I’m on a winter break in the Derbyshire Peaks, staying at YHA Hartington Hall for the bargain price of £13 a night. Up to the 1960s, the gritty tors, sheepy moors and lush dales were criss-crossed by passenger and mining railways. Now some of their trackbeds form four major railtrails: High Peak, Tissington, Monsal and Manifold – among Britain’s best. Especially if like me you enjoy leisurely, car-free, scenic, cafe-oriented cycling.
As I’m on my ‘offroad tourer’, it’s bound to be leisurely. It’s a heavily modified mountain bike, with the emphasis on ‘heavily’. The sales-bargain Halfords MTB wasn’t light to start with, never mind the additional weight of pannier rack, mudguards and raised handlebars. It’s the bike equivalent of an SUV, except I don’t use it just to go to Waitrose.
Anyway, I got the train to Buxton this morning. It claims to be one of England’s highest market towns, though the only things on sale at the market were eggs and olives. I had to visit Aldi to stock up for the hostel fridge. I did however enjoy filling my bidon up free with Buxton spa water – as were several locals toting bucket-sized plastic bottles – and admired the Bath-like Regency terraces opposite the friendly tourist info.
I popped into Buxton’s fine bookshop, Scrivener’s. It’s exactly how anglophile Americans would imagine a British second-hand book store, five floors of wonky stairs, creaky floorboards and iggledy-piggledy shelves crammed with books of all kinds.
I headed south into the hills, pausing at an ash tree festooned with shoes – apparently an informal guerrilla artwork by mischievous teenagers since 2006, misappropriating friends’s footwear and throwing it beyond their reach into the branches of this unfortunate ash tree.
There’s fine scenery in the hills south of Buxton, with jagged peaks rising above village such as Earl Sterndale, who sounds like a legendary US jazzer. The back lanes round here are delightful, and the way they wind through the lumpy hills along dry-valley floors reminds me very much of the Yorkshire Wolds.
Hartington Hall is a splendid place to stay – a working farm and manor house with walks, rides and view right from the doorstep. I bumped into someone I met in Slovakia six years ago, so we celebrated with a few drinks by the indoor pool.
Not a swimming pool, of course – it’s a YHA hostel – but the local 8-ball match down at Hartington British Legion, a friendly and down-to-earth club where all were welcome and the beer was under £4 a pint. A lucky break in every sense.