Christmas at Haddon Hall

Haddon Hall opened its doors for the first time at Christmas this year.Although the gardens are quite small the Tudor style house decorated festively is still a rare treat and worth the entrance money of £8.50.Its also handily close to Bakewell which is always worth a visit.
The Tudor kitchens are some of the finest examples still left in the country. They were filled with spices and other food for a Christmas banquet.
In the dining room was much of the food as it would have been prepared for such a banquet including peacock pie and this pig's head!

The long gallery which was decorated in a more modern theme of the 1930's.

Knaresborough

Knaresborough is small town in North Yorkshire.It is famous for its large viaduct across the river Nidd and the tourist attraction of Mother Shipton's Cave and petrifying well.

It has many fine old shops around its market place including the oldest chemist shop in England.

Rufford Abbey

Rufford Abbey, Nottinghamshire

Three Shires Head

Wednesday I went to 3 shire's head from Buxton. I would not recommend anyone to get the Trent Barton transpeak bus service from Derby at 10:45AM to Buxton midweek. It is usually so full of OAP's using their free passes that its standing room only all the way to Bakewell so anyone who still has a long day of walking ahead or with kids would find the service almost unusable.On the way back at 5.30pm there were only 3 other people on it! I now get the train from Derby to Matlock using a wayfarer ticket to cut the standing time but still have 20 minutes of standing up.

While thinking its great that OAP's can have free travel it surely makes no sense when fare paying passengers are put off getting the bus and especially when the bus is advertised at the ideal way to go sightseeing or shopping on their website.I wonder how the government finances such schemes if bus companies have to turn away passengers. Who pays who and how much?

The Roaches from Leek

Hen cloud