Kugel

Next to the main car park at Carsington Water, is the Visitor Centre, with its restaurant, shop and exhibition. Attached, is a small courtyard with a selection of shops and the Kugel Stone.

The Kugel Stone is a one tonne ball of solid granite which has a diameter of 90cm and rests in a socket into which is pumped a thin film of water. The water lubricates the Kugel, holding it suspended just above the socket. The double pump supplies water at two different speeds which combine to create 1.2 bars of pressure (17.5 pounds per square inch) and cause the Kugel to rotate slowly. The force of the water carrying the weight of the stone is such that the Kugel can easily be encouraged to spin by pushing with just one hand. It is normal to see the Kugal surrounded by visitors all waiting their turn to make the heavy ball spin, and fun to see the expressions on the faces of little children when they succeed in moving something so big.

Thinking about it, the movement of the Kugel Stone is clear testimony to the power of water.

Incidentally, Kugel is a German word meaning 'ball' and the one at Carsington is not unique. Similar granite ball fountains are on show at such places as the Kennedy Space Centre (where the sphere is engraved with the Constellations) and the Science Museum of Virginia (which is the largest in the world and resembles a globe). 

The sphere is always honed from granite, but may range in diameter from 1 foot to 10 feet. 

Watersports

Carsington Water also offers plenty of opportunity for watersports, with a dedicated centre. They are approved by the British Canoe Union and the Royal Yacht Association and offer courses in a range of disciplines. This is where Mark came to take his 2 star paddlesport qualification. Next spring, Ben and I intend to follow suit. I really fancy the idea of spending two full days in a kayak, learning new skills and completing a lap of the lake.

From here you can also buy a day fishing ticket or try out the climbing wall. (My boys laugh quietly at the size of the climbing wall, but it's good for the youngsters.)

On a different note, if you didn't see my plea on Saturday, I wonder if I could ask you to consider voting for a blogging friend who has had two photos shortlisted in a Yorkshire Landscapes competition. Click here to see the photograph which she believes is her strongest contender. If you like it, please vote for it. This is her blog, which I thoroughly enjoy reading every day.

Thank you :)

Sunlight by the Water

I loved the way the light was shining through the trees and reflecting off the water.

And it seemed appropriate, on a day when so much is focussed on things of darkness, to post photos which remind us that the light is greater by far than the darkness.

John ch 1 v 4-5

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.

Habitats and a hide

As part of the construction of Carsington Water, Severn Trent made full provision for the protection and development of wildlife habitats.

According to the Reservoir website, there have been over 215 species of bird recorded visiting the site and 30 species of mammal, including

Harvest Mice, Water Shrew, Water Vole, Red Deer, Whiskered Bat and evidence of visiting Otters.

http://www.moretoexperience.co.uk/server.php?show=nav.6016

Bat and bird boxes abound...

and all around the Water, Rangers have developed reed beds, wildflower meadows, hedgerows, ponds, woodlands and other habitits specifically designed to attract and provide homes for British wildlife.

In order to educate and involve visitors in conservation, there are information noticeboards around the paths, identifying native species and the habitats they prefer. There is also a Wildlife Centre constructed of wood and held together entirely by the weight of the turf roof; not a nail or bolt in sight. To supplement this, there are hides for watching birds.

By the time we reached this one, the afternoon was passing by and everywhere had become quiet. We spent a very peaceful half hour watching a selection of ducks, geese, cormorants and lapwings while drinking coffee and munching Jelly Babies.

Normally, the water level is higher and laps almost up to the hide, but the early summer was very dry this year and the Reservoir is still recovering.

The windows open, so we were able to look down the Water and enjoy the changing light.

It was very peaceful.

Spot the sheep

These sheep were grazing in the pastures alongside Carsington Water. I think the breed is a Jacob.

Apart from being uncommonly attractive, Jacob sheep have a number of attributes which make them good livestock. They are hardy, overwintering outside and being resistant to many of the diseases which commonly afflict sheep; they are prolific breeders with a high lamb survival rate and good mothering instincts and they also produce high quality wool which is excellent for spinning and weaving.

