Whilst my primary purpose in attending the retreat at Ilam was to support students, i also found time to do some exploration of the surrounding area, and got out and did some walks, took some photographs and made some recordings.
My initial area of exploration was of the caves in Dovedale, and some of these proved interesting to explore, with some great limestone architecture, however whilst this was enjoyable, none of it really fired my imagination. I have some recordings of the spaces which I may return to in time, but there were areas of exploration which I found gave more immediate results.
The second area of exploration was Thorpe Cloud, which is an imposing looking flat top hill over the valley from Ilam, at the mouth of Dovedale. I decided to walk up here on a whim, and really enjoyed the view, what struck me initially was that whilst Thorpe Cloud is currently a standalone hill, it was clearly at some point part of a much longer ridge, which ran from Bunster Hill (on the other side of Dovedale) right the way through, and the erosion of Dovedale has caused the two to become separated. I opted to walk the ridge "as was" and went as directly as I could from the top of Thorpe Cloud, across Dovedale to the top of Bunster Hill, there are some nice photo's below which illustrate the through line of the original ridge.
The view from Thorpe Cloud Across to Bunster Hill.
From the Bunster side, across to Thorpe Cloud.
The satellite map makes this history quite clear, with the (very) historic ridgeline being more obvious from above than Dovedale itself. Whilst Dovedale dominates the view for people on the ground.
View Thorpe Cloud in a larger map
There were a couple of discussions which took place over the weekend which centred on the idea of conservation, particularly the objections which were made to the raising of the Stepping Stones at Dovedale (linked to "health and Safety by the Daily Mail, for example) by Derbyshire County Council (under their statutory duty to maintain rights of way in the County) - the article linked above quotes people who feel that they are a "natural" part of the valley which should be maintained in their current state, rather than improved, yet the stones were only introduced in Victorian times, and the improved stones were apparently laid by iItalian Prisoners of War in the 40's - the idea that they have been shaped by "generations" seems to completely miss the hundreds and thousands of years of change which have taken place in the valley, much of the most dramatic aspects of it without the help of people at all.
One area where the actions of people and the actions of geology seem to be in sync in the valley is the rolling ridges and furrows. Walking down off Bunster Hill, the light from the setting sun caught nicely off the ridges and furrows which are left in the fields below, which are nestled on the ridges of the valley floor, which are in turn nestled in the furrow of the valley.
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