten 6 for the price of 5. Such is life.

The last picture to the right is of lambs crossing the road on the Chatsworth estate as we headed through the estate to the farm shop.

We took the slower route home and enjoyed the beautiful country side.

Before I sign off this blog I would like to share a small anecdote
from Chatsworth. One of the beers Fred purchased was called the Gardener's Tap. The name for the ale was derived from the following story. When James Paine built the stables in the 1760s a brewery was added. Beer was brewed for the main house and the staff and was part of their wages until 1931.  Rather then carry heavy barrels to the house cellar, a lead pipe was sunk from the brew house through the garden to the cellar. In the 1950s it was decided to uproot the lead pipe for its salvage value. When tracing it through the first Duke's greenhouse, it was found that the gardener's had tapped into it. Someone discovered that that the brewers tipped the wink to the gardeners when the ale was flowing down so they could 'borrow' the odd pint or two.

We hope you have enjoyed this segment of our travels.

Cheers,

Sandy & Fred

June 11, 2015 - Chatsworth House

Greetings All,

We headed off after breakfast to visit Chatsworth House the estate of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire. It is a Tudor mansion built in 1560's by Bess of Hardwick in a quadrangle layout. The picture on the right is the entrance to the stables and carriage house, which now houses a restaurant, a cafe and shops. In the stable courtyard there was plenty of seating to relax on as well as a fountain. As we arrived before the house and gardens were open to the public (not until 11:00 am), we strolled up to the stables first as we had about a half an hour to kill.

We decided to do the gardens first as it had turned out to be a lovely sunny warm day and wanted to see it before it got too hot. The gardens are a complex blend of features from six different centuries and covers 105 acres. We explored only a small portion of the gardens, what I would consider the main gardens that were around house. The gardens consist of parkland, groves, various ponds, woods, an arboretum as well as those we visited. The areas we visited were the kitchen garden, the cottage and sensory gardens, forms of growth, Paxton's Rock Garden, The Cascade and the Willow Tree and Emperor fountains.

The current Duke and Duchess have added to the gardens contemporary art work or sculptures. The picture on the left is a sculpture called "Revelation" by Angela Conner. When closed looks like a onion and is operated by water hydraulics' of some sort. We spent a good 1 1/2 hours exploring and taking pictures. The Cascade, a set of stone steps over which water flows from a set of fountains at the top was originally built in 1696 then rebuilt on a grander scale in 1701. The stone steps are of varying textures giving the water different sounds as it flows. In 1703 the Cascade House, designed by Thomas Archer, was added at the top. As you enter the gardens there is signage about watching your children and keeping off the water features. At the cascade there was a parent allowing her child to play in the cascade. We were very annoyed as we were trying to get a nice shot of the feature from the base looking up. The kid fell in the cascade and got soaked. Served her right! We did, however, get our photo right after she fell. To see more pictures of the gardens you can go to my Facebook wall or Fred's Flickr site.

After walking around the gardens we stopped for some light refreshment at the garden café and a little rest. Now rested we entered the house. There are 126 rooms in Chatsworth House of which 100 are closed to the public. This allows the family to live privately while the house is open to the public.

The family's rooms are situated such that they can move about without having to cross the public. The painted hall remains the focus of the home still and the picture on the left is the ceiling of the painted hall done for the first Duke. Each duke over time has left his own stamp on the premises either by rearranging the rooms, changing their uses or their layouts. The current Duke and Duchess have added contemporary art throughout the house but have retained the original rooms they inherited. I found it rather interesting that in the staterooms or bedrooms we explored those rooms designated for men have large beds while the women's beds were small in comparison, makes one wonder what shenanigans the men got up to. We spent a good two hours walking through the house.


We next headed back up to the stables to have a late lunch in the restaurant and we sat outside in the courtyard enjoying the beautiful sunny weather.

We both enjoyed a tomato, mozzarella and parma ham salad with a carafe of red wine.

We had a very relaxing lunch then headed to the gift shop to pick up some locally brewed beers, ciders and wine to take home.

We had intended to visit Haddon Hall as well but Chatsworth had so much to offer that we took our time and enjoyed our day here. The last picture is of Chatsworth house taken as we were driving out.

Ta ra for now,

Sandy & Fred

June 10, 2015 - Peak District

Greetings All,

We were off on a mini get away to the Peak District as the weather had finally turned nice. We took a direct and quick route to Ashbourne, which was our starting point for our drive through the Peak District and Peak District National Park. At Ashbourne we stopped to stretch our legs and after a quick walk through the town we were off once more into Peak District National Park, which took us through some beautiful scenery and lovely little villages. The picture on the left was taken just outside Ilam, a very tiny village. The picture on the right is of one of the lovely cottages in the village.


After a short stop in the village we continued on along narrow winding roads through the park and stopped in Buxton, a spa town. It has the highest elevation of all market towns in the UK and is known as the gateway to The Peak District National Park. The town itself has been in existence since Roman times but really came into prominence in the 18th century when it was developed by the Dukes of Devonshire, with a resurgence a century later when the Victorians were drawn to the reputed healing properties of the water. Built on the River Wye, Buxton's history is that of a spa town due to its geothermal spring which rises at a constant temperature of 28ºC. The spring waters are piped to St Ann's Well (a shrine to St. Anne since medieval times) near the town centre.

