Family Walk: Tissington

According to our trusty guidebook, Derbyshire Walks with Children (DWWC), Tissington is in the running to be the most beautiful village in England.  The village has six wells that are decorated every year during a festival on Ascension Sunday.  Tradition has it this is an offering of thanks to God for the wells never running dry in over 600 years.  Clearly, this is a village with much that is important to see.

Naturally, we started our visit with the important things.  Namely, the ducks in the pond who eagerly ate the bread that another friendly family who was there gave the girls to thrown in.

Next on the agenda was a small stream by the road that runs through one side of the village.  This stream is important because it's just narrow enough that both Elise and Charis can jump over it.

I forgot to track our walk with the Run Keeper app on my phone.  Their map utility let me reconstruct the walk.  Here's my best guess at what we did.  According to DWWC, it was about 2.5 miles.  RunKeeper said 2.25, but I'm sure we had 400 metres of the girls wandering.  So I'll take credit for 2.5 miles.

There's an old church on the right side of the road the runs past Tissington Hall.  The building dates to around 1100 AD, although it evidently still houses a local parish.  We spent some time looking at the different tombstones.

Kristine and Charis found the oldest one we came across.  The date was in the 1600s.

These two were my favorite "cool design" stones.  The cross tombstone was from circa 1915 for a knighted fellow and his wife.

We did find one of the wells when we walked out of the church.

Tissington Hall looked pretty cool from the road.  I assumed that because it was a hall, it was open for public exploration.  The sign beside the gate supported my assumption (I thought).  So I opened the gate and led everyone else into the grounds.  We were met by a fellow who very firmly told us "This is a private residence.  It costs 10 pounds to view it.  There are seven of you.  Do you want pay 70 pounds?  No? Okay, please leave out the gate."  In hindsight I'm more sympathetic to him not being friendly to unwanted guests.  On the other hand, the gate was open and there was no sign to indicate it was a private residence.

We made our way out of Tissington via a footpath.  The book told us to go up the hill, over the top, and down to the railway track.  We didn't think this would be a big deal.

The sheep that we passed certainly didn't seem very excited about our presence.

We didn't appreciate just how windy it would be while climbing the hill.  Clare had the right idea.  She pulled her hood over her head and buried it in Kristine's back.

The best I could do was model the raised eyebrow that my mother and brother use so effectively to show disapproval.  I'm not sure how well it worked.  It hasn't in the past.

Charis's expression here says it all.

RunKeeper created an elevation profile for our hike when I recreated our route.  They claim our elevation change was 82 feet.  The half mile stretch that was the windy hill is evidently only 50 feet.  I don't buy it.  It sure felt like more than that.

Here's another shot of us braving the wind.  We forgot to bring hats, gloves, or heavy coats for the girls.  Charis got Kristine's hat.  I guess you can be told to prepare for unpredictable English weather, but until you get hit by unpredictable weather, there's only so much that the advice registers.  We were fortunate that we didn't get caught in any rain.  Everyone's spirits cheered considerably when we got to the summit, they realized we were really going downhill, and we got a chance to appreciate some of the views.

I took this photo once we got off the hill and back onto the trail.

The trail is a converted railroad bed.  We walked on it for a good mile or so back to the car park.  This photo is a little fuzzy.  The red coats in ahead of us were rangers.  There was a crew of them on top of the bank to the right, throwing pretty large tree trunks over the edge.  The folks at the bottom picked them up and put them into their trailer.  They graciously stopped throwing logs while we walked by.

Charis and I also found this fire burning by the trail.  I'm guessing this is done regularly, as we found a couple other ash circles.  We didn't ask the rangers, despite their friendly offer to let Charis join their crew.

Considering how cold and windy the climb over the hill was, the girls did great job on this hike.  They stated emphatically that it was hard work, but they stayed cheerful.  Charis enjoyed the bridges that we walked under.

She still had enough energy to run up these stairs, and presence of mind to recognize the sign saying that they led to another footpath.  The presence of mind is impressive because the only time we talked with the girls about footpath signs was on top of the hill when we were trying to find our way down without being blown over.  The stairs led to another field with a stone wall.  She turned around without asking to explore further, for which I'm grateful.

Clare sang cheerfully for much of hike along the trail.  She did, however, generally refuse to show her face.

Finally, the end of the hike and our trusty Corsa.  For the record, I did fit into the driver's seat without a shoehorn, and Chars sat comfortably behind me.  Tissington doesn't get the "we're definitely coming back" grade that Elvaston and Calke Abbey do.  That said, a consistent theme from adults and children during our highs and lows before bed was the high of going on the hike.  It is a lovely village, and there are several bed and breakfasts nestled through it.  So perhaps we'll make a return trip.  We'll just make sure to our gear is better stocked than this time around.