Personally, I just want to pick one up and cuddle it!

Carsington Water

Officially opened by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 1992, Carsington Water, 16 miles north of Derby, is the ninth largest reservoir in Britain with a capacity of 7,800 million gallons. That's enough water to keep one person supplied for 500,000 years. It's deepest point is equivalent to seven double decker busses (31m) and the surface area comparable to the area covered by 700 football pitches. It is possible to walk the perimeter of the Water on paths and tracks; a total distance of around eight miles.

The reservoir was constructed to boost the storage capacity of the East Midlands area of the Severn Trent Water Authority by 10%, and currently supplies water to three million people across three counties. It does this by drawing water from the River Derwent during times of high rainfall and returning water to the river when levels drop. The water for treatment and drinking is actually taken from the Derwent. Carsington acts as a giant regulator.

Thinking back, it seems odd to remember a time when the Reservoir was not here, but it is actually still relatively new. Its advent has made a significant impact on the area, bringing in large numbers of people who would never have come here before the Water was constructed. There is something about a body of water which draws people in.

Unlike some other reservoirs, this construction did not require the moving of any settlements; only the demolition of two farm buildings, a fact which was part of the rational for the choice of site. Oddly enough, some of the land submerged belonged to my uncle and aunt's dairy farm (though the farm itself was above the water line) and I remember helping to pull up yarrow from the pasture in preparation for the cows being moved in to graze. (Yarrow will make a cow's milk taste bitter). I always find it slightly weird to think that I have walked on land which is now submerged in so much water. 

Cricket

When we completed our walk and arrived back in Alstonefield, the yard sale was all cleared away, the Institute urns were emptied out and the village had returned to its usual state of peaceful quiet.

But, they were playing cricket!

Quintessentially English, cricket is one of those games with silly names for positions and quirky rules which can make it very confusing for the uninitiated. So, in an attempt to make things a little more clear, I am posting this helpful guide from the London Weekend Television  programme 'Mind Your Language' c1977:


Foreigners' guide to cricket
"You have two sides, one out in the field and one in. Each man that's in the side that's in goes out, and when he's out he comes in and the next man goes in until he's out.

When they are all out, the side that's out comes in and the side that's been in goes out and tries to get those coming in, out. Sometimes you get men still in and not out.When a man goes out to go in, the men who are out try to get him out, and when he is out he goes in and the next man in goes out and goes in.


There are two men called umpires who stay out all the time and they decide when the men who are in are out. When both sides have been in and all the men have been out, and both sides have been out twice after all the men have been in, including those who are not out, that is the end of the game."


There! Crystal!

PS: A note for those who do not remember Mind Your Language:

The programme was a sitcom set in a school and focusing on adult students learning English as a Foreign Language. It aired from 1977 - 1979 and was directed by Stuart Allen.

Virginia Creeper

You can tell it's autumn.

Virginia Creeper is not particularly special - crawling its way up the sides of buildings like the spreading tendrils of a spider's web - until the autumn, when suddenly it comes into its own and makes everyone sit up, take note and realise how wonderful it truly is.

Also known as the five leaf ivy, the Parthenocissus quinquefolia is native to the eastern North American continent and can climb up to 30 metres in the wild, gripping onto surfaces with its small suckers. Because it uses suckers, rather then invasive roots, it is believed to cause little damage to the walls upon which it climbs, making it a popular plant for adding interest to an otherwise featureless spot, such as the bulk of this gable end.

The Virginia Creepers I remember best are from two significant places in my adult life. The first was from my student days, where one end of the main administative block on my campus, known as College Main, was completely covered in this plant. The deep red and burgundy, spreading like a fire across the pale grey stone of the building, was a magnificant display each year and something I will always remember with a great deal of affection.

