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Still, rules are rules. So what’s the drill? What’s the bottom line? When my wife, Mary, and I were in the Peak District National Park in April, on our first visit, I asked a park ranger whether dog walkers were really and truly supposed to keep their dogs on leads. ‘Well, it’s not everybody as does,’ said the wise and weatherbeaten fellow. ‘You know your dog. Use your common sense.’
I hadn’t thought of that. So we gave common sense a go, and allowed Harry, our English Springer Spaniel, off the lead for much of the time. I’d be lying if I pretended that he did not on one occasion lope after some sheep in a playful manner. The sheep were never in any danger, but that’s not the point. We’d not put Harry back on his lead when we approached the sheep. Our common sense had deserted us for a moment, and for that moment we deserved no quarter from the locals. So, bottom line: let your dog off the lead, but keep him away from sheep and from nesting birds, and if he chases sheep and is shot dead by a farmer, don’t whine.
It would anyway be very ungracious to whine in the Peak District. It is stunningly, hauntingly beautiful. You can’t drive for more than a couple of miles without coming across another startlingly rugged scene, one that lifts heart and soul. There is Snake Pass, for example, a canyon on the A57 just east of Glossop, with its dramatic mixture of grey rock and moss-green grass. There is Curbar Edge — a huge, jagged gritstone escarpment not far from the village of Calvar — which will make you jump the first time you see it from the road.
Curbar, however, presented a problem. It is ‘access land’ and there is a strict rule about keeping dogs on a short lead from the beginning of March until the end of July, so, darling, I said to Mary, perhaps we’d better…. ‘But there are no sheep here,’ she said. ‘All the same,’ I whined. ‘Oh, don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I’ll take Harry.’ She and Harry enjoyed themselves enormously. They encountered neither sheep nor nesting birds.
And then there is Dovedale. We walked from Dovedale car park, which we happened on by chance, along the river Dove to Milldale, a distance of about three miles. At Milldale we found a tuck shop and plenty of very fit seniors taking their ease. Some of them were in all-weather hiking gear — waterproof boots, satnavs, compasses strapped to their wrists, hard hats, emergency rations, and in some cases no doubt revolvers and suicide pills. These people are serious.
Dovedale is a valley of giant caves, great limestone outcrops, and pillars of stone. The River Dove, in which Izaak Walton, the compleat angler, once fished for trout, provided Harry with great, splashing sport. The walk itself is a doddle. You follow a wide, man-made pebble path that leaves plenty of room for power-walking OAPs to pass mere schleppers like me. On a fine day, you could negotiate Dovedale in a worsted City suit and tasselled Italian loafers without doing either any harm. This is the wilderness as I like it: tamed by man, enhanced and made accessible by man.
You can see this taming and enhancing at its best at Chatsworth, the baroque masterpiece in the Derwent Valley and seat of the Duke of Devonshire. The surrounding gardens and park have been designed to provide a suitably handsome setting for the house. Nature has been put firmly in its place. In the 1830s the sixth Duke, a robust fellow, even went so far as to move the village of Edensor because he felt it spoilt the view from the house.
Chatsworth is majestic, awesome, glamorous and wheelchair-friendly, and if your legs aren’t what they were you can borrow an electric scooter to explore the gardens. In other words, the place is a trippers’ paradise, but don’t let that put you off. It is lovely. The staff are courteous and cheerful but never obsequious, and the public toilets are called ‘lavatories’.
Only one reservation. The present Duke of Devonshire is very fond of modern art, and the area by the Emperor Fountain is now (and until the end of June) enlivened with sculptures by Sir Anthony Caro. To the untutored eye, alas, these pieces look like whimsically arranged piles of scrap metal. Mary and I joked about the notices asking visitors not to touch or climb on the displays. A thoroughly decent son of Derbyshire — middle-aged, flat cap, droll eye — overheard us and smiled. ‘Ah didn’t tooch them,’ he said. ‘Promise.’ However, there were no notices saying that dogs were not to pee on the sculptures….
Later, we went for a walk in the park, and Harry gave chase to a pheasant. He can be forgiven, but I am not sure we can. In any case our apologies to the Duke and Duchess.
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