Views around Castleton

Today we headed from York down to Bakewell where we will stay for one night before heading to Cambridge. The day was looking pretty stormy when we went for a walk, but there were only a few sprinkles during the day, quite surprising.

Our first stop of the day was Chesterfield, where we parked in the shopping centre and then walked around from there. The main attraction of Chesterfield is the church, or more specifically the church’s spire. Its not quite straight, well it’s not really straight at all. You could see it coming into town, and it does make quite a sight.

From Chesterfield we headed for the main attraction of the day Chatsworth House, another day, another house and garden to look through. We started with the garden, which was enormous. While it was all very impressive the maze was the most fun and took some time to get through. After a while exploring the gardens we looked to the house. We purchased an audio tour, and made our way in. The house had a large number of rooms open, and the audio tour covered just the right balance of history and details of the furniture etc. Overall Chatsworth was one of the better houses that we have visited.

After Chatsworth we headed for the hills, and the village of Eyam. When we arrived Eyam Hall was closed, but we had a look around the streets and read some of the history of the town. Including lovely places like Plague Cottages…

To end the days site seeing we went to Castleton, and walked from the town up to Peveril Castle. The hill was very steep, and we had a few stops on the way up, but it was all worth it for the view. The castle is a ruin and it wasn’t that interesting, but the views really were spectacular. From here it was back to Bakewell, and our B&B for the evening. Bakewell has 2 ‘Original Bakewell Tart’ companies, so we had to try it for dinner – it took a few goes to find a restaurant that was serving dinner, at a reasonable price, and had the tart for dessert, but we found one and it was yummy!

(Andrew)