Cradles

Day 1 - Fri 25 Sep - Industrial cradle

We could easily have spent another day or two around Brewood and at our Old School BnB in Blymhill.  But we have some key dates in our itinerary and need to head south and closer to London to return the car.

On the way we take in the Ironbridge Gorge in Shropshire.  It's a deep, wooded valley carved by the River Severn through multiple geographic strata, providing rich deposits of coal, iron ore, limestone, minerals and clay.  UNESCO calls it “the cradle of the Industrial Revolution” and “the Valley of Invention.”  With its easily accessible natural resources and river for transport, I can see why.

First stop is the Jackfield Tile Museum.  I remember when choosing tiles for our new house back in 2018 I didn't give their manufacture a second thought.  Just look at all the tiles on display, and concur with Pauline as to which we'd have.  Back in the 1700s they were pioneering encaustic, slip casting, moulds, painting and subsequent firing and glazing to produce a huge variety of tiles to meet growing demand, including the colonies.  I've still no idea how ours were made.

Stepping through the door and Pauline's in seventh heaven already.

Butchers' shops were particularly amenable to the improved hygiene tiles provided.

Pubs too.

And for decoration in children's hospitals,

Exquisite artistry, and increases in mechanisation meant the factories could ramp up production to millions of tiles per year.

Next stop is the Iron Bridge, erected in 1779.  

It was the first cast iron bridge ever built and became a global symbol of engineering progress. 

But first you need to produce the cast iron, and that's where the improved 1708 Coalbrookdale blast furnace came in.  All thanks to the creative genius of Abraham Darby who realised that using coke (processed coal) instead of charcoal would result in cheaper fuel costs and continuous large scale production.  This breakthrough effectively ignited the Industrial Revolution.

The remains of the blast furnace behind me.  We can peer inside the furnace, and see where the iron was run off.  Unfortunately the water wheel which powered a pair of enormous bellows is long gone, but easy to visualise from the pictures.

The Coalbrookdale Museum of Iron has a wonderful collection of exhibits, including cast‑iron cookware, steam‑engine components, structural ironwork, agricultural machinery, housewares and decorative pieces.  A shame we already have a dining table.  This one rather appeals.

This press would be perfect for my cheese-making.  I so wanted to touch the "Please don't touch" sign for a cleaner photo.

Here's a shop Pauline couldn't resist.  Genuine world famous Shropshire pork pies.  Sadly the taste belied the promise - they were so salty as to be almost inedible.

When in Brewood we asked the locals which football team they supported.  It is of course Wolves, being so close to Wolverhampton.  If I make a quick trip north to a Telford sports store I might be able to pick up a shirt.  Perfect for on the bike or the John Deere ride-on.

Unfortunately they weren't licenced to sell them.  A trip to the Molineux Stadium in the heart of Wolverhampton wasn't feasible, so I'll have to pass on this memento.  Saved an exorbitant £54 too.  Nor am I ordering online and having it posted to NZ - that would add another £25.  $180 for an orange shirt - I'll pass.  But go the Wolves!  They need encouragement - they were recently relegated to the EFL, and need support to get back to the EPL.  Just not not my financial support.

Jan’s Guesthouse in Oxfordshire is a long way south.  Pauline's driving so I take the opportunity for a snooze instead of assisting with navigation,  I can normally get away with it, but after a wrong exit from a confusing roundabout I'm prodded to stay awake.

It's another delightful rural cottage.  Time to settle in, plan our next cradle, and get a not so early night.

Day 2 - Educational cradle

Oxford is one of the world’s oldest university cities and widely regarded as the cradle of English university scholarship with teaching stretching back to 1096.  It's a must see, particularly if you come from an academic background, but even just to admire the honey‑coloured stone architecture that makes up the bulk of the halls, colleges, libraries, and museums.  Think Dunedin on steroids.  Ie a university town, but imagine it with the beautiful architecture of the railway station replicated every which way you look.

You can't just drive into Oxford and park.  Vehicles in the city centre are heavily restricted, with most of the space reserved for residents' vehicles, pedestrians and cyclists.  There's also a Zero Emission Zone (ZEZ) where EVs are free to enter, but ICE vehicles pay between £4-10 depending on how dirty they are.  Compared to London which only has congestion charging, this makes the city centre an absolute delight to walk around in with no noxious fumes belched into the air.  Somehow I can't see an EV scheme like this being implemented in NZ any time soon.

