Echoes Of The Past (Part Two)

If you've seen my previous blog, you will know that I have visited Ladybower reservoir to see the village that was flooded to make the dam.

It is in the Yorkshire side of the Peak District, and as you probably know that it is certainly one of the nicest parts of the UK (not counting the Lakes District etc). I feel so lucky to live less than an hours drive from this beautiful place.

After a walk longer than expected, I finally came upon the remains of the old Derwent Hall.

I loved seeing this end of a wall, there are original pictures of the hall and plenty of youtube videos out there of explorers that's visited this place recently, it looks like the water level is falling on a daily basis, I saw a video made just 2 days before my visit and when I went there was even more of the place exposed.

One of my friends thought this was a tower, until I told him it's just part of a wall, so I took this shot of another explorer taking a shot of it.

There was a rumour of the church spire sticking out the water at low tide, this was once true, but was knocked down in the 40's or 50's to prevent people swimming out to it.

Looking up the valley with the remains of the old hall and village on the left

I wonder if the people in the picture know that this is called "the lovers seat".

Walking further down the reservoir bed, avoiding muddy parts, I got to this, now, being me, I just thought the pipe actually just floated on the water (daft I know), as I'd never seen any part of the bridge before today, the top of the bridge is usually about where the water lever should be, so as you can see, it is really really low.
To the left is what I think it is the original river Derwent, following the route that it has done for thousands of years, then in the distance is the Derwent reservoir.

The lover seat.

Above is another shot of the remains of the old hall and gardens looking towards Derwent.

As I got towards the bridge with the pipe, I came across this building, while I was there I was thinking it was the church, but after looking at a map, it says this was a Water House, now I don't know about you, but I certainly don't know what a water house is. What I did love about this walk was that some of the footpaths are still there and intact, as you can see on the above picture, I had to have a walk down them, it's amazing how they have lasted all these years under the pressure of the water that flows on it.

As the warm October sun heated the bed of the reservoir, it started to make a strange but impressive mist rise from the bed. For October it was a really hot day, and I'm sure I got a bit of colour from it by the time I'd done.

One of the paths that are still intact.

Not sure how old this fence is, but I like it lol.

Just to emphasise how low the water is, as I was walking to where I wanted to be, I took this shot of a man fishing.

I should be well under water at this point.

Another shot of the water house.

There's still manholes under the reservoir from the village.

(I'm not sure if this is an ancient stone circle, so thought I'd take a shot of it).

So after what I thought would be only about an hour, four hours and six miles later I got back to the car, I made a rooky mistake and didn't take enough water for myself, so I was gagging for a drink.

I headed back over Strines moor, knowing there's a pub there, thirsty and hungry I got to the pub, ordered a pint of coke and also had a bag of pork scratchings, just to put me on while I got to my mum's house for tea.

As I was driving over, I could see fires popping up all over the moors, this is a practice that's done on moorland so the heather will produce green shoots next year, in which serves as food for grouse and other wildlife.

Thank you ever so much for reading this blog, I do hope that you have found it interesting, if you want to look into the lost Derwent Hall in a bit more detail, then I'd recommend this video:

Click here to watch on Youtube

All pictures by myself, shot using a Sony A7iii camera and a DJI Mini 3 Pro.

Thanks again,

All the best :-)