On the ipod

A clip from Pride and Prejudice, though not the ipod exactly, it's one of my favorite scenes from the series.  In this clip Lyme Park serves as Pemberley, the home of Mr. Darcy.

The clip is a little long and starts with the famous scene of Mr. Darcy diving into a pond on his grounds to cool off, both physically and emotionally.  For fans of this version of P&P it's the famous "wet shirt" scene, as Mr. Darcy walks from his uncharacteristic swim to encounter Elizabeth Bennet and her aunt and uncle touring Pemberley on a visit to Derbyshire.  It's followed by an attempt to be polite to Elizabeth and her family, to rebuild the relationship between them, and to show Elizabeth and Darcy beginning to respect each other and fall in love.

If you watch the clip you'll see Lyme Park images I've included in the previous post.  Specifically the scenes are:

--Darcy leaving the house more properly attired and walking down the steps in the courtyard.
--Meeting Elizabeth again on the Italian side of the house and walking down to the reflecting pond.
--Ascending the stairs by the orangery while talking with Elizabeth.
--Seeing her off at the entrance circle

Lyme Park

We left Castleton this morning to travel back to Leeds and stopped in at Lyme Park in Cheshire.  It's one of the major houses that the family passed on to the National Trust to preserve and maintain.  The house is well-known as a setting for historical dramas, most famously the 1995 BBC version of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice.  Visitors are allowed to tour the house and grounds, although all of my pictures are of the exterior since pictures indoors are prohibited.  Lyme is also the original home of the Lyme Caxton Missal, published in 1487.

The two different sides of the building appear quite different--the front has a more Edwardian appearance, with the back and gardens designed in an Italian style.  The family Legh owned the property and built the buildings over many years.  At left is the side in which we entered the building.

This is the courtyard in the center--we entered the house through the door at the top of the stairs and wove through the building to view tapestries, paintings, and antique furniture.

The opposite side shows the Italian style, with columns and a long rambling lawn that leads to a reflecting pool and Italian garden.

The reflecting pond was quiet and peaceful.

This is the ornate Italian sunken garden adjacent to the lawn.

This is the view from across the reflecting pond, showing a full view of the building and the orangery on the righthand side.

This fountain stood in the center of the orangery surrounded by tropical plants.

Altogether the entire tour allowed a glimpse into a life distant from a typical experience but rich with history preserved as part of a national program to protect it.

On the ipod

Blackjack, by Carmen Ghia and the Hotrods.  I don't have them on my ipod yet, actually, but hope to upload them soon since they will be one of the summer acts playing at the cavern.

Peak Cavern and Derwent Reservoirs

We finished our cave tours today by traveling to Peak Cavern, just behind Castleton.  To get there we took a lovely footpath through a small street behind our hotel.

The entrance to Peak Cavern is known to be the largest cave opening in England and was historically used by people up until the early parts of the 20th century.  It was primarily used for ropemaking, since the temperature was relatively stable on the interior and it was protected from rain.  The ropemakers lived as true troglodytes, keeping livestock, their homes, and their families in the cave.

Our tour guide did a ropemaking demonstration, showing the process of taking the raw fiber and making ropes for the mining operations in the area.  Historically children as young as 4 were put to work in the caves helping to make rope or keep the animals that were rendered for tallow to waterproof the rope.

Most of the cave was fairly navigable with modern lighting and steps.  There were some low ceilings--especially in an area called Lumbago Walk.  Some areas were artificially carved out for a visit by Queen Victoria to see the cavern.

The cavern has been used for concerts and will host some summer concerts this year.  The natural acoustics of the cavern makes for a natural amphitheater.

The cave has underground rivers and a massive cavern called Titan (not accessible to the general tours) that was discovered in 2006.  The cave is actually even connected to Speedwell, which we visited yesterday and is .5 km down the road.  Water can flow into the cave and then drain through holes in the interior, which when raining occurs it makes a flatulent sound.  The sound gave the cavern its alternate name--the Devil's Arse.

After being underground we traveled a few miles over to the Derwent reservoir, formed by a series of dams that hold the water for the nearby towns including the large city of Sheffield.

The dams are quite beautiful in their architecture and each one is different.  This one, Derwent Dam, resembles a castle in structure.  This area was used for training by squadrons during World War II that planned to destroy German dams by bouncing bombs along the water to collide with the dam.  The account of this squadron was fictionalized in the film The Dam Busters.

Tomorrow we will leave Castleton and head for Lyme Park, which should be our last chance to see some of the Derbyshire countryside.

On the ipod

The Lark Ascending, by Vaughan Williams  I have seen loads of birds here in Derbyshire and numerous larks so far.  I have been thinking of this music for several days now.

Speedwell Cavern

Much of Richard's Cambridge group was together this morningin Castleton at breakfast after the arrival of the last two, Matt and Charlotte, yesterday evening.  Charlotte was up from London and her husband Matt managed to arrive delayed from China and turned it around quickly enough to catch a train in London after his flight and meet up with us here in Castleton.  Matt is a CFO for an African mining company and Charlotte works as an HR director for a graphics design firm in London.  Completing the group are Richard's friend Richard (we know him as Dickie) and his partner Rasa, along with their 10-month old daughter Elinor. Both Richard and Rasa work for the Royal Mail.  Dickie and Matt were ushers at our wedding.





