Peak District

Last weekend we decided to get out of town and see what England in autumn had to offer (pics). We travelled up to the Peak District National Park, about 2 hours north of us between Nottingham and Manchester. National Parks here are funny, and very little of the land is actually owned by the government: they’ve found it much easier to just declare private land “National Park” and not have to go through the messy financial details of actually buying the land properly.

We went up by train early Saturday, and got a bus in Derby that stops at all the little towns throughout the park – that was a beautiful drive, seeing the rolling green and gold hills and the charming (albeit touristy) villages. We stayed in Bakewell, “the capital of the Peak District” because it was pretty central and had a number of hiking trails within walking distance of the towne centre. Bakewell is famous for Bakewell pudding, which was apparently invented there hundreds of years ago by the local tavern keeper. Lauren was intent on trying this even after we saw the recipe which called for 12 eggs and the yolks of 4 more, baked onto a crust covered in strawberry jam. Let’s just say this is one cultural experience you can skip when you visit!

Despite serious failures in local cuisine, Bakewell is a quaint traditional English town—er, towne—filled with stone structures and brick streets, and has some amazing countryside around it. After checking into our B&B, we spent Saturday afternoon hiking along an old rail line turned trail to the Monsal Viaduct, large, striking stone arch viaduct in a picturesque valley. We were amazed by the public “trails” that you had to take to get to the viaduct. Often, the trail would leave the old train line to take you through fields of sheep or cattle, with reminders at the gate to close it behind you and not let some poor farmer’s livelihood escape. One field had a sign that said, “Danger. Bull running with cattle.” It was a bit different than hiking in the US!

On Sunday we hiked to the awesomely huge estate of the Duke of Derbyshire, used as Mr. Darcy’s house in the recent Pride and Prejudice movie. This leads to some name confusion, as tourists call it Pemberley after the movie and locals (and the Duke who still lives there) call it Chatsworth. Apparently you can see a dress worn by Keira Knightley if you pay the £6 to go in, which being a total rip-off, we didn’t. The gardens were really cool though, with amazing fountains and statues. The landscaper in Victorian times (everything here happened in Victorian times) was a real go-getter, and he built a giant boulder garden, made a lake 400ft above the house laying piping for all of the fountains, and build an enormous glass green-house heated by coal supplied by underground tunnels.

The whole weekend was exhausting, hiking (or walking, as it’s called here) around 20 miles, and only getting the briefest peek at the beauty of this “park.” Thankfully our B&B was charming and cozy, run by a couple who bought it about a year ago. Between the full English breakfast Sunday and fish and chips in a pub Saturday night, it was a proper English weekend. It was nice to get away from the city and see some of the country, now that we are heading in to 3 months of near-total darkness and rain (hooray!). At least we’ll have our photographs for the winter to remind us that the sun does come out in England, and it is pretty nice when it does.

A rare artifact of historical life in the Peak District. See other pictures from our Bakewell aventure here.