The Park and Ride takes us into town on an EV bus, and it's a short walk to the Information Centre.  Pauline has a migraine threatening but likely in retreat, so she's happy to book our Oxford University Walking Tour With University Alumni Guide.  Come back at 2pm.

This gives us time for a walk.  Pauline's been reading, and just like I'd read a fictionalised account of Bletchley Park, she's read a novel about book binders in Old Oxford.  It didn't take long to find this part of town.

Heading back to the centre of town we see this.

I've come all the way to England to see Newton's office.  How can I not see Einstein's blackboard?  A quick dash in.

And I know the physicists are hanging out for closer views:

Piece of cake, eh Ben!

Apparently there was a second blackboard, but the story goes that an overzealous janitor wiped it clean :-(

A couple of images take me back to Engineering School.  Yes, we did initially use slide rules.  I'll have to explain to the grandkids how they and logarithms work.  I still have a slide rule in my desk drawer.

And the very first engineering calculator I used, an HP25, is on display in a history museum.  Makes me feel like an historical artifact myself.  

Old habits die hard.  The HP25 used RPN (Reverse Polish Notation) for calculations.  Note there's no "Equals" key.  The calculator app on my iPhone also uses RPN.  So much better than messing around with brackets for nested equations, but impossible for anyone else to use.

And in keeping with my interest in time pieces, a fine old clock.

But it was Oxford itself that we'd come to see and hear about.  Our guide Alex was up to the mark.

He's read English as a mature-age Oxford student, and is enormously knowledgeable about Oxford itself and English history, with an almost non-stop patter over two hours.  Things were pretty brutal in the middle ages.  During the Reformation, Catholics were executed by beheading.  During the Counter-Reformation, Protestants were burnt at the stake.  Alex points out the spot where one prominent bishop met his fate.

Unfortunately there was a capping ceremony underway and we couldn't go into any part of the Bodleian Library, including the Radcliffe Camera reading room.

For the scholars, the Bod is the oldest, largest, and most important library in the world with over 13 million items.  For film buffs, the Divinity School section was used for Hogwarts’ Infirmary in three of the movies.

How would you like to study with these guys all around you?

They are idealised “Emperors” or “Philosophers”, based on ancient Greeks & Romans, not real people.  They symbolise wisdom, learning, authority and classical knowledge.  Personally I find them more intimidating than inspiring.  You've been accepted to Oxford - the pressure to excel is enormous.

If there's one thing that's annoying, it's all the bloody tourists around when you're trying to get a decent photo.  Here's Venice's Bridge of Sighs reproduced, linking two halls.

But Alex's tour took us inside quieter places where the great unwashed can't go - one of the colleges.  For us today it's Magdalen College.  So you don't embarrass yourself, it's pronounced MAWD‑lin.  And it is stunning.

Fancy dining here?  Though not often if you had essays to write or rowing practice early the following morning.  Alcohol flows freely well into the night.

Magdalen produces results too - 10 Nobel laureates, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser, and writers such as Oscar Wilde and C.S. Lewis.  Alex points out features which seem to have directly inspired The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe.  Bob Hawke, Rhodes Scholar and later another Australian PM, is also a notable Oxford graduate, though he was at University College.  He set a Guinness‑recognised beer‑drinking record at the time by skolling a yard of ale in 11 seconds.   Didn't do his political career any harm.

NZ PM David Lange didn't study at Oxford, but what connects him was his famous 1985 Oxford Union debate, where he argued for New Zealand’s nuclear‑free policy and delivered the celebrated line:

I can smell the uranium on your breath.

He won the debate, which certainly didn't do his career any harm either.

Wrapping up Oxford I have just two recommendations.  Go there, and watch for errant cyclists going a bit fast who ring their bell too late.  Pauline's nerves can attest to that.

Day 3 - Arts & Craft cradle

Our final day in Oxfordshire and we have options.  Head for the south coast?  Buckler’s Hard (Nelson’s shipyard) and Winchester Cathedral built on a swamp with an interesting engineering story as to how it was stabilised?  A bit far, and we've done Nelson already.

Or perhaps up to Stratford-upon-Avon to take in some Shakespeare?  Been there, done that 40 years ago.

What about a tour of the Cotswolds - the cradle of England's Arts & Craft movement in the late 19th–early 20th century.  And we can take in those gorgeous honey-coloured and thatched cottages as we go.

Burford's a nice little town, and Pauline's in her element.

