29 July 2016 - Buxton Caravan Club Site, Derbyshire

Typical English drizzle greeted us on rising and developed into miserable rain for the day, despite the forecasted improving weather. We hung about until mid-morning hoping for improvement, and then headed off out of our quarry camp with misguided great optimism.

Our route this morning took us across the steep hills to the north west of Buxton, the mist obscuring the Goyt Valley far below. We pulled onto the side of the road before losing sight of Buxton to send a batch of emails I had lined up and ready to go. Travel used to mean checking in once in a blue moon with the occasional postcard, but these days one needs to stay on top of business affairs with emails and respond almost immediately.  But then it is because of this that one can carry on endlessly “holidaying” and still keep tabs on business, work, family and friends. It’s a catch twenty two situation, and really, I would have it no other way.

We should have joined the A6 at Whaley Bridge, but our Tomtom had other ideas; instead we cut across further hills on narrow roads, the views from which might have been spectacular if the rain had cleared. We emerged onto the A6 at Disley, now in Cheshire, and very soon were guided into the entrance of Lyme Park, our destination for the day.

Lyme, sitting on 570 hectares of parkland with views on better days of Manchester and the Cheshire Plains, was the home to the Legh family (pronounced (Leigh or Lee) for more than 600 years.

Way back in 1346, a knight by the name of Thomas Danyers, a Leigh ancestor, was one of a small group who rescued the Black Prince at the battle of Crecy, and then Thomas went on to retrieve the Prince’s standard but only when he cut off the arm holding it in momentary victory.

The symbol celebrating this rather gory deed,  a severed arm holding flags, is the “Augmentation of Honour” of the family, given by Elizabeth I in 1575 to recognise this bravery; not that of the unwilling donor but the amputator. This emblem of pride appears over and over on various architectural features throughout the building.

He was awarded an annuity, but it was not for some years that his descendants claimed their reward; a parcel of land, part of the King’s hunting forest park, here on the edge of the Peaks. Initially a modest home was built where the current residence stands these days, and as in most cases, it evolved through the years, becoming more substantial as status and lifestyle demanded. There were years when the property was subjected to neglect and years when it was improved in grand style. 

Circumstance rather than deliberate choices kept most from the wrong side of the royals; in fact they enjoyed great favour from most of the kings and queens through the centuries. In the early 1800s, an Italian architect was engaged to oversee renovation work and it is to this era that any more modern restoration has been matched.

Although it was the same family who held the property through the centuries, there were families who ran out of direct male descendants and inheritance was switched across to cousins, but always a Legh. I had come upon this name while researching my husband’s ancestry, as well as a reference to Stockport which lies just down the road. I was keen to see if there was any connection, so was delighted to find on our return this evening that his great, great, ….., grandmother was the sister of Piers Legh VI. I will do some further research when I have access to the internet. Needless to say we were both tickled pink by the discovery.

Lovely Lyme

The family’s wealth grew over the centuries with canny marriages and much later, coal mining, and it seems there were no foolish wasters as there have been in other instances, such as with Calke Abbey. However when the coal seams diminished, and later the mines were nationalised in 1939, the Leghs were unable to maintain the grand estate. In 1946 they gave it to the National Trust, which in turn leased it to the Stockport Council for ninety nine years, as they too did not have the financial resources to support the property.  The lease has yet to expire, however the Trust took it back in the last part of the century, and have run it ever since.

Funding comes from entry fees, and surprisingly not from filming rights. The television series “Pride & Prejudice”, starring Colin Firth as Mr Darcy, was filmed here, or at least the exterior scenes of “Pemberley” were here, while the interior scenes were shot in the Sudbury Hall south of Ashbourne, a property we passed close to on our way north to Buxton. Needless to say, interest in these very popular series and other films has stirred up interest in the place and the tourist flock in their thousands.

Arriving at Lyme, we found ourselves a little early to visit the house, so took tea in the Stables, an unusual treat for us, then walked up to the house in the rain, interrupting our tour for a historical talk in the chapel. This was most interesting and took us through to lunchtime, after which we returned to the house and spent a further couple of hours wandering through the splendidly appointed rooms. The gardens are also quite lovely but not so appealing in the pouring rain, and the rain had increased rather than diminished. I had been keen to walk up to the “Cage” a tower-like folly on the hill with 360 degree views, but the ground was soaked and visibility was poor, so we gave that a miss and headed home.

Returning via Whaley Bridge, we spotted a brown heritage sign for Bugsworth Canal Basin which piqued our interest. A few miles along a riverside road toward Chinley brought us to the canal basin, a large restored area, the work of industrious volunteers.

The basin marks the end of the Peak Forest Canal. It was once the heart of industrial activity in the area when limestone, lime and gritstone were brought down from nearby quarries. The limestone was either burnt at the basin or shipped out straight away. Then there were nineteen lime kilns operating around the Basin.

Narrowboats at Bugsworth

When the canal opened in 1796, canal mania had gripped the country. This was the time of the Industrial Revolution. Factories and building sites demanded more and more raw materials. Canals allowed safe transport on a massive scale.

Enterprise here was massive with workers moving enough limestone at Bugsworth Canal Basin to fill over 2,000 canal boats in 1808 alone. Horses hauled the boats at about four miles an hour. A journey from Bugsworth to Manchester took around ten hours because the crews had to negotiate thirty four locks on their way. 

From 1796, until around 1924, the Peak Forest Tramway continued to carry limestone, lime and gritstone to Bugsworth Basin for loading into canal boats. Well over one hundred men, women and children toiled at this dirty, unhealthy place; some loaded boats with stone and burnt lime, others sweated in kilns, crushed stone or worked on the tramway.

The coming of the railways with their steam locomotives led to the closure of the Tramway and in 1927 the track was ripped up for scrap. Rail transport gradually replaced the tramway wagons and canal boats and Bugsworth fell into disuse.

The Basin lay derelict for over forty years. In that time the polluted industrial wasteland recovered to become a haven for wild plants and animals. But in 1968, volunteers of the Inland Waterways Protection Society (IWPS) began to renovate Bugsworth and it finally re-opened to boats in 1999.

This afternoon we wandered all over the area, dodging the goose along the tow paths and the dog poo even more liberally left. We greeted the narrow boat captains and their companions, the lock keeper and everyone else we encountered, and were generally delighted that we had come upon this lovely spot. And even better still, the rain stayed off all the while.

Back on the road, the rain continued to stay away but the visibility was still poor, so we decided against taking an alternate route for sightseeing purposes. Once home we lay out our wet gear as we had yesterday and hoped that tomorrow would bring dryer weather.