Shillito Wood

Our walk this week, very ably chosen and led by Simon, was much nearer to home than previous weeks. We met at Shillito Wood - between Millthorpe and the A621 to Baslow and went on a 9 mile circuit which took in Ramsley Moor, Barbrook Reservoir, Smeekley Wood, Horsleygate, and Millthorpe before returning to our starting point via Johnnygate, Rumbling Street, Crowhole, and Barlow Grange.

 

In a little hollow by a gate at the junction of Fox Lane and Rumbling Street, there's an old stone which is a guide stoop dating from 1710. Now chipped and weathered, it showed the way west to Bakewell via Barbrook and Baslow Bar, south-east to Chesterfield via Cutthorpe or north-east to Dronfield.

 

Ramsley Moor

 

Heading towards Barbrook Reservoir

 

On our way to Barbrook we came across this sculpture from the Companion Stones - an Arts in the Peak project completed in 2010. Like the guide stoops, set up 300 years ago to help travellers across the then treacherous moors each Companion Stone bears directions, not to ancient market towns but for an equally perilous journey into the future. The stones were designed and created by poets and artists of the Peak District.

See http://www.artsinthepeak.co.uk/cs/home/GSExhibition.pdf for details of Guide Stoops

 

Barbrook Reservoir lies on Big Moor, which is the huge tract of moorland between the Owler Bar to Froggatt Road and the Owler Bar to Baslow Road. Recently the water has been drained off and the dam wall breached. This is because the reservoir has not been used as a water supply source for many years. To comply with current safety legislations, it has been necessary to drain and formally ‘discontinue' the structure to ensure that it can no longer retain significant volumes of water.

The ‘still' or pond reservoir was originally constructed by impounding the Bar Brook, which rises on Totley Moss and eventually joins the River Derwent at Baslow, by Chesterfield RDC Waterworks Department in about 1882. Subsequently, in 1908 or 1910 a new dam wall was constructed to encompass some 30 acres and hold 100 million gallons of water; at its deepest the new reservoir was 34 feet deep.

 

Smeekley Wood

 

At each end of the curved wall on this building (opposite Cordwell Barn) at head height, you can see the letter W (on a clear day and with the wind in the right direction!). This is reminiscent of the 16^th & 17^th century device to ward off witches. An alternative theory is that it is merely a mark of the Wolstenholme family who lived at Horsleygate

Horsleygate

The de Horseley family were here by 1388 and the gate is mentioned in 1494. Horsleygate Lane was part of a very old bridleway from Sheffield via Psalter Lane, Ringinglow Road, Thryft House, Whirlow Hall, Limb Lane, Dore, Old Hay, Totley and Holmesfield to the Baslow area.

 

Millthorpe - a hamlet dating back to 1487, whose name originally meant Mill in the outlying settlement

 

 

The most famous former inhabitant of Millthorpe was Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929). He was an English socialist poet, socialist philosopher, anthologist, and early gay activist. He was instrumental in the foundation of the Fabian Society and the Labour Party and was a close friend of Walt Whitman and Rabindranath Tagore. 

As a philosopher he is particularly known for his publication of "Civilisation: Its Cause and Cure" in which he proposes that civilisation is a form of disease that human societies pass through. Civilisations, he says, rarely last more than a thousand years before collapsing, and no society has ever passed through civilisation successfully. His 'cure' is a closer association with the land and greater development of our inner nature.

His lifelong connection with Sheffield had begun during his lecturing days, and strengthened when he met Albert Fearnehough, a working class man in whose house Carpenter lodged (as well as Fearnehough's wife and family). The death of his parents in 1881/82 left Carpenter with a considerable inheritance with which he bought a 7 acre smallholding at Millthorpe. Soon after, a house was built there and in 1883 Carpenter moved in with Fearnehough and his family.

It was only after settling at Millthorpe that Carpenter really felt able to express his emotional attachments to men. He had a relationship with George Adams, who lived with his wife Lucy at Millthorpe, but this came to an end when George Merrill finally came there to live permanently in 1898.

The country retreat at Millthorpe eventually became a place of pilgrimage for large numbers of admirers. Millthorpe and its inhabitants became a symbol for the new way of life that Carpenter developed there: a 'simplification of life', manual work on the land, sandal-making, vegetarianism and the breaking down of class distinctions.

As the information board in Millthorpe indicates, Carpenter wanted to reunite people with the landscape.

 

 

 

Why use the footbridge when there is a perfectly acceptable ford to cross?

 

No trig points for Andy this week, but Steve gets in on the act with this ancient post

 

these geese are not be argued with

 

Crowhole Reservoir

 

Brian seems to have grown an additional right arm!

 

I think Stuart may need lessons in how to mount a horse

 

Back through Shillito Wood, then off to the Cricket Inn (Totley) for some Thornbridge Ale.

It's now competition time. 

As I mentioned a few weeks ago, from time to time we will have a Pareidolia competition - and today it's time for another one.

Regular readers of this blog 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 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 two rabbits (and given the time of year, they may be Easter bunnies) standing at the right hand side of the tree. What can others see?