The First Adventure: High Bradfield

 

"[The moor is] just miles and miles and miles of wild land that nothing grows on but heather and gorse and broom, and nothing lives on wild ponies and sheep...it's a wild, dreary enough place to my mind, though there's plenty that likes it--particularly when the heather's in bloom." --The Secret Garden

"It's so lonely 'round the fields of Athenry" --The Fields of Athenry

Hello lovely peoples, and happy Lent! I love Lent, but it's definitely a weird experience trying to figure out what to fast from and add for Lent when one hasn't even figured out a good routine in one's new country. (But even so, once I'd processed, on Wednesday, that it was actually Lent, I had this weird feeling of "ahhhhhhh so nice", which I'm sure is not how most people think about Lent, but there you go.)

I went to Ash Wednesday Mass at the Cathedral of St. Marie in Sheffield, and while I'd forgotten that it was common practice in Europe to sprinkle ashes on the head, instead of making a cross on the forehead, which was a bit of a surprise, I found it a beautiful Mass. I'd not been to St. Marie before, and it's an incredible church. It dates from the mid-1800s, and has a soaring interior, with Latin inscriptions and the names of English martyrs on the walls, and a rood-screen crucifix carving hanging from the ceiling. 

I don't know the name of the style of the decorations of the church (shame on me--that's something I should definitely be able to tell you) but the carvings are intricate and brightly coloured, and I am slightly obsessed with the Marian shrine, which is apparently carved of oak and 'lime' (aka linden, Tilia spp.). There are also several incredible side-altars, including the Eucharistic Chapel, which also holds the grave of the priest who founded the church, with a carving of him on the lid of the sarcophagus in the old European style. 

Anywho! I thought that today, in lieu of a general update post (general updates: I'm addicted to biscuits, I love footpaths, and I Caught Cold, which is a very English thing to do, I feel. There, I'm done) I'd tell you about my Weekend Adventure from this past weekend! (Because I'm still obsessed with it.) I wrote an account of it for my own journal that, upon reading, I decided would be perfect for the blog, so that is what, with a few modifications, you're going to be reading. :)

I've been thinking that since I think about books a lot while I'm just going about my day here--and songs, too--I'd start putting a list of the Apropos Books and Songs at the beginning of each post. Just for my own amusement--but perhaps for your benefit, too. :)

Apropos Books
The Secret Garden by Francis Hodgeson Burnett
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by C. S. Lewis
The Silver Chair by C. S. Lewis
The Moorchild by Eloise McGraw

Apropos Songs
Old Churchyard
The Fields of Athenry (only because it was stuck in my head the whole time I was walking...the people whose fault this is know who they are)

As I mentioned, I Caught Cold last Thursday (when it snowed...go figure) and woke up with said cold on Friday. So, as any reasonable human clearly would, I decided that Saturday would be a good day to hike 7.5 miles up to High Bradfield, a tiny town in Peak District National Park. And while one might have expected this to go extremely badly, it actually helped me feel better to get some fresh air, move my body, and explore the English countryside. (To be clear: the "hike" was a walk that took me sometimes through towns, sometimes on footpaths, and sometimes along roads. Such is walking in England, I gather, unless you're on a very specific hike. Which I'm hoping to do one of these days, too.)

early views from various points on the walk

I started off strong, going up an absurd hill to the next town ‘up’ from Sheffield. Once I crested the hill, I entered my first true public footpath, between two hedges in an allotment field. The birds were singing, and it was still early, so there wasn't anyone around, and just above the allotments, I'd had my first real view of the hills, and it had taken my breath away. Before long, I was wending my way through a wood, then making my way across a pasture, having crossed a stile and double-checked that yes, there really was a footpath there. (As I mentioned, I'm obsessed with British footpaths. It's just not a thing in the US to be able to randomly walk across someone's fields.) At that point, I crossed a bridge and road over a river, and then made my way up the next segment of footpath, which at first glance looked like the path up to someone’s back gate, but turned to the right and went past the back gate in a series of stone steps that took me up to the bottom of Long Lane. 

Long Lane was exceedingly steep and took me up to my second set of beautiful views while navigating me next to several fields and an orchard. Once I got to the top of that hill, I walked through a small town, and then plunged back into the footpaths with a path that took me alongside a river. Here, I prayed my rosary, and then followed the same path as it took me next to an abandoned industrial site, all brick and rubble and flooded buildings. At this point, the path converged with the road which I would need to take up to High Bradfield, and while it irked me slightly to walk next to the road, it wasn’t terribly busy, and there were low dry-stacked limestone walls on either side, which made up for a multitude of evils. 

views from the road

I passed the reservoir and a controlled release weir, which was beautiful and much larger than I’d expected, and followed the road up, eschewing the footpath to Low Bradfield. However, once I was almost within reach of High Bradfield, a footpath appeared up the hill that had been to my right the whole time (and on which I’d just seen a couple of cows). I followed the path up to the ridge of the hill and was delighted to see that I was now in true moorland, with heather and such, although it was clearly also grazed (or so the sheep and cow dung would have me believe). Here, I paused on one of the ladders over the stone walls, sitting down for a second to get my breath and enjoy the view—and flick off the tiny spider that had settled on my hand. I was able to walk along a low stone wall that was on the ridge and then up onto a crag that showed me my first view of High Bradfield, with the church and the churchyard and the few other buildings nestled into the woodland on the hill. It was a beautiful way to see it—it took my breath away. 

moorland, and farmland as seen from the moorland

I made a quick descent into the town, climbing several of the ladders over walls, and walked past the Old Horn’s Inn to the church. On this short walk through the cobbled streets, I saw a man standing by a wall next to the inn, in a flat cap, smoking a pipe, just standing and watching the world go by. I nodded to him, and he back, and while he looked a bit skeptical of me, seeing him did give me quite a bit of delight.

High Bradfield and sheeeeep!

The gate into the churchyard was counter-weighted to prevent the sheep—yes, sheep—from getting out, and there was a footpath that would have taken me through the sheep fields, but instead I meandered through the churchyard for a little, and then headed for the inn, where I bought my first ever hard cider (delicious) (and yes, I'm not drinking age yet in the States...but I am here) and ordered a pie.

After I ate, I waited for the bus, as I wasn’t sure if I was equal to walking seven-and-a-half miles back to Sheffield, and delighted just as much in the quick, bowling descent of the bus down to the interchange, and then the climbing of the second bus up and over the hill to Sheffield.