I travelled to Fox House today, somewhere easy to reach on public transport. I certainly wasn't the only one, a large group of people also got off the bus with me - they weren't members of a local Sheffield walking group...they all arrived at the bus station at the same time and so were probably on a weekend residential course.
I rushed down to Longshaw to stay ahead of the crowd and made my way over to the pond, and then down through the woods.
I walked a short distance along a street of expensive detached houses at Nether Padley and then took a footpath down to the church and the bridge over the River Derwent at Grindleford.
When I'm wanting to go south from here I usually take the path that goes across the fields at the back of the houses, but today I decided to walk down the road hoping to find something interesting to point my camera at.
All I found was this pretty cottage - not as pretty as the first one though.
I continued for about a mile, taking the closed-off road to Eyam and found a path that was new to me, going through Stoke Wood. It was quite a bit longer but I had to go and investigate, especially as it's not shown on the map.
It was busy at the Riley Graves on the way in to Eyam, a large family group by the look of it. I didn't wait for them to move on since it looked like they'd be quite a while.
Eyam was quite busy too.
At Eyam Hall I turned left and found the path that goes down through the overgrown quarry into Middleton Dale. I crossed the busy road and then headed up the road at the other side to reach some derelict and ugly industrial buildings at the top, at a location called by three names, Cavendish Mill, Burnt Heath, or Glebe Mines...the current sign at the roadside says ' Glebe Mines.'
I continued down Black Harry Lane, a bridleway, then climbed up the other side of the valley towards Longstone Edge. The descent towards Great Longstone is lovely; I kept stopping and turning around to enjoy the view. I didn't visit the main part of the village, I just walked down Longreave Lane where there are a couple of dozen houses located about half a mile east of the rest of the village.
It was an easy and familiar end to the walk, finishing at Bakewell.
About a mile and a half from Bakewell I had to walk around the edge of a large field of rapeseed though. The actual path was supposed to go right through the crop but I wasn't going anywhere near it; it's horrid stuff, I hate it, it makes me cough and sneeze and always ruins my clothes.
The final photograph I took today depicts a colourful piece of modern art propped up against a gatepost not very far from Bakewell; so, is a photograph of a piece of art a piece of art itself?