We also get a reminder that we're in Jeremy Clarkson country.  Diddly Squat farm isn't far away.

I never had much time for him when he was presenting Top Gear, but Clarkson's Farm is presenting a different side of him which I find strangely compelling.  We see real farming activity - failures as well as successes, animals giving birth, emotion and empathy when animals are in pain or die.  As much as I enjoy Country Calendar, it feels sanitised in comparison.  If it had been early on a wet weekday morning the Diddly Squat farm shop might have been worth a visit, but on a busy Sunday there would have been queues for miles.

As there were at Stow-on-the-Wold - a lovely town if you didn't queue for half an hour to find a non-existent car park.  We press on to Hidcote Manor Garden.

And this is where we hit the jackpot.  Away from the touristy towns we stumble on Ebrington via the back roads.

Love the duelling hares on the roof.

Thatching in progress.

We arrive at Hidcote Manor Garden and need to grab lunch in the cafe as we've left our carefully prepared sandwiches on the bench in the BnB.  "Where's my phone?", asks Pauline.  No, we haven't been to a supermarket this morning, so it must be around here somewhere.  Pauline backtracks to the car.  Not there.  She checks in at reception.  Ah - there it is.  Some honest person handed it in after it was dropped beside the car.  I think this is telling us something.  It's a Samsung Galaxy a few generations old.  The screen is cracked, and battery life marginal.  A brand new one as we come back through Singapore might be on the cards.  So long as it has a lanyard.

The gardens are exquisite, and a fine example of the craftsmanship and design philosophy embodied in the Arts & Craft movement.

A sign in the garden described the garden's relevance to the movement as follows:

This espoused values of simplicity, craftsmanship and beauty.  Between the 1890s and 1930s the movement produced gardens all over Britain whose designs, redolent of a lost golden era, had worldwide influence.  These designs were engaging and romantic combinations of manor-house garden formalism and the naïve charms of the cottage garden but from formally clipped topiary to rugged wild borders, nothing was left to chance.

A croquet lawn had been there in the past, but sadly it hasn't been maintained.  The mural is so lifelike it looks as though Pauline could step into the scene, though not quite dressed for the occasion.

Hidcote Manor is also home to a Brambly Hedge exhibition - the beloved children’s book series by Jill Barklem about a community of mice living in the English countryside.  

The grandkids will know all about Brambly Hedge as Pauline gave the books to Emily a while ago.  This of course gave us an excellent opportunity to weave the mice into Monkey's travels.

 It is also important to point out that the Cotswolds is the cradle of England's medieval wool economy, primarily due to the Cotswold Lion sheep.  They're considered a rare breed now.  This one isn't quite representative, nor did it find its way into my suitcase.  The birds around our place don't need any encouragement to nest close to the house.

Back to the BnB to pack up and get away early tomorrow.  I'm about to inflict more science and technology on both Pauline and long-suffering readers of this blog.  Stay tuned.

Roots

Day 1 - Wed 23 Sept

We're heading for the Old School BnB at Blymhill, near Brewood (near Wolverhampton, near Birmingham).  We'd tried to get a BnB in Brewood (pronounced Brood, with a Midlands accent) but none was available for our dates.  Blymhill is only 11km away, and it's the largest, newest and most comfortable BnB we've experienced on our trip to date.  They even supplied eggs and juice for breakfast.

A welcome sign on the windowsill was most appreciated, and no doubt observed at home too with Term 3 just about to end.

But back to getting there.  With a direct trip time of two hours we had plenty of time to take a more meandering route, so we're off to visit nine ladies first.  Before you raise your eyebrows, these are the Nine Ladies Stone Circle on Stanton Moor, around 3,000-4,000‑years old - nine small standing stones arranged in a ring about 10 metres across, with a King Stone standing a short distance away.  According to legend, the stones represent nine ladies turned to stone for dancing on a Sunday, with the King Stone representing the fiddler who played for them.

It's a Bronze Age ritual monument long associated with folklore and solstice gatherings, but sadly it was also the location of a brutal murder just three months ago during the summer solstice celebrations.  You'd expect a place like this to be shown some sort of respect and reverence, but on arrival a group of hikers had taken up lunch spots amongst the stones, depriving other visitors of photo opportunities or a quiet moment.  A sign in remembrance of the victim is clearly displayed.

We retreated down the hill to spend more time at an abandoned building left to the elements.  It's likely a 19th–early 20th‑century quarry building left to decay after quarrying ended on Stanton Moor.  Shades of Ta Prohm in Cambodia.

