Holiday Suggestions Please

[Andy Kirkham]

Many thanks to those who proffered suggestions; I have filed away several for future reference - the Freedom of the North West rover does look like a bargain - but in the end I have booked a week in Cromford, Derbyshire, which offers among other attractions: cycling along the Cromford & High Peak and Monsal Trail, Crich tramway museum, the Ecclesbourne Valley Railway, Peak Rail, The Museum of Making in Derby (has anybody been?), Keddleston Hall, Caulke Abbey, Chatsworth etc. etc.

 

There is a Derbyshire Wayfarer ticket that allows a day's unlimited travel by bus and train in Derbyshire at £6.70 for over-60s like me and my wife, although it will be £13.40 for my son.

[ejstubbs]

3 hours ago, Andy Kirkham said:

...I have booked a week in Cromford, Derbyshire, which offers among other attractions...Keddleston Hall

 

Tut tut: it's Kedleston - only one "d", and thus not pronounced like "kettle".  As was drummed in to me in short order when we moved within two miles of the place in 1970.

 

Enjoy your holiday.  I'd recommend the Barley Mow in Kirk Ireton as a characterful pub but I'm not sure whether there's any practical way to get there without a car ☹️

[Andy Kirkham]

Perhaps I can call upon the erudition of members again.

 

I was wondering about visting Burton-on-Trent for a brewery-related attraction. The choice seems to be between a tour of an actual brewery - Marstons - and a tour of the National Brewery centre. Both cost roughly £12. Does anyone have any opinion as to which is better?

 

Also, has anyone visited the Museum of Making in Derby? Is it worth a visit?

[BR traction instructor]

The national brewery museum in the days of Bass was superb but Coors reduced the funding/commitment etc…therefore I’d be treating the Marstons experience as the main event, hoping to be pleasantly surprised by Coors.

 

The Denby pottery experience on the Belper side of Derby is well worth a visit, as is Crich tramway museum.

 

No experience of the museum of making.

 

BeRTIe

Edited June 1, 2022 by BR traction instructor

[Hobby]

The National Brewery Centre is very good indeed, we went there a few months ago, can't speak for the Marstons tour, though having been round several breweries over the years it would have to be a good one to make me go round one again!

[Steamport Southport]

On 01/06/2022 at 11:18, Andy Kirkham said:

Perhaps I can call upon the erudition of members again.

 

I was wondering about visting Burton-on-Trent for a brewery-related attraction. The choice seems to be between a tour of an actual brewery - Marstons - and a tour of the National Brewery centre. Both cost roughly £12. Does anyone have any opinion as to which is better?

 

Also, has anyone visited the Museum of Making in Derby? Is it worth a visit?

 

If you are going to Derby for pubs make sure you go The Alex. Right by the railway station.

 

https://www.castlerockbrewery.co.uk/pubs/alexandra-hotel/

 

Look at the left hand of the picture, that's a Class 37 cab and there is loads of railway memorabilia inside.

 

 

Photo borrowed from here https://chrisdyson55.blogspot.com/2019/05/a-dip-into-derby.html

 

 

Jason

[Andy Kirkham]

HOLIDAY REPORT

 

Saturday

Well we set off from Bristol. Personnel: me, my wife Olwen and our 18 year old son.

 

We broke the journey at Derby and spent an hour in the Museum of Making https://www.derbymuseums.org/museum-of-making/ that occupies the old Silk Mill by the river. There I was delighted to see the O-Gauge Midland themed model railway Kirtley Junction, familiar from Railway Modellers past. It has been in storage for a while and has suffered a bit, but is now in the process of renovation. It can be seen operating at 11am and 2pm (so we missed it).

 

 

 

One part of the museum known as The Assemblage is like a store room made public. There are a fair number of railway items there, as you can see here:

 

 

 

What I particularly liked was this collection of O-Gauge locos with a generally Midland appearance, but evidently intended to represent a freelance railway company (note the nameplates and smokebox number plates). I couldn't find any specific information about them, though.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then we moved on to Cromford where we moved into our accommodation "Swiss Cottage" in Chapel Hill.

 

Nearby was the picturesque mill pond and the wonderful Scarthin Books http://www.scarthinbooks.com/ where anyone with a fondness for books could happily spend the best part of the day lounging, browsing and consuming coffee and cakes.

 

 

Sunday

 

We walked for a mile along the Cromford Canal to the foot of the Cromford & High Peak's first incline. Then we walked a little further to see the Leawood Pumping engine https://www.derbyshire.gov.uk/leisure/countryside/countryside-sites/wildlife-amenity/leawood-pumphouse.aspx as it just happened to be one of it's operating days. It was truly awsome to see this 1849-built engine at work and actually performing the real task of lifting water - four tons of it at a time - from the River Derwent into the Cromford Canal.

 

After retracing our steps we inspected the old workshops of the Cromford & High Peak, then ascended the incline to Sheep Pasture and proceeded along the old trackbed until we came to the Steeple Grange Light Railway. This is an 18 inch gauge line constructed along the trackbed of one of the C&HPR's feeder branches. It utilises mainly battery locos and stock formerly used in underground mine workings.