The second place was a house in Old Trafford, which had a small spread of Virginia Creeper above a window, peeping out over a barbed wire topped wall. This was a much less impressive show, but one I much appreciated in the dense urban environment.

Country 'cottage'

Whilst I wouldn't actually like to live here (because it's in the bottom of a valley, rather than on a hill), I did look at this house with rather a lot of envy as we walked past. It's a gorgeous mixture of traditional stone cottage and sympathetic extension and is obviously very well cared for, with its weedless flower garden, neat dry stone walls and smart front door. It was also sending out the most gorgeous smell of woodsmoke; a smell which immediately transports me back to days of my childhood.

Stone barns

I find stone barns extremely appealing: tucked away in the corners of field, or sometimes slap-bang in the middle, in various states of repair, looking in harmony with their envionment!

These ones were all around the area of the Dove valley. Enjoy!

Belted Galloway

Above the dale, we came across this herd of cows.

This is a primarily beef breed, called Belted Galloway. The breed originates in the Galloway region of southern Scotland and is quite hardy, surviving well on upland pastures or moorland. They are a relatively rare breed, which were included on the UK Rare Breed Survival Trust's watch list after the foot and mouth epidemic of 2001, and remained there up until 2007 when they were considered sufficiently recovered (having reached 1,500 registered breeding females). They continue to thrive with a total 1,000 new registrations of heifers last year.

They have their own society The Belted Galloway Cattle Society, which keeps records of cattle numbers and enables the registering of a cow as pedigree. The Society currently has over 500 members.

The Belted Galloway can be black, dun or red in colour, but all have the distinctive white band. Apparently, they are renowned for being friendly. We certainly found them so!

PS: A heifer is a young cow which has not yet calved.

Fungus

Fungi are a group of living organisms which include mushrooms, toadstools and moulds. They come in all sorts of weird and wonderful shapes, sizes and colours; some edible, some a rare and exotic delicacy, some hallucinogenic, some medicinal, others deadly poisonous.

They feed by absorbing nutrients from their environment, and reproduce using spores, or by growth straight out of the parent plant.

At this time of the year, they are at their most prolific, loving the cooler, damper conditions which autumn brings and feasting on the nutrients produced by rotting leaves. I have a couple of healthy crops growing in my garden at present! One of them on my lawn :/

This fungus was growing on a felled log by the side of the river path. I have no idea what kind it is. Can anyone educate me?

Enclosures

Climbing up out of the Dove gorge, we emerged into a network of  fields. I love to see the quirky shapes of the small enclosures, surrounded by the dry stone walls which sometimes follow the contours of the land and sometimes seem to fight against them.

Enclosure of the land mainly occured around the beginning of the nineteenth century and led to much more intensive farming of the area, mainly by sheep. Over the last century, this has declined with the introduction of cattle. Part of the reason for this was the coming of the railways, which opened up milk markets to the cities. The Tissington Line, for example, was used for the daily transportation of Derbyshire milk to  Finsbury Park in London!

Dairy farming also led to the establishment of cheese factories. I love stilton cheese, with it's tasty blue veins (stinky cheese as my friend calls it). Until recently, there was a stilton cheese factory and shop at Hartington, close to the Dove valley. Sadly, it has now closed and even the local Dovedale Blue is made in Staffordshire, rather than Derbyshire! In fact, we were trying to think of any cheese now manufactured in our county and could actually identify none! Sadness!!

Ironically, going back to sheep (which is somewhere near where I started), the National Trust have reintroduced sheep into the Dove valley in order to control the rapidly growing shrubbery which was threatening to overwhelm the wildflower species. There are plenty of sheep in my photo too :)

Ilam Rock

Around 350 million years ago, the whole of this area was covered by a tropical sea. Just as in such seas today, there were lagoons and coral reefs. The sea creatures which lived in these seas are responsible for the limestone from which the landscape is now formed; their fossilised remains being compressed over millions of years to form this sedimentary rock. Fossils are not too difficult to find around the White Peak; especially crinoids, brachiopods and goniatites. In Derbyshire, broken crinoid stems go by the name of the Derbyshire Screw, because they look like wood screws embedded in the rock. They are an easy find. I remember taking a class to the Stone Centre near Wirksworth and the children finding dozens of them.

