Travelling the UK for a Year - The Peak District in snow - Castleton - Week 22

 

FRIDAY, 23 JANUARY 2015 Week 22

We have finished travelling the whole of the East Coast now, so we are beginning to travel back up North to Pick up the West Coast Scottish trail from Largs Renfrewshire and begin the long West Coastline and Ireland. For me, this signifies the halfway point of the adventure. Because the journey is quite a lengthy one, we decided to split it up a little, so we stopped off in Castleton in The Peak District first. Del making snow angels!

We got up really early and were feeling particularly energetic, so we created a new lifeform and named him Boris Penneystein. I thought he looked very lifelike, but then I attempted some sculpting skills and gave him a real snow nose and snow ears!

I have put in a lot of photos for this blog because although I've visited Buxton before, Castleton was just such a cute gem of a village. I'm guessing that with the amount of gift and coffee shops, pubs, and bed and breakfasts in such a small place, it gets overrun with tourists in the summer. This is a real shame because this is the sort of cute little stone village nestled deep in a secluded valley where I would choose to live.

Cemeteries do have an atmospheric feel at night, and in the snow, I think.

 Castleton Village Square.

Del is attempting to hit me with a snowball. We did have a snowball fight eventually, but it was impossible to take photos of. There are little shops that are really dinky and so cute. I'd love a teeny tiny shop like this of my own if it actually made money and paid its way! A book and tea shop I think would be lovely.

A stream runs right through the village - Perfect.

It even has its own set of caves to explore - one is called The Devil's Arse.  Just like the village - EVERYTHING is dinky here...  Even the ponies! If you look carefully, you can see a sheep that is bigger than some of them. Aww.

So, to sum up, they have their own micro-economy. They even mine their own Blue John stones from the caves. and make them into all kinds of gifts, and they cater to every type of tourist. Walkers, sightseeing, shoppers, spooky inspiration for setting scenes in books... he hee.

Yes, Castleton has it all; it's a real hidden gem!

We stopped off overnight in Grange Over Sands, but we are covering Cumbria in February, so we are off to West Scotland.

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