 

We were aware that we had just missed the final departure of the the day at 4:05 and were just looking over the wall inspecting the layout when we were invited in with the assurance that they would run an extra trip for the benefit of us and a couple of other bystanders.  We were hardly allowed the option to decline.

 

 

First we were given a trip on the Quarry branch, a matter of just a few minutes before we disembarked in a disused limestone quarry. There we enjoyed a presentation from a geologist who revealed the multitude of fossils to be found lurking in a block of Carboniferous Limestone.

 

On our return to base we were shown the railway's pride and joy - the ex-Horwich Works Ruston diesel ZM32 -  before transferring  to another train for our trip along the main line. This is about 1km long, the first half being in a cutting, then crossing a public road on the level and proceeding along a wooded slope to a terminus near the village of Middleton, where we alighted.

 

Okay, it's not the Talyllyn, but I don't think I've ever visited a heritage railway where the staff were bubbling with such pride and enthusiasm for the line that many of them had evidently built with their own bare hands.

 

From Middleton village we walked to the legendary location of Middleton Top, where I think we could have seen the preserved winding engine in operation had we had got there sooner.

 

We then followed a public footpath passing through the enormous disused Middle Peak limestone quarry to reach the picturesque town of Wirksworth, pausing briefly to inspect the Star Disc https://gostargazing.co.uk/events/locations/wirksworth-stardisc/

 

From there we caught the bus back to Cromford.

 

TO BE CONTINUED

 

 

Edited July 8, 2022 by Andy Kirkham

[Andy Kirkham]

Monday

 

Our plan was to eschew paid-for visitor attractions including heritage railways (Crich, Peak Rail and the Ecclesbourne Valley are all nearby) on the grounds that we would be paying around £60 for the three of us while I was the only one who was really interested. Instead we would leverage our National Trust membership and today we would visit Calke Abbey.

 

This entailed travelling to Derby by train and thence by bus. Our son likes to stay up late and wake correpondingly late, so it was after midday that we left Cromford. The connection at Derby required a dash from railway station to bus station but we didn't quite make it and saw the bus backing out just as we arrived. After an hour exploring Derby city centre we got the next bus. The distance as the crow flies is not great but the bus meanders around residential areas on the way so the journey time is over an hour. On the way we spotted a plaque on a wall in Melbourne marking the birthplace of Thomas Cook. From the main road there is a mile walk through the park to the house and we got there at four, just in time to catch the last entry. This allowed half an hour to dash through the house with the attendants anxious to close down all the rooms behind us. Not the leisurely visit I had envisaged.

 

On the way home a nice meal in a Derby Wetherspoons.

 

It really does take some determination to manage a holiday in this country without a car.

[Andy Kirkham]

Tuesday

The intention had been to visit Kedleston Hall, but all plans were put on hold when our son - a city boy through and through - announced that he was tired of being in the country and wanted to go home, having "outgrown" our style of holiday. We had no intention of keeping him away against his will so off he went. We spent most of the afternoon in Scarthin Books then went for a walk to the neighbouring village of Bonsall and back to Cromford along a steep and winding road known as Via Gellia. Checking up on this i learned that the name is not of Roman origin but comes from  an 18th century landowner named Gell. The road gave its name to the fabric Viyella, which was originally manufactured at a mill in the valley.

 

Wednesday

We decided to take full advantage of the Derbyshire Wayfarer, which for over-60s like us costs £6.70. Our itinerary was as follows:

Bus from Cromford to Bakewell; look round Bakewell for an hour and a half.

Bus from Bakewell to Buxton; look around Buxton for an hour and a half including a visit to the museum.

Train from Buxton to New Mills New Town. Just outside the station we were confronted by what seemed like a relic of another age - a fully functioning Victorian factory squeezed between canal and railway line, sporting a tall chimney and sundry pipes emitting steam. It transpired that this was the Swizzels-Matlow sweet factory, the home of Love Hearts. Originally a textile mill, it had been re-purposed by Matlows in the 1940s when they moved from the London to avoid the bombing.

 

Walk from New Mills New Town to New Mills Central, pausing en route to inspect the amazing Milennium Walkway suspended above the River Goyt and overlooked by another spectacularly located former mill.

 

 

 

 

Train from New Mills Central to Edale. Walk along the first half mile of the Pennine Way and back.

 

 

 

 

Train from Edale to Sheffield. My first impressions of the Class 195 DMUs was very favourable: commendably low engine noise and a spacious interior with generous provision of table seats.

 

A quick look round the centre of Sheffield, then Train from Sheffield to Derby, and thence to Cromford.

[Andy Kirkham]

Thursday

 

Rather than return straight home, I  persuaded Olwen that we should visit Nottingham in order to sample the trams. We reached three of the termini - Clifton South, Phoenix Park and Hucknell, at which point I felt that I had tried her patience enough, and we departed for home, leaving the Toton arm for a future visit.