The tourist, however, who confines himself to the Peak District proper, with its immediately outlying scenery, will have a very inadequate view of the charms of Derbyshire. He can scarcely do better than begin at the other extremity, ascending the Dove through its limestone valley as far as Buxton, thence taking rail to Chapel-en-le-Frith, expatiating over the Peak moorlands according to time and inclination, descending to the limestone region again at Castleton, and following the Derwent in its downward course to Ambergate, pausing in his way to visit Chatsworth and Haddon Hall, and to stay awhile at Matlock.
Having thus planned our own journey, our starting-point was Ashbourne, a quiet, pretty little town at the extremity of a branch railway. There was not much in the town itself to detain us: we could only pay a hurried visit to the church, whose beautiful spire, 212 feet high, is sometimes called the Pride of the Peak. There are some striking monuments; and among them one with an inscription of almost unequalled mournfulness. It is to an only child, a daughter: "She was in form and intellect most exquisite. The unfortunate parents ventured their all on this frail bark, and the wreck was total." Never was plaint of sorrowing despair more touching. Let us hope, both that the parents' darling was a lamb in the Good Shepherd's fold, and that the sorrowing father and mother found at length that there can be no total wreck to those whose treasure is in heaven!
A night's refreshing rest at the inn, where several nationalities oddly combine to make up one complex sign—the fierce Saracen, the thick-lipped negro, the English huntsman in his coat of Lincoln green!—and we sallied forth on a glorious day of early autumn to make our first acquaintance with Dovedale. Leaving the town at the extremity furthest from the railway station, we found ourselves on a well-kept, undulating road, skirted by fair pastures on either hand; the absence of cornfields being a very marked feature in the landscape. Turning into pleasant country lanes to the left, we soon reached the garden gate of a finely-situated rural inn, the "Peveril ut' the Peak," whence a short cut would have led us over the brow of the hill into Dovedale; but we were anxious to visit Ilam, and therefore made a détour as far as the "Izaak Walton," so well known to brothers of the "gentle craft." A little farther, and we were in the identical Happy Valley of Rasselas, where we found a charming little village, with schoolhouse and drinking-fountain, park and hall and church, and every cottage a picture.
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Two little rivers meet here, one of them the Manifold, the other and larger the Dove; and after a hurried view of the lovely vale, we lost no time in making our way to the entrance of the far-famed Dale. As most of our readers will know, the Dove divides Staffordshire from Derbyshire: we took the Derbyshire side, entering at a little gate on the river bank, and leisurely and with many a pause pursued a walk with which surely in England there are few to compare. The river is a shallow, sparkling stream, with many a pool dear to the angler, and hurrying down, babbling over pebbles, and broken in its course by many a tiny waterfall. On both sides rise tall limestone cliffs, splintered into countless fantastic forms—rocky walls, towers, and pinnacles, and in one place a natural archway near the summit, leading to the uplands beyond. And all up the sloping sides, and wherever root-hold could be obtained on pinnacle and crag, were clustered shrubs and trees of every shade of foliage, with the first touch of autumn to heighten the exquisite variety by tints which as yet suggested only afar off the thought of decay. The solitude of the scene served but to enhance its loveliness. For that road by the river side is no broad well-beaten track. No vehicle can pass, and even the pedestrian has sometimes to pick his way with difficulty. The stillness, on the day of our visit, was unbroken save for the murmur of the water, the twitter of the birds, and the rustling of the branches in the gentle breeze. The blue sky overhead, and the sunlight casting shadows upon the cliffs and the stream, completed the picture; and if the memory of Izaak Walton and Charles Cotton haunted their favourite stream, it so happened that we encountered none of their disciples.
Many travellers leave the glen at Mill Dale, where a pleasant country lane to the right enables them to gain the high road between Ashbourne and Buxton. Time and strength permitting, however, we would strongly advise the tourist to make his way by the river banks to Hartington, passing through Beresford Dale, where at Pike Pool, represented in the frontispiece to this chapter, all the beauties of the Dove Valley are concentrated at one view. A limestone obelisk stands in the middle of the river, with a background of rich foliage, just touched, at the time of our visit, with autumnal hues, while the clear water eddied and sparkled around its base. This pool was the favourite resort of Walton and his friend Cotton. Many allusions to the spot will be found in The Complete Angler; and the comfortable inn at Hartington, reached from Beresford Dale by a walk for about a mile through pleasant meadows, bears Charles Cotton's name.
At Hartington, the high road to Buxton may be taken; or, far better, the traveller may make his way to the famous watering-place by the plateau which divides the valley of the Dove from that of its tributary Manifold; he will then descend to the former valley near Longnor, and thence may climb to Axe Edge, a great outlying southerly branch or spur of the gritstone, from which the Dove has its rise. Parting with this lovely river at its very fountain-head, we find it difficult to believe that so much beauty and even grandeur can have been included in the twenty miles' course of a little English stream, and are ready to endorse the enthusiastic tribute of Cotton: