Captain's Log - The Lathkill Trek

Our walk today was on the 80th birthday of William Shatner - probably best known as Star Trek's Captain James Tiberius Kirk. We decided to honour this occasion by renaming today's walk a "trek" and "to boldly go where no man had gone before"!

We started in Monyash, ventured along Lathkill Dale before crossing to join the Limestone Way just outside Youlgrave and returning to our home base via Cales Dale - a total of just over 9 miles.

Monyash is a small village which lies in a shallow hollow in the limestone plateau at the head of Lathkill Dale. Population is around 280.  The Domesday Book of 1086 names the village as Maneis. The name means "many springs or waters", after the pools of water, fed by springs, that lie on a narrow bed of clay in the middle of the village - an unusual feature in limestone country, that enabled life before piped water. The Domesday Book also refers to Monyash as "being a place of penal settlement for ill-behaved monks."

The green is at the centre of the village, surrounded by the school, pub and Smithy Café. Dominating the green are the 'king' and 'queen' trees planted to celebrate the coronation of King George V and Queen Mary in 1910. Next to the war memorial is a market cross, the base of which dates back to the 14th century when Monyash was granted a charter to hold a weekly market.

Monyash had a very active Methodist society from early in the 18th century, and there are records of letters from John Wesley to the society at this time.  On the opposite side of the road to the Methodist chapel on Chapel Street, is the former meeting house of the Society of Friends (Quakers). John Gratton (1640-1711), the founder of the Quakers, lived in Monyash between 1668 and 1702 and used the village as a base for his missionary tours to many parts of the British Isles.

The crew boldly going towards Lathkill Dale

No jokes please about chickens crossing roads!

Dave explaining to Simon some of the finer points of plucking chickens

Lathkill Dale - the final frontier

First recorded in 1280, the name "Lathkill" possibly has Scandinavian roots, the old Norse hlada-kill translating as "narrow valley with a barn".



The valley is dry where it crosses the Monyash to Bakewell road, just below Monyash, and it continues dry for about a kilometre until it reaches Lathkill House Cave, where the water which has flowed underground from the Flagg area resurges from the cave - or at least it does when the weather is wet - in times of drought there may be no water in the stream for another kilometre.

Stream is overground by the time we reached the bridge leading to Cales Dale

Remains of an old sheepwash just downstream from the bridge to Cales Dale

The water in the river is amazingly clear - as shown in these two photos

Charles Cotton wrote in The Compleat Angler that it is :

“ ... by many degrees, the purest and most transparent stream that I ever saw, either at home or abroad, and breeds, it is said, the reddest and best Trout in England.”

 

Bateman's House

with its own shaft

John Bateman adapted this once industrial building (used in lead mining) into his family home. He grew his own vegetables in the garden. But living, quite literally, on top of his work sometimes made home life difficult.

Story has it that while sweeping the living room one day, Mrs Bateman put her broom straight through the floor into the shaft below.

Dave taking a photo of me taking a photo of him, taking a photo of me, taking a photo .....

We knocked then legged it across the bridge!

We always follow the Countryside Code and shut the gates behind us

Meadow Place Grange a Grade II listed mid-18th century farmhouse

Views looking towards Youlgrave

Although we didn't actually visit Youlgrave on this occasion we did have a discussion about it. We already knew that it was mentioned in the Domesday Book as being worth sixteen shillings and belonged to Henry de Ferrers.

We also were aware that there was some debate about the origins of its name but that it was likely that it has a reference to the local mining industry. Most favoured contenders were "Ye Olde Grebe” which means “the old mine’s (rake).  Or from Giolgrave, meaning “yellow grove”.  Yellow refers to the colour of the ore.  Grove may not be to do with trees but from “groover” which was another name for a miner.

However, we were amazed to hear that there were some 60 different spellings of the village's name. Mr J W Shimwell (local historian and a former school teacher in the village) has compiled the list and there is an article on the topic in Julie Bunting's book "Derbyshire Superlatives".

Confusion continues to this day. Some use "Youlgrave" but others use "Youlgreave"!

We joined the Limestone Way on the outskirts of Youlgrave. This is a long-distance bridleway in which runs through the White Peak from Castleton south east to Rocester in Staffordshire. It originally ran to Matlock, but was diverted to its current, longer route to join up with the Staffordshire Way. The trail is named for the limestone scenery along its route.

View over Cales Dale looking towards Lathkill Dale

Steep steps down to the bottom of Cales Dale ...

... and a tricky climb out of the dale

... but we all coped admirably

One Ash Grange where monks from Roche Abbey (Maltby) farmed in the Middle Ages

A cheese cooling cave

old piggeries

We upped the pace as Chris began to worry that the pub would be shut

Back to Monyash ...

... and the clock struck three as we entered the churchyard ...

... you guessed it - the pub was shut!

So we adjourned to the Royal Oak at nearby Hurdlow. See details of this excellent pub on its website at http://www.peakpub.co.uk/

Cheers - we will be back

And now for something completely different

From time to time we will have a Pareidolia competition - and today is the first one.

Regular readers of this "blog" ("Captain's Log" seems more appropriate this week!) will remember that a pareidolia is the ability of people to see pictures in the random organisations of things such as the grain in a wooden door, inkblots, or clouds. Individuals will see these things by personal interpretations of them. For instance, one person may look at a cloud and interpret a horse while another might see it as a bicycle. It will always be a cloud, but through our personal interpretations other objects can be imagined up and seen there.

The word comes from the Greek para- – "beside", "with", or "alongside"—meaning, in this context, something faulty or wrong (as in paraphasia, disordered speech) and eidōlon – "image"; the diminutive of eidos – "image", "form", "shape".

The way it works is that if anyone sees a pareidolia in the photo (below) they let us know by making a comment on the blog, telling us what they can see.


Just to start the ball rolling, I will offer that I can see a rodent's head at the right hand end of the fallen tree trunk. What can others see?