Where we stopped for coffee

Last weekend, Dad, Ben and I took a trip up to Cumbria for an Open Day at the Uni. We had time to divert through the Lakes on the way up to Penrith and had a couple of coffee stops to break up the journey and enjoy the scenery.

This is from the road between Windermere and the Kirkstone Pass, close to Troutbeck.

The size of the farm buildings give an impression of the scale of the fells and the way they tower over the landscape, bare and imposing.

The road hugs the hillside, winding round, following the contours, often not measuring much more than the width of two vehicles.

A beautiful place to stop!

Hunter's moon

Looks like it might be a wee bit chilly tonight!

Youlgrave

My personal challenge for this round of Miss Jenny Matlock's alphabe-Thursday is to post about a location within the borders of my own county of Derbyshire, UK, for each letter of the alphabet.

Look for the letter, to see where I am.

Y is for Youlgrave.

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Youlgrave is a large-ish village which boasts three pubs...

The George Hotel, opposite the church...

The Bull's Head Hotel, in the centre...

and the Farmyard Inn towards the further end of the village.

Balancing this out very satisfactorily are three churches...

The Anglican parish church of All Saints, which dates from the 13th century but was heavily restored in 1870...

The Wesleyan Reform Chapel, built in 1857, with a weekly Sunday service...

and the  Primitive Methodist Chapel of 1895, which holds services twice each Sunday.

Youlgrave also has a Health Centre...

and a Primary School, which caters for children from 4-11 and has strong ties with the parish church. I love the small raised garden with the tomatoes growing.

Further into the village is the original school building.

The village hall is tucked away down a quiet side street,

after which the lane drops away to open countryside.

Some houses in the village are named after their past functions, this is one such: The Old Grocers Shop.

But the name of this house made me smile.

Take a guess!

Have you guessed?

Here it is...

Very profound :)

Erected in AD 1887, the former Co-op (which stands at the top of Co-op Hill) is now a Youth Hostel.

Opposite the Youth Hostel is the Conduit Head.

The provision of the original water supply for the village, was developed because of fundraising by the Youlgrave Friendly Society of Women, founded in 1827. Water was piped from local springs to the Conduit Head, this large circular tank and, each morning, the 'waterkeeper' unlocked the tap at 6am for villagers to come and collect their water.

In 1869, a new water system was developed and piped to 9 taps around the village and some of these are still decorated each year as part of the Derbyshire well dressing season.

Most of the buildings in the village are constructed from local stone.

Here, you get a sense of the elevated position of the village, standing above Lathkill and Bradford Dales.

Use has been made of the green spaces around the village, with a cricket ground and park at one end...

...and allotments at the other.

I enjoyed my tour round Youlgrave, a place I hadn't visited lately. I hope you did too :)

Just one more letter to go now :) and that would be 'Z' :/

Stock Ghyll rising

Up here is where Stock Ghyll has its source; on Kirkstone Pass.

 

Tumbling down the fellside , it gradually increases in size and force...

...heading for Ambleside, the River Rothay and distant Windermere.

The startled sheep is just a bonus :)

Stock Ghyll

A tributary of the river Rothay, Stock Ghyll rises in the fells surrounding Kirkstone Pass, above Ambleside, and drops down through the town before joining the Rothay for the final run into Windermere.

('Ghyll' is a word used in the Lake District to describe a stream or smaller river.)

At this point in its journey through Ambleside, Stock Ghyll once powered a large mill known as the bobbin mill. The weir was constructed for the mill.

There is still a water wheel belonging to the old corn mill. There was a mill on this site from 1335. The current building dates from 1680 and was constructed by the Braithwaite family. Now the premises are a tea rooms.

Moving through the town, the ghyll passes under Bridge House; the smallest house in England. Originally built as an apple store (fruit, not technology!) for the nearby Ambleside Hall, it is believed the location for this house was an attempt to avoid land tax! It has just two rooms; fine for an apple store, but a bit cramped for the family with six children who once lived here!

Now, the house belongs to the National Trust. Having served as their first ever information centre it is currently a small Trust shop.

Ambleside

In the past two weeks, we've been up to Cumbria twice; once to take Mark back to Uni for the start of the new semester and then again, to take Ben up to look round on an Open Day.

Mark has changed campus and is now in the small town of Ambleside, close to Windermere; the largest body of water in the Lake District. He has a spacious room in this three-storey slate house owned by the Uni.

According to Wikipedia, the name Ambleside derives from Old Norse -  Á-mel-sǽtr = "river — sandbank — summer pasture".

Originally a market town and one end of a packhorse route, the local economy is now mainly reliant on the tourist industry and the town is full of guest houses, pubs and bars, cafes and retail outlets aimed more at the visitor than the local.

On a late summer Sunday, it is a hive of activity!

This is just one of many, many retail outlets aimed at the outdoor enthusiast, catering for everything from walking to climbing to watersports to camping... There is a whole range of stuff from the fashionable for those who like to look the part, to middling range gear for the occasional dabbler, to quality equipment for the specialist. If you're wanting something reliable enough for the tops of the Lakeland fells, you need to be able to distinguish which is which, as the price tag doesn't always follow the quality!

Morning has broken

Sunrise, Friday 30th September 2011, 0710.

(Well, there has to be some recompense for getting up in the dark!)