Here are Richard, Rasa and Elinor.  My Richard was taking a picture for them at the same time as this one--I find it funny that the adults were looking at one camera while Elinor was looking at mine and smiling quite nicely.  We spent the day with them touring Speedwell Cavern.  Most impressive was the durability of a 10-month old managing to stay fairly cheerful in spite of going down into a cave, sitting on a boat in the dark, and staying strapped to her dad throughout.  She is thus far a very resilient child.

Speedwell Cavern is a former lead mine now turned over to tourism.  The countryside is full of abandoned mines but some have been put back into service for visitors.  Speedwell did not make money during its time and was abandoned, and once the pumps stopped the mine filled with water.  So tours of the mine now require descent down a long staircase followed by a boat ride on the water filling the abandoned shafts.

It can be a bit frightening in the dark on a boat when you don't know quite how deep the water is, how far underground you are, and in a space not much larger than the boat.  Quite often the boat tips a little far to one side and feels like it might capsize, or happens to run into the rock with a crashing sound.

The guides give a bit of history of the mine and its failure.  You reach the end of the cavern and then have to get off the boat and step into the area where below is known as the Bottomless Pit.  In the meantime a previous group gets in your now-vacant boat and leaves you in the cavern.  It does make for a bit of concern, perhaps, but fortunately another group does come along and you take their boat.  One wonders what happens to the last group in the cave, of course.

So generally it was not as full of a day as others but still some new sights.  Richard's parents arrived today from Leeds and we plan a second cavern tour tomorrow with them in Peak Cavern, otherwise known as the Devil's Arse.  We'll try to explain why that is once we've toured it.

Cave Dale and Mam Tor

We are in Castleton now, in Derbyshire.  We arrived yesterday and are staying for four days--two with Richard's friends from Cambridge and two with his parents.  The national park we are in is the Peak District, known for beautiful views and small historic towns.  The pub we're staying at is Ye Olde Nag's Head, a bit of a different name but known for a wide range of sausages to choose from and beers on tap.  Richard is working his way through both.

Today was a walking (hiking) day through Cave Dale, along the ridge above near some farms, and then a hike up Mam Tor.  The walk was beautiful and hard to describe the multitude of shades of green that could be seen in pastures and hillsides.  We travelled up through Cave Dale first with steep limestone sides in a dry valley.

At the top of Cave Dale was a continuation of the dry valley that might look familiar to fans of The Princess Bride.  It's the scene (linked here) where Buttercup learns the Dread Pirate Roberts is actually her Westley, previously thought to have died.  We took a short nap at the bottom of the hillside they tumbled down but did not re-create the scene ourselves.

There were lots of other walkers of all ages and group sizes, and a lot of students on hikes with what seemed to be school groups.  They were laden down with heavy backpacks but seemed to be having fun regardless.  We passed this farm and it was such a pastoral scene of a mother and her calf that is representative of the seeming peacefulness of these hillsides.

Here's the view of the hill we climbed--Mam Tor.  The name translates as "mother hill", and although it wasn't as steep as some climbs we've had in the UK it was still a bit of a challenge.  Looking at it from a distance it seemed like it would be tough (you can see some walkers already on the top).

Here is Richard when we reached the trig point, marking the top of the peak.

Here is a lovely view of Edale from the top (to the northwest of Mam Tor).

And a view of Castleon, for some perspective to see how far we'd walked to get here.

We walked back down and around the other side of Mam Tor, which is extremely unstable shales that are slumping down the hillside.  Hence why we walked up the other side of it!

The instability created problems with the road on this side, resulting in its closure.  It is accessible to hikers and bikes but not to cars.  Prior to the closure the road had experienced numerous re-pavings that Richard likened it to a sedimentary rock--perhaps tarmacadamite (according to what Richard himself coined at that moment to describe it).

Due to very sore knees we didn't go down in one of the bluejohn mining caves today, although Richard did buy me a lovely bluejohn pendant to keep his tradition of buying me lesser-known minerals as jewelry The name comes from a French description of the mineral's color "bleu jaune", or blue-yellow.  There are stripes of blue and yellow in the rock that give it the characteristic color.  Mine looks a bit like this, although it's square rather than round.  We'll visit a mine tomorrow, and possibly go into an abandoned lead mine that you tour by boat due to the water filling the previously-mined cavern.

On the ipod

Home, by Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros  This was playing the small tea shop right at the tunnel and I could not think of a better song to have heard on today's trip.  It's one of my favorite songs.

Marsden

We took some time today to explore family history in and around Huddersfield, where both Pam and Rob are from and where a lot of the Marsden name originated.