The picture on the left is of the town hall which is at the top of the town. We stopped and had lunch here and walked around some of the town before heading off to continue our drive through Peak District National Park.  Our next stop was Bakewell, home of the famous bakewell tart. This is a lovely market town and we really enjoyed our stroll around the town. Here we enjoyed an ice-cream cone while taking in the sites. The picture on the right is of the original bakery in the town.
From here we headed off to our hotel which was in Chesterfield and right in the centre of town. We get ourselves settled in then headed out to find a place for supper. We got a very big surprise. Everything in the town centre shuts down at 6:00 pm, even the Burger King. We stopped in a pub and were informed that they stopped serving food at 7:00 pm, unbelievable, we have never experienced this before. So we finally settled for a Domino's take away pizza and Fred got a bottle of wine from the hotel. Not the best pizza but not the worst either. So make note if you are ever visiting, Chesterfield is not a place to stay. The only point of interest we saw was  the parish church St Mary and All Angels which has a crooked spire as pictured on the left.

Cheers for now,

Sandy & Fred

June 3, 2015 - North Wales - Trevor & Llangollen

Shwmae All,

The weather finally turned and the sun had arrived. We decided to head out to explore the village Trevor, Pontcysyllte Aqueduct (a World Heritage site) and Llangollen. Our first stop, the Pontcysyllte Aqueduct is the tallest navigable aqueduct in the world and transports the Llangollen Canal across the Dee Valley. It was designed by canal engineers William Jessop and Thomas Telford. It was built by Telford, starting in 1795 and was completed in 1805. The aqueduct took 200 men to build it using local materials. There are 18 piers of stone that are partly hollow and tapered at their summit to keep the aqueduct as light as possible. The canal's iron trough is 1007 feet long, 11feet 10 inches wide and 5 feet 3 inches deep.

The joints were sealed with welsh flannel and lead dipped in boiling sugar. The cost back in the 1800's was £47,000. It holds 1.5 million litres of water that is fed from the Horseshoe Falls. The aqueduct is a testament to the ingenuity that forged the industrial revolution. It is part of a 45 mile canal system that used horse drawn barges to transport goods until the steam engine took over.  It is still in use today with 15,000 boats and 200,000 pedestrians crossing it yearly. The aqueduct was drained in 2009 for inspection and maintenance work. Remarkably only 5 of the original bolts needed to be replaced, and the replacements were made using the old skills from the 1800's.

We walked across the aqueduct and were stopped halfway by a lady asking whether we were Canadian, as I had on my jacket with a Canadian flag. Her and her husband are British who moved to Burlington, Ontario in the mid 1970's and were on vacation visiting family and friends. We had a nice chat before moving on. I am not afraid of heights but I did have a vertigo moment on the aqueduct. I am thinking it must be an age thing as I have now experienced this a couple of times over the last 6 years. However, it was not going to stop me. After re-crossing the aqueduct, we stopped and enjoyed a drink at the Telford Inn before heading into Llangollen for lunch and a walk about the town.

The picture on the left is of the River Dee that passes through the town. Llangollen takes its name from the Welsh "Llan" meaning a religious settlement for St. Collen, a 6th century monk who founded a church by the river. Llangollen's main industry is now tourism but it still relies on farming from around the town. We parked at a long term parking lot which allowed us to have a nice river walk into the town proper. We wandered around looking for a place to have lunch but the kitchens of couple of pubs we came across were closed, no pub lunches on a Wednesday. We eventually stopped at the Cottage Tea Rooms for our late lunch as they served alcohol and had my favourite meal a "Ploughman's Lunch", which has been hard to come by in recent years. The owner Ahmet mades us feel very welcome and chatted with us for some time about being Canadian, where we lived now and how we came to visit Llangollen. We both had ordered a large glass of wine and the glasses brought to us were filled to the rim. The owner said the pourer liked us.  It turned out that the restaurant had just been taken over by Ahmet and his family and they had only been opened for 3 weeks. The portions were very generous, my ploughman's consisted of two large wedges of cheddar cheese, 2 large thick slices of ham, a whole apple, pearl pickled onions, cranston pickle, celery sticks, a baguette, butter and coleslaw. So much food that I gave Fred some ham and cheese to taste. Fred enjoyed a steak baguette. The only thing neither of us ate was the coleslaw as it was typical of the British style of making it, heavy on the dressing. I told Ahmet when he asked us how we enjoyed our meal that we did not like the coleslaw and why. He asked how I would make it and I told him of my recipe which I wrote down for him to try.

Tummies well satisfied we headed up to the canal that still has work horses pulling barges along the canal. There was a small stable for the horses and Stan was resting. He came over to me immediately and I tentively stroked his nose. As some of you may know I am afraid of horses as I was thrown from one in my teen years when I was riding bare back. We had a good laugh as I am not a very good Indian. We thought we were too late to see the horse drawn barges at work but as we walked along the canal to work off some lunch we were in luck. Taffy was pulling a barge with tourists. Pictures taken we now decided to head off for the last bit of exploration on our way home.

Horseshoe Pass is a mountain pass in Denbighshire, north-east Wales. The road runs around the valley in a horseshoe shape giving it its the name and reaches a maximum height of 1,368 feet. The route here dates back to 1811. The picture on the left is looking down into the valley. The last picture is one of the many sheep that are on the roadside sometimes causing problems for drivers.

The pass is sometimes also closed due to snow or landslides. None of which was an issue for us today. We headed back to Liverpool mostly by way of back roads taking in the lovely landscapes.
We had a wonderful day exploring nearby North Wales and hope you enjoy this posting.

Hwyl fawr,

Sandy & Fred