Fish, chips and The Fabrick

We were able to catch up with my brother and his wife in Derbyshire again yesterday, and after a slight detour thanks to my Dad’s satnav, found ourselves in Ashover.

We’ve never been there before, but my brother and his wife suggested we go there because there’s a pub with good food and a walk that was long enough to burn off our lunch but short enough in case the rain caught up with us.

The pub was The Crispin Inn (it’s on the right in this picture), a cosy place with real fires and a warm welcome, even for our dog.  We were tempted by the fish and chips which, I have to say, is the best fish and chips I’ve had for quite some time – it’s probably just as well we don’t live closer or we’d be there every week!  They also had a mouthwatering dessert menu which we just had to try out!

Then it was off for our walk.  We walked up to the local landmark called The Fabrick, also known as Ashover Rock, which is a huge gritstone boulder at the top of a steep hill.  The path to it leads up through a field and then into a narrow path flanked by stone walls which leads under two arched stone bridges like this one, before opening out into fields again.

Higher and higher we climbed, and the views got better and better.

Finally, after some steep steps which had us huffing and puffing up them – apart from big daughter who was hurtled up them by the dog who always likes to be first! – we reached the top.

This was the view back down the way we had come.  Lots of low cloud but it was sunny. Then we turned around to look in the other direction – and look at the rain!  You can see it in the left of the picture just by the rock, coming down from the clouds.  And the wind!  Small daughter wanted to climb on the The Fabrick (as small people do when faced with a huge, climbable rock) and nearly blew off the top.

This looks a little like a sundial, but it isn’t.  It shows which direction to look for all the local landmarks – Chesterfield’s crooked church spire, Bolsover Castle, Hardwick Hall and the counties of Nottinghamshire, Leicestershire and Staffordshire … although we didn’t stop to look for long and you’ll see why!

The rain was getting closer so we thought it was time to head off the top of the hill and make our way back down again.  It’s a circular route so we didn’t go back down the tunnel path but instead came back past fields with alpacas in them and lovely Derbyshire stone cottages.

We made it back to the car just in time as the rain finally caught up with us, so we headed back to my brother’s for a cup of tea before starting our long drive home.