Rob drove through Huddersfield first to show us where his mother had lived and then followed by a tour through town to Castle Hill, one of the most prominent landscape features.  It can be a steep climb to the top but in relatively short time we got to the level top and the tower built for the jubilee of Queen Victoria.  Pam stopped briefly ahead of me while we were climbing the stairs and I had a great shot of the tower in perspective.

The view is really beautiful and you can see the day was clear and bright.  The varying greens show different fields separated by the characteristic dry stone walls of Yorkshire, of which there are thousands of miles that weave across the hillsides.  It's easy to see how this would been an important fortification.

A beacon at the top was restored for the jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II, but was originally used in the time of Elizabeth I as a beacon to notify of the approaching armada.  It could be seen for miles around and used as advance warning to be ready for a possible attack.

For lunch we found a different part of the history of Huddersfield at a pub called The Golden Cock.  While being known for locally-sourced food it's more known to Pam and Rob as the site of their first date.  At the time it was the nicest place that Rob could take her to be able to get to know her better, after first meeting her at a wedding of a friend.





While waiting for our food I overheard some conversation among some men who had gathered around the bar direct from a funeral.  I only heard the first part, which began "I'm telling you as a Yorkshireman...."  Rob and I talked about it a little and decided that it's the latter part of the sentence that could be the most variable and interesting, but the first part tells you a little about the directness of someone from Yorkshire.

After lunch we traveled to Marsden, location of the Marsden station where Richard staked his claim.

The station was near a canal, where we walked down a towpath to the Standedge Tunnel and associated museum and canal boat ride.  Canal boats are still used today and rely on fuel-driven engines to move back and forth.  Historically the boat would have been pulled by horses walking along the towpath.  There are locks to move the boats up and down changes in elevation of the canal, and some people live completely on a canal boat.

The walk along the canal (called the Huddersfield narrow canal) was quite pretty and quiet.

The tunnel was built in 1811 as a speedier means of getting people and goods closer to ports and is over 3 miles long.  It was a long and arduous effort to get the tunnel built with the technology of the time, and it is Britain's longest tunnel.  There is no towpath in the tunnel because it would have been too expensive, so tugs are used to move the canal boats through the tunnel now.

If you were moving the boats through in the 1800s you would have had to "walk it through", meaning you had to have two people literally holding the boat and pushing against the top of the tunnel.  To get through the 3 miles of tunnel would have taken four hours or more for a boat loaded with cargo.

Richard has a dream of traveling by canal boat on a holiday at some point, but I believe I will insist on an engine.

Rob described this man, who was working on one of the boats, as being dressed a quintessential Yorkshireman.  I wonder how he would have ended the sentence heard in the pub.

Altogether it was a great day out--to see a bit of Marsden family history and a bit of the history of the Marsden name.

One (industrial) pic from the show

Forgot to post this one earlier, although it's a bit more from the industrial age of Britain than agricultural.  They had on display the Barber Steam Engine, the first locomotive built for the Harrogate gas works, built in 1908, and taken out of service in 1946.  It has just been restored and will be operating by the end of the year.  It caught the attention of Richard and his dad, as you can see.

On the ipod

Sumer is Icumen In, by Richard Thompson  The song actually starts at 2 minutes in, but the story behind Thompson's 1000 Years of Popular Music is explained at the beginning.  Today's fair reminded me of this song.

Great Yorkshire Show

Our travels today took us to the Great Yorkshire Show, the largest agricultural show in England.  There are some similarities to the Texas State Fair but some significant differences that make some of the different parts of the show more integrated than a typical state fair experience in the U.S.  One major difference is that where the Texas State Fair lasts three weeks, the Great Yorkshire Show lasts only three days which compresses all the activities and events together so that a large number of events are happening simultaneously.  But it meant being able to see a wide variety of things today.

As an agricultural show the emphasis was on farming, raising animals, and cheesemaking  We started with the displays of flowers, vegetables and fruits with some amazing color.

Flowers were everywhere, including some flower boxes and gardens designed for competitions.  The one below featured another yellow bike in a Tour theme, created by a primary school:













Some of the flower displays were unusual, such as this one of carnivorous plants in flower:

We saw horses first, some in stalls, some being judged, and others in the horse jumping.  At the Yorkshire show the animals are given right of way over people.  This one was on the way to the arena for horse jumping.

Others awaited the judging in their stalls, such as this Percheron (a draft horse) who managed a smile as the picture was snapped.  This horse was massive and shook the ground when he stamped his feet.

The sheep were in a different area, although we saw a few in a show about the different sheep breeds in Britain.

In the three days there were to be several displays of dogs, with an emphasis on hounds which are often used for hunting.  These beagles were being judged, although it was a bit difficult to tell what the judges (in bowler hats) were looking for in them.  These reminded Richard and I of our Smith, who we lost to cancer earlier this year.

Finally, in one of the buildings was a quite serious cheese judging competition, again with white coats and very serious judges lending a very clinical perspective to cheese.  Attendees were able to sample the cheeses and many were amazing.  

In the end the experience was a fantastic exposure to the English countryside and its agricultural products that really help to drive the economy here.