Going back in time, but not quite to the Bronze Age is next on the agenda.  I'm not really into genealogy, but Pauline is (must have picked it up from her Dad) and has done some research on my behalf, including poring through my cousin Brian Linehan's genealogy records and consulting Ancestry.com.

All I know is that my Dad was christened William David Onion, one of five boys and two girls.  That's him sitting on the right hand side of his parents, Edwin Joseph Onion and Elizabeth Onion (nee Reesby).  It must have been shortly after this photo was taken (around 1936) that the three younger boys chose to change their surname to Southall, likely to reduce embarrassment for their children.  Rather than choose their mother's maiden name of Reesby, they went back a generation and chose Southall, Edwin's mother's maiden name, likely due to previous family connections.

Out of interest, my Dad despised Johnny Cash's song A Boy Named Sue, a girl's name given to a son knowing it would cause him grief, but growing up hard, mean and tough as he fought off the childhood barbs.  I guess that's why I'm such a softy.  Thanks Dad!

I knew vaguely that the family had hailed from the rural Midlands, and I knew my mother's family (the Jacksons) came from rural Coventry, which put my heritage squarely in Birmingham's radius in the heart of the Midlands, but out of the industrial centre.

It was therefore no surprise to see this confirmed in a DNA test I did a few years ago.

Apparently I'm more British than the British.  Rural Midlanders were predominantly Iron Age British and Anglo-Saxon, and bloodlines weren't as mixed as they were in the cities.  Modern England has also had huge immigration input from the Caribbean, South Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East, which changes the average genetic profile.

My grandfather Edwin Joseph Onion was born in Blenheim in 1874.  His parents Edmund Onion (born 1833) and Elizabeth Southall emigrated from the Brewood area to the Wairau Valley probably around 1860.  Interestingly, Edmund's father Edward Onion (born 1791) married Susan Southwell.

So can I find any Southalls or Onions in the local graveyards?  We stop in at the church of St Mary the Virgin & St Chad in Brewood and find a gravestone almost immediately.

Two others are nearby.  So already I've got:

Henry Southall         Died 1756

Elizabeth Southall         Died 1757

Peter Southall         Died 1748 Aged 19

John Southall         Died 1834

Mary Stubbs         Died 1856 His daughter

Suitably enthused, we head for the BnB and plot tomorrow's strategy, but not before enjoying a drink at the adjacent sports bar, where our BnB host is also the barman.  Great chatting to the locals, and enjoying (sort of) a British pub beer.

Day 2 - graveyards, locations and more graveyards

We set off for nearby Bishops Wood, and get our first hit on Onions:

Elizabeth Onion                 Born 1848 Died 1919 Wife of C L Onion

C L Onion Died 1928 Husband

Albert Charles Onion         Born 1889 Died 1955

Harry Onion         Born 1893 Died 1961

Annie Onion         Born 1896 Died 1994 Wife.

Over our two days we've visited seven church graveyards, and farming locations where Pauline's research has shown the families worked as local farmers.  We've found 17 references to Southalls and Onions, and will document these for the family record if someone is interested in extending the family tree.  We haven't found Edward Onion or Susan Onion/Southwell though, which would have given us a direct link.  Many of the gravestones are badly worn and illegible, or they might have been buried at another church - there are dozens in the area, so easily missed.  Suffice to say, I'm comfortable I've found my ancestral home on the Onion/Southall side.

Three images worth noting.  When Pauline and I were in Gallipoli in April 2011 we saw the name of Private Onion D.G. among the names of those lost from the Auckland Infantry Regiment, and confirmed he was a relation.  In the Brewood St Mary's Catholic Church we see Charles Onion and John Southall also fallen in the Great War.

This one for Joe Onion is rather poignant.  It reads:

Joe Onion

1904-1975

The gentle mind

by gentle deeds is known

In memory of

all members of the

Onion family

1644-1944

whose graves are unmarked.

I'd love to know the story behind that inscription.

While my mother was Anglican, my father was an atheist.  He may not have been amused to find his namesake and possible forebear was vicar at nearby Pattingham from 1647-1676!

Somewhat exhausted after visiting hundreds and hundreds of gravestones and trying to decipher them, we head into town for dinner.  The Staffordshire Grill does excellent up-market pub fare, and gave Pauline and me plenty of opportunity to check the photos and reflect on our findings.

