Tag: gateposts

#365daysofbiking Eccentricities

December 23rd – It’s now traditional for me to have a day out somewhere different before Christmas. Today I visited Ashbourne, a place I’ve passed through lots but rarely stopped and studied.

The architecture and frantic air of business was fantastic, but what I really liked was the small, eccentric details: St Oswald’s Church with the afterthought clock and gothic gateposts with the skull detail. The Art Nouveaux staircase in the entry to an outdoor shop.

This little, but very dense valley town is utterly gorgeous. I must return at a more relaxed time.

Oh, and the cycling content? I test rode a new bike while I was here. Wel, a couple actually but that’s another story…

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December 29th – I stopped by at Hademore on the way back. This sleepy hamlet was once a cluster of farms, houses and an explosives depot (yes, really) surrounding a level crossing. Now, the crossing has been removed. Some railway cottages were demolished in the upgrade of the line, the old signal box moved to Chasewater, and Hademore found itself riven in two by the railway and bypassed by a loop of horrid road with an equally abhorrent utilitarian flyover.

There is great history here – on the long road from Whittington to Elford the Marquis of Donegal had his house, Fisherwick Park, and the surrounding grounds were designed by Capability Brown. They were all carried to dust, however, when in 1810 the estate fell into the possession of the Howards of Elford, who ploughed up the lawns, demolished the hall and converted it all back to farmland.

A few relics remain, including the big old gateposts that stand here, moved from a site nearby when the railway would have ploughed through them itself. 

The other relic on this once-busy road is the Post Office K6 red call box; now with it’s phone removed, it still has a working light, shining like a beacon in a shorn hamlet that nobody passes through anymore.

I guess this is just the sadness of things.