Rowsley and Chatsworth House with Chris from Leeds

Another walk with Chris, my friend from the Leeds Asperger's Group. The weather was awful, it rained all day - I would have chosen to stay at home if it was just me who'd be walking.

As usual we met up at Fox House; Chris was waiting for me when the bus arrived. I got in the car and we drove down the hill to Grindleford...on our way to Rowsley. Chris mentioned that the car needed some petrol and so I said that there's a garage at Calver - there are actually two though. We pulled into the first of the garages but couldn't get to the petrol pump because a partially dismantled combined harvester was stuck in the way; completely forgetting about the much larger garage just a few hundred yards down the road at Calver Crossroads I directed Chris back the way we'd come, to the garage at Hathersage. My mind has been tired today; I've probably not been getting enough sleep - I had a thirty minute nap just before writing this blog post.

We arrived at the Peak Village Shopping Centre and parked there. The route I chose for us was to go upstream alongside the River Derwent to Calton Lees and then across the parkland to Chatsworth House, where I used the impressive toilets featuring tiles depicting various local scenes....I persuaded Chris to go and have a look too.

We then re-traced our steps and filed off towards Queen Mary's Bower where we sheltered beneath the arched Bridge leading to the gatehouse - sitting on some steps with our feet placed in the dried-out moat.

Our next destination was the pretty estate village of Edensor, where I photographed a charming display of high quality home produce (biscuits/jam/chutney/pickles) offered for sale, just placed on a grassy area a few yards from the house. Payment was by a honesty box: I've seen this in other Derbyshire villages too, Foolow and Sheldon come to mind...there might have been others.

We left the village by a flight of steep steps which leads to open grasslands. It was a steady climb up to the wood at the top of the ridge.

There was more open grassland at the other side of the wood and then a descent to the hamlet of Calton Houses.At this point I'd already decided to curtail our walk and take the shortest route back to the car - I was sick of the rain.

We continued down the valley using a farm track and then walked back along the river to Rowsley, using the same route as on the outbound journey. Chris didn't notice this until we had nearly reached the car.