Tomorrow we step back in history again, but no graveyards.  We're off to the beginning of Britain's industrial revolution.  Stay tuned!

Of Witches, Sisters, Magpies, Snakes & Bombs

 Day 1 - heading south

Sad to be leaving the alpine Lakes District behind.  We're heading south for the pastoral rolling hills of the Peak District in Derbyshire, and hopefully more agreeable weather as we come down out of the clouds.  Our ultimate destination is our BnB in Litton Mill to the south east of Manchester.  Litton Mill?  An historic 18th-century cotton-spinning mill on the River Wye.  

If the name vaguely rings a bell, it's because Litton Mill was infamous - it relied heavily on forced child labour, especially pauper apprentices from distant city workhouses, who were subjected to brutal conditions. It was exposed by Robert Blincoe, who arrived at Litton Mill in 1803 at about age seven, and endured beatings, starvation, dangerous machinery and 14 hour days.  He dictated his story to journalist John Brown in 1822 which helped fuel public outrage about child labour in factories, and is said to have inspired Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

There are a lot of little towns between Barrowford and Lancaster: Roughlee, Newchurch, Barley, Downham. Clitheroe, Waddington, Newton, Dunsop Bridge and Trough of Bowland.  We drive through most of them.

Back in the early 1600s it wasn't an easy time being poor, particularly for women.  Many relied on folk healing, begging, and charms to survive, and rivalries were intense.  Superstition was rife, and claims of sorcery were levelled at rivals.  When a passing pedlar at Pendle Hill dropped dead after an encounter with a woman, his son claimed he'd been bewitched.  A Puritan magistrate investigated and rounded up 11 people, mostly women, and marched them in chains to Lancaster Castle via these towns.  Known as the Pendle Witches, they were tried, all but one convicted, and hanged.

A statue of Alice Nutter, one of the witches, is immortalised in Roughlee.  As an adjacent plaque reads, she was unusual amongst the accused in that she was comparatively wealthy, the widow of a yeoman farmer.  There was no evidence that she was a "witch", and pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, but was hanged along with the others in 1612.

A sombre Pauline reflects on conditions 400 years ago when poverty, superstition, religious intolerance and zealous prosecution lead to horrendous injustices.

And now for the sisters.

Pauline's read Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights in her youth, and is keen to see the Brontë sisters' home, which they lived in from 1820 to the end of their relatively short lives.  We set the GPS for the Haworth Parsonage which is now museum, though it feels more like a preserved family home frozen in time.

The room where the sisters did much of their writing is immaculately restored.

Their early deaths are tragic.  Mother Maria died just after arriving at Harworth, leaving father Patrick to raise six children all under 8 years old.  The two eldest children died shortly thereafter.  Charlotte died at age 38 from TB and pregnancy complications, Emily at age 30 of TB, and Anne at age 29, also of TB.  Brother Branwell died before them at age 31 of TB worsened by alcoholism and opium addiction.  Their father Patrick outlasted all his six children and died age 84.  I can't imagine how it must have felt to have to bury your wife and six children.  Sadly as well, the world has been deprived of more novels from these incredible sisters.

Another magnificent grandfather clock - I'm getting rather sentimental about these.

Patrick would wind it at 9pm every night as he warned his daughters not to stay up too late.

Having read Charlotte's Jane Eyre and Emily's Wuthering Heights, Pauline bought Anne's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in the gift shop to round off her reading list.

The town of Haworth is delightful, with the only distraction being the Halloween displays set up six weeks in advance.  

Lunch at Pavé.

Having sampled the cheese platter, how could we not get more to bring back to the BnB?  A quote from author Avery Aames is prominently displayed: Life is great.  Cheese makes it better.  Works for me!

The chocolate shop has just as much attraction for Pauline.

We're running a bit late by this stage and head straight for our Monsal Cottage BnB.  We're in Manchester's halo and rush hour traffic is horrendous.  We arrive after dark, and take this pic the next morning.  Bright and sunny!

Day 2 - a day in Derbyshire

When I think of magpies and lead, I visualise a small pellet travelling at high speed where the prognosis for the magpie is not good.  That, of course, relates to nasty aggressive Australian magpies regarded as a pest species at home.  Perhaps not as destructive as hedgehogs or possums, but they attack native birds, and that's a good enough reason to take them out whenever they come in range.  But there's a problem - their intelligence is on a par with crows, and it's rumoured that not only can they tell if you're carrying a firearm, they can tell what calibre it is too, and stay just out of range.  