The deep sided valleys were gorged out by melt water after the two ice ages but some of the limestone formed very hard reefs which still rise as hills or pinacles, such as this one, named Ilam Rock after the nearby village. 

Impressive from the front, Ilam Rock becomes even more so as the thinness of the leaning edge is seen

Of course, it is popular with climbers, as are the other pinnacles and reefs in the area. There are around nine recognised routes up Ilam Rock with a range of outdoor grades. The fragmentary nature of limestone means that climbers need to take particular care though, both to protect the rock itself and also to ensure personal safety, especially when anchoring. 

Holes

The White Peak area of Derbyshire is porous! Water soaks away through the rock and there are rivers around here which disappear into swallow holes, so called because the water is swallowed up and runs for a while through underground channels, only to reappear further downstream. While this is not true of the Dove, there are a number of features in the area formed by the erosive power of water over long ages of time, one of which is caves.

Like these, along the gorge from Milldale, named Dove Holes; caves created by the water wearing out the soft limestone cliffs. They are not of any great depth, the arched entrance being the most impressive feature, but they are still popular for a quick explore.

A little further downstream, at the base of Ilam rock is another cave entrance, not so grand nor so noticable, requiring a deal of stooping to ensure safe entry, but which opens up into a surprisingly roomy space.

In places, the walls of this cave are smooth, worn down by seeping water, like the pebbles on a beach or rocks on a river bed. Appropriate, considering that this whole area was once a tropical sea!

Look more closely and you can see glittering traces of minerals; quartz and calcite and feldspar, washed down through cracks in the limestone rock - rather like stalectities formed on the surface of the cave wall.

Post script: Caves along the valley were used as shelters by hunters during the last ice age, which was around 14,000 years ago. Around 4,500 - 5,000 years ago, early farmers were using some of these caves as burial chambers and in Roman times, around 2,000 years ago, shepherds used the caves as shelters.

River Dove

The Dove is, without doubt, a beautiful river, rising on the Edges near Buxton, cutting deep gorges through the limestone landscape and emerging into the more gentle countryside around Ashbourne, on its way to join the Trent at Newton Solney. With a total length of 40 miles, it forms a significant part of the boundary between Staffordshire to the West and Derbyshire to the east.

The most famous part of its course is Dovedale, owned by the National Trust and attracting around one million visitors every year! To the north of Dovedale run Milldale, Wolfscote Dale and Beresford Dale, each a steep sided valley with distinctive rocky outcrops which, combined, make a significant attraction for keen walkers.

 To my mind, the beauty of the area has been somewhat marred by the addition of hardcore footpaths. I think back to the days of my childhood and one particular Boxing Day when we had ventured out to 'walk off the Christmas dinner'. It was an an icy winter's day, we virtually had the dale to ourselves and there was not a concrete path in sight. This year, the county council have even seen fit to cap the famous Dovedale stepping stones with concrete tops for the sake of Health and Safety! GRRRR

On a more peaceful note, the Dove is generally considered to offer some of the finest trout fishing in the country, making it sought after by anglers. As a result, of course, fishing rights come with quite a high price tag and it is no great surprise to come across Private Fishing notices such as this one.

Fortunately, the walking is free :)

Milldale duck

At Milldale, there were almost as many ducks as there were walkers. And they weren't exactly scared of people! Where there is a walker, there is likely to be food; especially when that walker sits down, opens up a pack and proceeds to pull out a lunch box (which is exactly what we did!).

It didn't take our webbed friends long to discover us, and although they were not tame enough to allow themselves to be handled, they were not averse to walking over feet, pecking at coats and even taking food from the open hand, Interestingly, they were far more interested in bits of sandwich than they were in apple or plum. Hasn't anyone educated these birds in the importance of a balanced diet?!

