Buxton and Eyam

June 20, 2012

the return leg

The jam at Hillcrest House is homemade and full of fruit so after polishing off the Full English, I buy a jar to take back to Dave’s.

It's about 9:00 when Debbie and I hit the road, heading back towards the Dog and Partridge, then down to the Tissington Trail again. The sun is out and the sky clear.

Those Victorian engineers make our journey easy, with the flat route hugging the contours. OK, there's a slight, continuous climb, but we know we’d be much worse off riding up and down farm lane in Derbyshire.

The rolling hills offer nice views. Drystone walls crisscross the landscape. The cycle path is firm and a light colour and as our tyres roll north along it, they make a slight noise. Other than that, it's dead quiet.

Close to Parsley Hay we bump into a few people – a man walking his dog, then Sunday cyclists, and a few wayward sheep.

Parsley Hay turns out to be just a disused station that’s now a café and bicycle rental place, so we sit and have a cup of tea and a chocolate bar, then look around the bike shop, but all we buy are a couple of small fridge magnets for Debbie’s friends. It's all a bit pricey.

The route gets a bit convoluted on the way to Buxton and we eventually end up on lanes, then the main road. It isn’t too bad and it's about 2:00 when we get to the outskirts of town and stop for a late fish and chips lunch. I buy a can of Tizer, a brand of pop that I have’t seen for donkey’s years.

Buxton seems busy and we don't bother to hang around and just kept on riding through. The way out is a narrow road with hardly any shoulder so we speed along hoping to find an alternative, maybe another cycle lane.

I'm looking for Topley Pike, one of the places Patterson sketched and a sign points to the Monsal Trail, a path used by hikers and cyclists. We take it - another disused railway - and initially the bridleway is lined with trees and is cool and easy on the eye, then it opens out.

The old line is flanked by rock and goes over viaducts - a super feat of engineering that Beeching took an axe to back in the 60s.

Topley Pike proves elusive, as does another place that Patterson drew. We keep riding, enjoying ourselves anyway, and at another disused station veer off onto a road that heads towards the ancient village of Eyam.

I cycled these roads a few times many years ago. They're pretty quite, but what cars there are go fast, probably knowing there's little to worry about.

Harvested crops line miles of the way while some fields have cows in. Some are sat; others stand by the hedge, trying to reach the tall, lush weeds that grow on the other side and we stop, pulled handfuls off and hand it to them.

Ahead dark clouds are gathering.

Next to Eyam Hall is a craft center with a café and we rest and have a cuppa and a toasted teacake, sitting outside in the flagstone yard that would have been stables.

The hall is next door. The Wright family has lived in it for something like 300 years and nearby, along Eyam’s main street, are a row of old cottages. Many have signs outside with Eyam being known as a plague village.

Hundreds of the residents died in their homes in 1665 and 1666 and instead of seeking help, the villagers made a pact, isolating themselves from the outside world so as not to spread the disease. Families were decimated. About three quarters of the people here died.

It's now a case of riding on to Sheffield, my old home, but it looks like we may get wet before making it there. We get lucky with trains, as at Grindleford – one stop away from Dore – we only have to wait five minutes for the train into Sheffield, and from there we can catch one back to Lincoln. Result.

Today's ride: 58 km (36 miles)
Total: 3,657 km (2,271 miles)

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