By comparison, British magpies are lovely with iridescent blue‑green wings and a long, elegant tail.  They're generally shy and rarely aggressive.

Which brings me to our first stop of the day - the Magpie Lead Mine.  Just opposite the entrance is a scene I haven't seen for a while - a herd of cows.

It's clearly not the Waikato.  Stock density is low, dry-stone walls delineate the paddocks, and there isn't an electric fence in sight.  But hay making is in progress - all a marked contrast to the Lakes District where the moors and dales can only support a few sparse sheep.

Ah - the lead mine.  Not far from our BnB and Bakewell.  Initiated in the 18th century, it continued working until decommissioned in the 1950s.

The mine is famous for a violent dispute between rival mining groups back in 1833.  Both were working the same vein from different shafts, and one group lit a fire to smoke the other out.  Three men died, but the perpetrators were acquitted of murder as it couldn't be proved who lit the fire.  Rumour has it that the victim's wives put a curse on the mine and it subsequently struggled with flooding, disputes and low ore prices until it eventually closed down.

It's a dramatic landscape though.

So why the Magpie Mine?  According to the historical record, the mine’s name “likely originates from the magpie’s association with shiny objects, a fitting moniker for a mine that yielded this valuable metal".

Did I mention Bakewell?  When Pauline was in England in the late 90s she was drawn to the town famed for its Bakewell Pudding.  It's said to have been created by accident in the 1860s at the Rutland Arms Hotel when a cook misinterpreted a recipe.  Imagine a puff pastry base spread with a layer of jam and completed with an almond‑egg filling, baked until golden and slightly wobbly.  Who could resist?  Needless to say, we bought a couple.

We pop back to the BnB to hang out washing, have lunch, then note the Yaris needs a top-up.  Not just petrol, the TPMS advises the front right tyre is low so I ease into the air pump space.  Hmm - air's not flowing.  Is the pump broken?  Then I read the instructions.  Payment is required!  For the first time in my life I've had to pay for air.  Ok it was only £1.50 but it didn't put me in a particularly good mood.

Before we can eat Bakewell pudding we need a decent walk to justify the calories.  Mam Tor Hillfort fits the bill nicely.  It's a 4,000 year old Bronze Age fort and burial site with commanding views over the surrounding countryside.  Of course Sam's monkey comes with us - we send Monkey Travel stories home each night.

It was only 4km, but with a 200m elevation gain it gave us a decent workout.  The trail was rough in places too.  Here we're crossing an old road that's slipped down the hill.

It used to be the A625, but it was built right across the weak shale landslide zone.  After multiple slides and repairs the last straw was the 1974 failure and the road was abandoned.  Engineers accepted the obvious: you can’t build a stable road on a moving mountain.

We're on our way to the Derwent Dam, but there's a tantalisingly labelled Snake Pass road just to the north.  We've done Hardknott - why not knock off another tricky one?  It must twist and turn like a snake with a name like that.  What an anti-climax!  It was less difficult than cruising over the Kaimais on SH29.  And the name?  It comes from the Snake Inn, a coaching inn built in the early 19th century by the Duke of Devonshire.  The inn’s sign featured a serpent - the emblem of the Cavendish family - and travellers began referring to the road as “Snake Pass”.

But it got us to Derwent Dam, where the engineer creating the Midland's water supply had a sense of humour.  He rather liked Gothic towers.

Two of them.

Please note that washing, bathing and being a nuisance are not allowed.

But it's on the upside of the dam where the action happened.   In WW2 the British needed to take out the German dams in the Ruhr, but they were heavily protected.  Enter the bouncing bomb - a huge spinning cylinder that skipped across water like a skimming stone, evaded torpedo nets, struck a dam wall, sank, and detonated underwater to breach the dam.

To do this proficiently, the RAF 617 Dambuster Squadron had to practice, and the Derwent Dam was the perfect location.  Minus the detonator fuse.

Note how low the water level is.  A long dry summer has left both the Derwent and nearby Ladybower Reservoirs exceptionally low.  The remains of the Derwent and Ashopton villages flooded when the dams were built have now reappeared.  They normally sit metres underwater.

Fortunately we're back at Monsal Cottage before nightfall.  Tomorrow we're heading to Brewood, near Wolverhampton.  What on earth is the attraction in the middle of the industrial Midlands?  Can't you think of somewhere more scenic to go?  All will be revealed.