Monday 20 July 2009

Linacre reservoirs

Spent an enjoyable afternoon on Sunday walking round Linacre reservoirs near Chesterfield, Derbyshire...in the rain, though it was sunny when we set off. We piled in the car - Me, Jeff, daughter Amy and her boyfriend Tom and my son Adam and set off thinking we'd maybe just walk down the steps to the middle reservoir - there're 3 of them split over 3 tiers covering around 200 acres. However, we got carried away with the healthy outdoorsiness of it all and ended up walking for hours.


This is a pic of the steps going down. They were wet and a bit slippery and not once did I think 'How the heck am I going to get back up them'! Fortunately there's an alternative route back to the car park.
Anyway, the views were worth it.


They were built between 1855 and 1904 and between them hold 240 million gallons of water.



As I said, we did it in drizzly weather with thunder rumbling in the distance, but we had some shelter under the trees. Though when Adam told me there were lots of adders lurking un the undergrowth I was happy to hurry on and get wet!


Tom took the above photo using the camera's panoramic setting.


We completely forgot about the weather when we came across the tree sculptures dotted about. As always happens, the photos don't do them justice. This one was made to look like a little castle with a door ajar at the bottom and a guard on top of it looking over the battlements. Very Wind In The Willows!

In case you're wondering, all these sculptures have been done on dead tree stumps.

I think the owl had to be my favourite. Pity the sculptors haven't put their name to them. Or maybe I missed a signature? The Linacre Woodland Festival is coming up in August so we plan to go back then. Hopefully it'll be sunny!

Thought this one was a bit on the spooky side.

As for this large acorn, I fully expected Scrat the sabre-toothed squirrel from the movie Ice Age to come running out of the undergrowth in pursuit of it.

We also saw robins, finches, tits, squirrels, grebes and coots.

If you want to visit the address is:
Linacre Reservoirs, Woodnook Lane, Cutthorpe, Chesterfield, Derbyshire, S42 7JW
And you can read more on historic Chesterfield here

4 comments:

Happy Writer said...

Thanks for sharing these photos Sue, (especially since I'll never get there in person) the place looks just so beautiful and interesting - no wonder you stayed longer than you first planned.

Sue Houghton said...

I can't believe it's so close to where I live, yet I'd never heard of it. Typical isn't it?

Diane said...

Gosh, that looks lovely, and it isn't far from me at all - didn't even know it was there.

Sue Houghton said...

Me neither, Diane and I'm closer to the place than you are!
My son recently left home to live in Chesterfield and it was on a visit to his house that we decided to go take a look. I really want to go back on a sunny day so we can take more time to enjoy it. Bet it's picturesque in the snow, too!