An evening stroll

       One evening recently we went over to Castleton in the Hope Valley

       and had a walk around the quiet streets as there were few people around.

We parked by St. Edmund's Church near the Market Place

    where there's a view of the ruins of Peveril Castle high up on a hill. 

We walked along the path by the millstream towards Peak Cavern

before returning to the main street, Castle Street.
Most of the shops were closed, but there were window displays
to look at including the jewellery and other ornamental items crafted from the Blue John
(bleu et jaune) stone, the beautiful dark purple/'blue' and yellow veined and banded
 fluorspar mineral that has been mined in the Castleton caverns since the C18th.
  

There are eating places in old buildings all with an interesting history.

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Inn was one of the earliest ale houses in Castleton.
It was a regular stopping place for horses and riders transporting salt
from the county of Cheshire and the payment for a stay would be in the form
of Cheshire Cheeses. 

We sat for a while before driving back home, 

stopping by Lady bower Reservoir where it was very peaceful by the water....

.....although looking over the stone wall by the dam a bell mouth overflow,
one of two, looked very strange in the growing twilight. 

When we've been here before it has looked very different.

There are several Open Garden events this weekend in our locality where villages are opening gardens to the public. The one at Castleton is called 'Castleton's Secret Gardens'. There's a similar event nearer to where we live so I might go along.

Summer days

On our way back from one of our days out we stopped at Haggler's Corner for a cup of tea.

It's a building we often pass on our way through town in an area where there are lots of 

interesting individual businesses; cafes, co-operative art venues, second hand and antique shops.

You can't help noticing Haggler's Corner.

The cup of tea and the musical trio made for a very welcome break.

What interested me most was the wall painting in the cafe courtyard of Granelli's shop that sells old fashioned varieties of sweets and home made ice cream. The old shop still stands and it's one I noticed when we first visited the city of Sheffield and wondered about the Italian community living here. Then I met a lady, now a good friend, at a family history course whose great grandparents were Italian immigrants who settle in the city and she's told me some interesting tales about the early days. If you're interested you can read more about the Italians who lived in Sheffield's 'Little Italy' in the C19th and C20th century here. Some were skilled artisans making terrazzo mosaics for floors and walls in important city buildings and others were street vendors who sold their wares to the theatres and music hall audiences and later established businesses such as an ice cream saloon in the city centre.   

I haven't been to the shop as it's a little out of my way, but the Granelli family sells ice cream in the new covered market in the city centre.  We're having some warm weather at the moment and just right for enjoying some specially-made Italian ice cream so I might check out the market stall there. Alternatively a quiet time sitting in the garden with a bowl of strawberries (not our own, as yet) might be a good idea. I shall enjoy the new plants and plant pots we were given recently and those that we bought after a visit to a couple of our local garden nurseries at the weekend.