According to Bob, there was a survey done recently to discover the best known bird in Britain (or was it the most loved bird in Britain?). Either way, the duck came out on top! I guess that's what comes of all those childhood trips to 'feed the ducks'; the perrenial ploy of the desperate parent to persuade over-active toddlers out on a walk.

Bridge

This ancient packhorse bridge is a short stroll across a few fields (and a hairy slither down a steep bankside) from Alstonefield. It spans the River Dove at Milldale, a hamlet of stone cottages lying between Dovedale gorge to the south and Wolfscote dale to the north.

Once, Milldale was a busy industrial centre with a corn mill and ochre mill by the river, and Lode Mill, which prepared lead ore for smelting. Now it is visited mainly by walkers; lots and lots of walkers, who come to enjoy the natural beauty of the dales.

The bridge is generally known as Viator's Bridge; a viator being a traveller or wayfarer from the Latin viāre, to travel. It is thought to have gained this name when Izaak Walton, author of The Compleat Angler (1653) first saw the bridge and exclaimed "Why! A mouse can hardly go over it; 'tis not twelve fingers broad."

His reaction was prompted by the narrowness of the bridge, made particularly noticable by the lack of any kind of wall. In the days of the packhorse routes, bridges were built with low parapets in order for the paniers to cross without interference. The higher parapets were added to this bridge at a later date.

The addendum to the 1676 edition of The Compleat Angler introduced the reader to two characters, one of whom was based on Izaac Walton and called Viator. Hence the name by which the bridge came to be known.

I'm pleased to say that Viator Bridge is listed as an ancient monument.

I wonder what other students have chosen as their B project over at Jenny Matlock's..

Yard sale

On Sunday, a group from our church homegroup took ourselves out into the Peak District for a walk. It wasn't a gloriously sunny day, but it didn't rain, and we went well prepared for the cooler temperatures which have suddenly arrived.

Our starting point was the small village of Alstonefield, just north of Fenny Bentley (of Leatherbritches real ale fame). Normally, Alstonefield is a quiet pace, but we hit it on the day of a yard sale held to raise money to have mains water put into the village church; St Peter's.

It wasn't long before we were tempted in by a stall full of books. Sure enough, purchases were made and there was a speedy return trip to the car to stow them away (except for Bryan, who held onto his newly aquired World Atlas, just in case Bob got us lost!).

The rest of us meandered slowly on, but stopped short to smile at this fellow...

Meet Milton!

Milton was keeping a watchful eye on proceedings around this stall full of bric a brac. Apparently, there had been a fair few offers made for Milton himself, but he was staying firmly put and helping the village to their very respectable total of £820.

Meanwhile, we had a footpath waiting!

The Pack

Just over a week ago, I came here to meet a friend for lunch. It had been snowing the previous day, but had cleared just enough to make the journey look interesting without affecting my ability to travel.

This is my friend's local hostelry, and a very good one it is too. The Pack, as it is known locally, is in the village of Hathersage in the Hope Valley towards the north of Derbyshire. It is a beautiful area which is popular with walkers, but also attracts climbers who come to try their skills on the gritstone 'Edges' above the village. This is where the White and Dark Peaks collide.

Hathersage is probably most famous for its association with Little John, who is reputedly buried in the churchyard at St Michael's, but it also has connections with Jane Eyre. After visiting Hathersage in 1845, Charlotte Bronte selected it as the model of her village 'Norton' She also chose the local family name of Eyre for her heroine; and the roof from which Mrs Rochester jumped to her death, crowns the Elizabethan manor house, North Lees Hall.

The Pack itself is situated on one of the old trading tracks which connected Derbyshire to Sheffield and further afield. As such, it was a regular port of call for travellers, and for the Scottish Packmen, who sold their tweeds to local farmers. Hence the name.

If the Packmen were served food as tasty as ours, I would imagine they would trade in the area frequently.