Thors Cave - better out than in

There will be a mad rush into Dovedale this weekend I’m pretty sure. As well as being the bank holiday weekend, it is forecast to be warm. Hooray. At last.

So, if I were you, I wouldn’t go up to Thor’s Cave this weekend; it will be crowded, and it’s a small enough interior anyway.

Actually, it’s just a simple cave in the hillside – nothing to get worked up about anyway.  The climb up to it (on steps, nowadays) somehow makes one hope it’s going to be impressive, but it’s not. The view out from the mouth of the cave is the most interesting thing.

… apart from the fact that the film version of Bram Stoker’s fantasy-horror novel ‘The Lair of the White Worm’ – which actually is set in the Peak District – did use this very cave as a location.

Wetton takes in the heat

We're now in a minor heatwave apparently, which is a fairly ironic thought as the rain has been with us at least every second day throughout the, er, summer.  And now we get this.

Wetton Mill, near Dovedale, is the place to be on such occasions. One can wade in the cool of the nearby river, stroll in the surrounding shady green, or just slurp on an ice-cream.

Tranquil Dovedale

Dovedale in the Staffordshire Peak District is (they say) one of the most beautiful spots in middle England. The River Dove is not very big here, more of a stream bubbling over stones, but all the more attractive for that.

However, I wouldn’t recommend you go there right now – except just after dawn maybe, as the rest of the day it’s thronged with tourists, mostly students from the rest of Europe.
So – for some tranquillity – get up with the dawn chorus to see the vale at its best.

The seventeenth century write Charles Cotton penned this poem:
“Oh, my beloved nymph, fair Dove, / Princess of rivers, how I love / Upon thy flowery banks to lie, / And view thy silvery stream, / When gilded by a summer`s beam.”  
It sounds corny to our ears now (and probably then, if truth be told, as he wasn’t a great poet) – but it tells us something of the feeling.


This post is part of the City Daily Photo's Theme Day on 'Tranquillity'. 
Click here to view thumbnails for all participants

Summer wanes in Dovedale

Summer seems to be visibly leaving us, and we now have to take advantage, when we can, of the last drifting moments of warm sun.

Here, in the Staffordshire Peak District at Dovedale, the visitors are, however, noticeably fewer in number already.

The Dovedale Twelve

Can you see the 'twelve apostles' in this photo? The guides I had with me assured me that, at this part of the River Dove (in the Staffordshire Peak District), the rocks that rise steeply from the water are known as the 'Twelve Apostles' - aka the dozen saints (except Judas of course) who followed Jesus around as he preached during his lifetime.
Er, perhaps.
I stared for quite a time, but couldn't make out 12 distinctly individual rocks, let alone a formation.
Was I at the right place even?