During my April 2016 trip home to Derbyshire I did a few interesting things that I hadn’t done before - one was to cycle along the High Peak trail, an old railway line in the Peak District repurposed as a bike trail, and the other was to visit Renishaw Hall in Eckington and the other was a visit to the Great Central Railway station at Quorn in Leicestershire, a station preserved as a World War II era station.
As I said the High Peak Trail is an old railway line built way back in 1831 to carry minerals from the High Peak down to the canals at Whaley Bridge. Since it was closed in the Beeching Era, the tracks have been removed and it has been resurfaced as a bicycle/walking trail. The bicycle ride was the idea of my university friend Stuart McCulloch and I met up with him and Paul Nicholas, also from University days at the delightfully sounding Parsley Hay. Parsley Hay was a station on the line, not far from Monyash. It is now a recreational center and cafe where you can rent bicycles for the day.
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| Near Parsley Hay, from High Peak Trail looking down Tissington Trail |
Being a railway line, for the most part, the grade is very gentle and an easy ride through some wonderful countryside. There were remarkable sections where the rail bed had been built up to cross a valley, or a cutting dug to pass through a hill side - all by human hand in those days of course. What a construction project - one of hundreds that were probably going on at the same time in the UK.
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| High Peak Trail |
So for the most part the bicycle riding was easy - with the exception of a couple of hills - the first was Hopton Hill (1 in 14), the second was from +Middleton Top down to Black Rocks near Cromford (1 in 8.5). We were not out to prove anything so we stopped at Middleton Top and had an ice cream before returning. At Middleton Top there is an engine house that contains an old steam engine used to pull by cable wagons/trains up the incline from Cromford. Another fine piece of Victorian engineering.
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| Engine House at Middleton Top |
Near Parsley Hay is the junction with the Tissington Trail. Another railway to trail conversion that is apparently even more scenic than the High Peak Trail. We will leave that for the next time.
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| Renishaw Hall |
Renishaw Hall is in Eckington, just 3 miles from where I grew up in Staveley. I always knew there was a Hall at Renishaw but I had never seen it or even entered its grounds. It is alluded to be the setting for D.H. Lawerence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover.
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| Renishaw Hall |
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| Gardens at Renishaw Hall |
Nowadays the gardens are open to the public, there is a small cafe, a museum and the house itself is open one day a week (Friday). I was out driving around with mum in the car and no particular destination in mind when we happened to pass the gates to the Hall so we decided to pop in and have a bite to eat in the cafe. I was pleasantly surprised at the grandeur of the place and the absolutely wonderful gardens. We took the garden tour (a lot of work for me when mum is in a wheelchair and the ground is soggy from recent rains).
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| Bluebells at Renishaw Hall |
The bluebells were out as well as the daffodils and narcissi. It was all quite splendid and I vow to return, on a Friday, to see the house itself. Apparently in the house are weird artifacts like Montgomery’s pyjamas, Mussolini’s cigarette case, and Goering’s cufflinks.
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| Quorn Station |
The trip to the Great Central Railway in Quorn was organized by my cousin Trevor who volunteers for the railway. Quorn is one of the stations on the line from Loughborough to Leicester that runs a schedule of old steam trains along around 8 miles of track. The stations along the line are representative of stations from different eras. The Quorn station is World War II vintage. It has the usual General Waiting Room for everyone, a Ladies Waiting Room offering privacy and quiet to the fair sex, the old tile and porcelain toilets, ticket offices, and because it is wartime a NAAFI, the Navy, Army, Air Force Institution that runs a waiting room and cafe.
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| Steam Train at Quorn |
There were a couple of steam trains that came in while we were there. Being someone who grew up with steam locomotives and an avid trainspotter in those days these wonderful living pieces of iron and steel still excite me. Judging by the number of people riding these old steam trains, of which there are quite a few in the UK, I am not alone.
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| The Cousins at Quorn |
More photographs of the station visit are here.
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