Leaving Winchcombe behind on a very frosty Tuesday morning, we turned Vincent’s head towards Derbyshire. Our first port of call was Bakewell, where we warmed up with hot Mocha and then bought Bakewell Pudding, bread and cheese before embarking for Chatsworth.
The Caravan Club site at Chatsworth was all but full, with only two pitches remaining and one of those was ours. We were told to drive round and choose the one that we preferred.
Why so busy at the end of November? Well, Chatsworth is always a popular venue but November sees the estate hosting a Christmas Market and our day there was the final one of the event. In fact, the GPS having failed us, we became snarled up in Market traffic when trying to find the caravan site. It is clearly an extremely popular event! We were happy to finally untangle ourselves and come to rest on the CC site, which is housed on the estate in what was once a walled garden and is far away from any traffic.
The river runs alongside the site, which gives direct access on the other side to over 1,000 acres of the estate park, by way of a little wooden door accessed from the little dog walk. A key to the door is provided on arrival.
There is a single central facilities block, well maintained but well used too. Many cheery “good mornings” were exchanged en route to the shower – mostly to the ducks and pheasants that were roaming the grounds, it must be said.
As immaculately kept as you could possibly imagine, this site has some added extras such as an under-cover outdoor play area, with table tennis and chess table.
A very pleasant place to stay but quite rigid in the Rules department. It was just bad luck, we think, that having arrived after a hard frost our water point was frozen and the hot water supply to the showers was a little iffy – both mornings only half the showers had hot water.
We walked into Baslow on our first morning – there is a direct footpath to the village through the estate, It remained frosty as we set off.
The Blue Plaque commemorates Joseph Paxton.
It was incredibly busy in the park, with a continuous flow of people walking towards us. There is a long distance footpath that runs through this way so there were hikers, visitors to the Christmas Market and also, no doubt, workers walking up from Baslow.
Business conducted at the village shop, we walked back to base again, pausing to snap the iconic view at t he bridge. Sadly I had missed this on the way down, when the thatched roof was decorated with frost but a gaggle of giggling schoolgirls were cluttering the scene. By the time that we returned the thaw had arrived.
We dropped Nell off in the van and then walked up to the Christmas Market. I took my little camera with me and set it on B&W in the hopes of grabbing some “street” candid shots but the first thing that we did on arrival was to buy lunch from the Hog Roast stand. Mmmmmm…
Some scenes from the Fair (click for larger view)
Of course, we needed no supper after that.
On Thursday morning we meandered off to York, where we stayed at the CC site at Rowntree Park.