Magpie Mines

Plenty of field hopping brought me to the pretty little village of Sheldon. The lane past by a small church, and I had a wander around the graveyard. I noted that some of the graves were for the family, Sheldon. If you are going to leave a legacy, then I guess you can do no better than have a village named after you.

Beyond Sheldon, my OS map had shown an 'Other Tourist Feature' (blue star) called Magpie Mines. I'd not really invested much hope in this being any more than a capped mining shaft, but my interest was piqued by seeing a couple of tall chimneys on the horizon. It turned out to be a lot more interesting than expected. Lead had been mined at the site for 250 years and had continued up until the 1950s. Apart from the two tall chimneys, there were plenty of buildings and winding gear still around. The main shaft was 222 metres deep and water had to be drained from the workings. From 1840 a Cornish beam engine (remember those from the school history lessons?) was used to pump the water to the surface, but the high cost of coal made the engineers look at cheaper solutions. This involved building a 2km long drainage tunnel to dump the excess water into the River Wye. Quite an engineering feat!

An information board also gave the following details about a dispute between the mining companies that worked the site:

Originally there were several separate mines on this site, all governed by the ancient "Barmote Laws". Magpie miners were working the North Bole Vein whilst the Maypit miners were working the neighbourring Great Redsoil Vein. Where the veins met, the Magpie miners broke through into the Great Redsoil Vein, and there were arguments in the Barmote Court over who had the rightful title to work the mine. Underground, miners on both sides lit fires of straw and tar to smoke out their opponents, resulting in three Redsoil miners being killled in 1833 by the sulphorous fumes created by the Magpie men. It is said that the widows of the 'murdered' men put a curse on the mine which remains to this day.

Given the serene surroundings today, it is hard to comprehend what the location must have been like in its heyday. I wasn't keen on that 'curse on the mine' bit, and so I decided to move on. The information board had mentioned the 'North Bole Vein' and Bole Hill was where I was heading next.

Bole Hill

Bole Hill was just an insignificant undulation on the landscape, nay a tiny vertical aberration between two locations. I'm not sure why it is an Ethel. Maybe the Ethel designers looked at their Ethel map and figured that this particular area of the Peak District looked rather empty, and maybe they ought to nominate an Ethel there, just to make their Ethel map look a bit more evenly distributed. It is out on its tod too, and so you can only realistically get the one hill ticked on an Ethel bagging walk. The name 'Bole' indicates that it was used for smelting lead. There's another Bole Hill near Totley, that was also used for smelting lead. They used to do this on the top of the hill so that a breeze would blow the fumes away.

I plodded through the fields on the other side of Bole Hill, hardly noticing any advantage that the slight descent may have given me. My route to Over Haddon, had lots of field hopping, and many, many cows. Fortunately, the cows weren't that inquisitive. Occasionally, one of them would briefly glance up from their grazing, at my brief and swift visit. Over Haddon was another one of those pretty White Peak villages, but I walked straight through since I was keen to reach my next waypoint, Bakewell.

Bakewell

I had to do some road walking and a bit more field hopping before I reached the outskirts of Bakewell. The town is built in the bottom of a valley along the River Wye. My route took me past a cemetery and then I followed a wide footpath downhill to the centre. The houses were very twee and pretty, with age, history and probably heat, oozing out of them. The centre of the town followed a similar theme, with a selection of coffee houses, cafes and visitor shops. I did think about going searching for a Bakewell Tart, but I'd brought a packed lunch with me, and it was pointless wasting it. I crossed the River Wye and took refuge from the traffic and tourists, in a small park alongside the river, where I sat on a bench, ate my cheese and onion bap and watched the river flow by. My meditations were briefly interrupted when a boisterous Spaniel dashed by, within biting range of my sandwich. It's owners, two women, walked by without a glance, at me or my sandwich.

After lunch, I walked up to the old Bakewell Station and stepped on to the Monsal Trail. This is an 8.5 mile trail that runs from Bakewell to Blackwell Mill in Chee Dale. The trail would be motorway back to Monsal Head.

Monsal Head

Like all trails along old railway routes, you never seem to get a good view since you are either walking through a cutting, or the undergrowth on either side is too thick. After 20 minutes of walking, I was surprised when my friends the Spaniel and the female couple, popped out in front of me, from a bridleway. The Spaniel gave me a look as if to say; 'You got anything better than cheese and onion sandwiches, mate?' Looking at the map, I could see that they must have followed a path along the river, and then chosen a bridleway across fields to intercept the Monsal Trail. The trail surface is very hard, and so that route might have been a better option. The Spaniel detected that it was wasting its time begging for food from me, and so it dashed back to its owners.

The trail goes through four tunnels, and I went through the longest one (490 metres) today. It is ominously called the Headstone Tunnel and an information board said that it was built by a shaft being sunk from the ground above, and navvies digging each way from the shaft. It seemed an odd way of constructing it in my view, since all the material would have to be extracted via the shaft. On the plus side, I guess there would be no surveying mishaps compared to the alternative of tunnelling from each end and hoping to meet in the middle. For most of its length, water dripped from its roof, and I was glad to get to the end and back into the sunshine.

I climbed back up to the viewpoint at Monsal Head. The view down the valleys looked a lot more cheerful than this morning, now that the sun was out. For a month that had been short of good weather, today's respite had been very welcome.