Floral Bliss #26

It's been an enjoyable weekend and I hope you had a good one also. Our weekend celebrations extended into Monday as we celebrated our wedding anniversary the day after Father's Day. This year it was our 52nd wedding anniversary.

I'm joining Riitta's Floral Bliss again this week, but I shall keep my writing brief as I'm experiencing technical problems with my laptop and also the Internet service has been down this morning and has just returned.

The rose called 'Anniversary Rose', which our Berkshire daughter gave us, has been blooming in time for our special day. My husband transferred it from a pot into the ground this Spring and it's doing well.

There's plenty of shade from the fig tree during these exceptionally sunny days where we can sit out.

 I shall do a garden  roundup of them at the end of the month.

On Monday we went for a drive out into the Derbyshire countryside. We had decided to revisit Tideswell which I've written about before.  However, as we got to the town we realised that it was Festival Day and probably there had been well dressing ceremonies at the weekend.  Actually the town wasn't very busy and it was easy to park,  take a look at the well dressing pictures made from flower petals and other natural materials and also go into the church.  It's called the Cathedral of the Peaks because as well as being a large, beautiful building it has always been an important place of worship that has served the local community over the centuries.

By the side of the drive up to the church was the school children's design and a display of some of their preparatory drawings.

Inside the church there was an exhibition showing the work done by the many and varied organisations and groups in the local community.  The above display is just one of them and I'll share more when I write a blog about the church festival.

Further down the high street there was another well dressing display in Fountain Square.  It depicts various aspects of Hull, which is this year's City of Culture, including the Minster, Amy Johnson's famous bi-plane Gipsy Moth and the Humber Bridge.

Tideswell was looking very colourful and we could have stopped there for longer, but it was lunch time and we decided to drive back to the Hope Valley and have something to eat in Edale Village. The walk after lunch needs another blog post so I'll leave you with a few photos of the hills of Edale, which is a popular area for hill walkers as it's the start of the Pennine Way National Trail. 

The above photo was taken during another visit before the leaves were on the trees. This time the hedges were green and there were wild honeysuckle and dog rose bushes in flower. The tall grasses along the verges of the narrow lane, the only road through Edale Valley, were full of wild flowers.

a rose bush in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Church, Edale

A drive to Hathersage, Derbyshire

We pass one end of Ladybower Reservoir every time we spend time visiting the villages in the Hope Valley and I've always wanted to see it from above so recently we decided to take a different route on our way to Hathersage.  This took us up a lane on the slopes of Bamford Edge and then on towards Stanage Moor before making a descent into Hathersage.

On one side was Bamford Edge.

On the other (above) we could see across to Hope Valley (marked by the X), but unfortunately the woods in full leaf obscured Ladybower Reservoir and the River Derwent.  We would have had to find a way up to the rocky escarpment and then we would probably have seen the reservoir.

Nevertheless it was an impressive view (above) and knowing the landmarks we could see Castleton in the distance beyond the distinctive tower of a cement works and even the ruins of Peveril Castle (marked with an X)  and Mam Tor. Below us was the village of Bamford.

Stanage Edge and Moor

After driving some way along the ridge of a hill we were able to stop in the lane and see Hathersage in the valley below.

We could see the spire of St Michael's and All Angels Church, the walled kitchen garden and part of the cemetery.  I've written about this and the Charlotte Bronte connection before.

On Besom Lane is a row of cottages with small windows at the top.  This floor was once a button factory.  Conditions would have been bad for the health as workers breathed in metal dust that would have been present in the air especially in the needle making industry in the village mills.

Down in the village we parked in The Dale near Dale Brook and Mill. The Mill was a small works producing metal buttons, pins and needles in the 18th and early 19th centuries.  Here we sat and had a sandwich and some bottled water to drink before a walk up Church Bank to visit the church.

Views from Church Bank

The shaft of an ancient cross

It's well dressing and gala festival season and we had come to see the decorated pictures made from natural materials that are erected near the brooks and wells in thanksgiving for the abundance of water in the county. Donations go to a good cause. The designs change each year and are chosen to represent a Biblical theme, depict an aspect of that particular village or commemorate a national event.

This year the primary school's theme was the commemoration of Victory in Europe Day (8th May 1945) 70th anniversary.

At the Methodist Church there was another thought-provoking theme.

After our time in Hathersage we drove back through part of Hope Valley, through Bamford, passing Ladybower Reservoir again.