Day 2- Whitchurch to Chatsworth
Yorkshire Tour day 2- Lulu Goes to Chatsworth! Saturday 5th September, is bright and sunny, and we are up before 8:00am ready to make tracks towards the next stop, Chatsworth C&MC Club site. The marina at Whitchurch is a hive of activity! Boats are coming in off rental weeks, people are packing, and unpacking cars ready for the off, staff are cleaning and disinfecting the boats in readiness for their new customers. Kev is up first and bouncing around like Tigger! Today is his BIRTHDAY!
Go Kev- It’s your Birthday!
To celebrate I spoil him with bacon rolls for breakfast. I let him open his card and his present of new maps (he does love maps!) from Marvellous Maps! http://marvellousmaps.com. I then let him empty the toilet cassette! How lucky is he???
We have a lovely two hour drive to Chatsworth travelling off motorways to get there. We pass through towns and villages that we had visited when we took a walking holiday in the Peak District a couple of years ago. Everything looks different this time and it takes us a while to realise that it’s because it isn’t pouring with rain or blowing like a banshee. We’re also definitely not in a tent on the side of a hill. We’re trundling along in Lulu!
As a young teenager I, and my family, visited this area regularly. One of my sisters was madly in love with a lad from Halifax and, for several years, at the start of the school summer holidays , we deposited her at her boyfriends for the duration. Every time I come back I’m amazed, I don’t think that you ever truly remember how magnificent the countryside is in this part of England.
The journey is proving to be a little challenging for our Lulu. She is quite literally going up hill and down dales but, even with her engine warning light coming on once when her revs were too high, she is coping quite brilliantly – even better than we’d hoped she would.
Beautiful Chatsworth
On arrival at Chatsworth site, we’re handed our site rules (it is a C & MC Club site), site map, and coloured wristbands for the facilities blocks. We’re also given our own key for the ‘secret gate’!
At the edge of the sites dog walk, there is a locked wooden gate in a high wall. Once unlocked, this gives access straight into the grounds of Chatsworth House. We love the grounds here, so beautifully kept, with sheep and deer roaming freely. Some unusual art installations are still dotted around the grounds, and there are magnificent views towards the main house. There is, at the end of a mile walk and through another really cool gate, the village of Baslow.
In Baslow there are two pubs and a (closed) tearoom. The Wheatsheaf is situated on the main road, serves good beer and is very popular with walkers http://www.wheatsheafpubbaslow.co.uk . The Devonshire Arms is just across the road and is a very easy walk from the campsite. To celebrate Kev’s birthday, we had booked a table online for 6PM, a couple of days before leaving home, so on the way past we called in to make sure that all was still ok. http://www.devonshirebaslow.com
Guess what? All was not okay! There was no booking for 6PM. There was no booking at all! Could they fit us in? – No!!
We go outside to consider our options, and to check the confirmation email that Kev had received – from The Devonshire Arms at Pilsley. Some 5 miles away!
Why, oh why would you have two pubs within 5 miles of each other with the same name? There is actually a third but by now we couldn’t care less where that one was. Kev is getting grumpy! I pop back in to make sure that they can’t fit us in and, in a flash of genius, grab a business card for Pacman Cabs and book a taxi to collect us from the site reception and then collect us from the pub at 9.30PM. Crisis averted!
We hurry back to the site, have a quick shower and change and our taxi picks us up bang on time.
The CORRECT Devonshire Arms!
The Devonshire Arms in Pilsley is lovely! Receiving a friendly welcome from the cheerful staff in their ‘full on’ PPE attire, we were shown to our socially distanced table, brought drinks and the menus.