Dark Satanic Mills

Late one afternoon, after a failed attempt to visit a Christmas market, we called off at Cromford on the way home for a walk around the shops in the old mill buildings and along the canal. It's a place I've visited many times, but on this occasion I was particularly struck by how gloomy and oppressive the old mills were.

Perhaps it was due to the failing light, the chilly weather, the emptiness of the mill yard, but they really did live up  to William Blake's 'dark satanic mills'  name. I've heard that Blake was probably referring to Albion mills in London, but Arkwright's Cromford mills were there at the forefront of the industrial revolution, bringing huge blocks of buildings, and a whole new way of working, to an otherwise rural environment. 

It's that pleasant countryside that attracts visitors today. The towpath beside the canal built to ship out factory goods now makes a pleasant level walking route along the valley, the High Peak Railway is a hillier cycle and walking route leading over the hills towards Buxton, and in Spring the nearby hillsides are covered in bluebells. But the mill workers would have little time to enjoy the surrounding countryside.

On a grim November day, with the few walkers pacing quickly past huddled in scarves and hats, the past seems closer - workers hurrying along to the mill before the sun has risen over the hills, horse-drawn barges heading along the canal. No time for leisure activities; just hard dawn to dusk (and possibly beyond) work. 

 

Great Chishill Postmill

For some odd reason, I like windmills. 

I say 'odd' because I have no interest in how all the cogs and gears mash together to grind corn but I still like to visit. Maybe it's something to do with an interest in social history, maybe they just look photogenic.

With a deep blue sky as backdrop, Great Chishill windmill was certainly looking good when we stopped off for a few minutes on our journey home.

And it's a great place to stop and admire the view (again, as on Periwinkle Hill outside Barkway, I bet you can see Ely in the distance)

Even I could tell this wasn't a standard windmill with a static brick or stone tower, with sails that operate when the wind happens to be blowing the right direction, but I'm not sure what is meant by its description as 'an open trestle postmill'; one of only seven in the country! 

What I did manage to glean from an information board is that the smaller fantail whirls round  and operates a mechanism which moves the whole mill around to face the wind direction., and there are warnings that the mill might suddenly move. It didn't while we were there, but it's a clever idea.

If you're interested enough to want to find out more, including info about the group restoring it, check out the Great Chishill Windmill site here

 

Ellenabeich

Being 'up north' (in comparison to Tayvallich where we were staying) we decided to travel a few more miles, across the 'bridge over the Atlantic' to the island of Seil, and the village of Ellenabeich.

Today Ellenabeich is a peaceful conservation village but its photogenic exterior hides a busier more industrial past, for the area used to be the site of huge slate quarries. 

Heading south lies a chain of island often marked on maps as 'the Slate Islands'; all once producers of this in-demand roofing material.  The area must have been very different from today. 

At Ellenabeich there are still signs of the past all around - lagoons that now fill the quarries,  remains of a huge dock, winching equipment, and, of course, those workmen's cottages that now look so quaint. 

In one of the cottages there's a museum that tells about the village's history but it was closed by the time we arrived. This dummy outside shows how smaller pieces of slate were cut by hand, though I'm not sure that wearing shoes on the wrong feet was part of the normal dress.

And a ferry takes visitors over to nearby Easdale island; another place filled with memories of the past. I've been before but we were a bit too late in the day this time.

 

Gardeners' Sheds at Calke

One of the things I love about Calke Abbey is that the National Trust have preserved not just the run-down stately home, but the potting sheds and garden 'offices', which capture a glimpse of the gardeners' lives and work

The paint may be pealing, an odd bit of glass missing, and the roof overgrown with moss but spades, hoes and rakes are neatly stacked against the walls, and the drawers have labels showing the seeds kept there. 

It's easy to imagine that the gardeners have just put down their tools at the end of the day, and now headed home.

Obviously I've an interest in all things gardening-related, (and although much tidier these sheds remind me of those at my childhood home) but to me it's important that the lives of ordinary men and women are as treasured and preserved as those of the folks at the 'big house'.

 

Bugsworth Canal Basin

 Although I like going places, I don't like sitting for hours and hours in the car with no breaks, so when we're travelling anywhere over a longish distance, I'm on the lookout for places to stop and walk round for a while. Going to and from Manchester, we've often driven past a roadsign for Bugsworth Canal Basin, near Whaley Bridge, and I've had it in mind as a place to investigate - and at last I have.






I'd no idea whether to expect a modern marina, with shops and restaurants, or a more practical 'yard' for cleaning and working on boats. It turned out to be neither. Instead it was a fascinating glimpse into transport and industry in the past.

horse bridge

In the 1890s up to 80 boats a day were loading with limestone to be transported through the canal network for use in roads and as fertilisers. There are remains of lime kilns at the side of the canal basin, tracks still marking where the tramway ran bringing stone to the barges, and reconstructions of the bridges the barge-towing horses used to pass over the canal. Today though it's hard to believe it was ever that busy!

horse bridge

course of tramway still easily seen on the right

Going home - Brinsley Headstocks Country Park

Driving home after visiting my parents this weekend, we stopped off at a small country park where the village pit once stood.

 The pit itself closed long ago - in the 1930s - but when I was a child the headstocks still stood alongside a seemingly enormous 'slag heap' overgrown by weeds and saplings, and, despite warnings about uncapped mine shafts, I remember being taken there on walks with my mother, and playing among the ruins. In my memory, it's a wild, untamed place, with narrow tracks twisting through brambles, and leading who-knew-where. 

Now, it's been 'tamed'. The headstocks were taken away for several years, the site cleared, the shafts filled. Then the headstocks were brought back and a country park created around them, with proper paths and information boards.

For many the place's importance comes from the association with local author DH Lawrence - his father was born in a nearby cottage, his aunt and uncle lived in another (which he used as the setting for a short story,"Odour of Chrysanthemums") - but for me it's just a bit of disappeared childhood. It's tidier and safer now, no doubt, but nothing like as exciting!

Calke Abbey - #3 - decay, decoration, details

When the National Trust took over Calke Abbey thirty years ago, the estate had been neglected for years. Buildings were in desperate need of repair, but beyond making them safe for visitors, the Trust have done very little to them, instead preserving the house, stables and garden buildings pretty mush as they were. Decay has its own strange beauty though ...

In the gardeners' store rooms and potting sheds it looks like someone will be back any minute to pick up their tools and carry on work...























... while the stables house a collection of old machinery and other 'junk'. After all, who thought a broken window needed to be kept?

















On the other hand there's the most wonderful attention to detail - these ornamented brackets, with flowers, birds and strange water creatures, were part of the guttering and drainpipe system, not just on the main house but also on the stable block and boiler rooms in the gardens.

So many little details like this are so easy to miss. Who would ever have actually looked up and noticed the decoration at the top of this drainpipe?















Caught, Sleeping Beauty like, in a time warp, Calke is definitely a strange and fascinating place.









Other posts from this visit to Calke Abbey - #1 - flower gardens
                                                                       #2 - fruit and veg