Purple Harvestforaging free on the moors

Fresh - Passion - Photography

Friends in High Placesmythical forms in the gritstone

FrimIssue 4 - August 2014

Here be Dragonsenchanting encounters with insects

Fresh - Passion - Photography

FrimFrim: Adjective - fresh with new grass growth, especially in the Spring. [As defined by F. Philip Holland in “Words of the White Peak”].

Frim is a new concept: An online magazine bringing you fresh angles on The Peak District not found elsewhere. Places to explore, delights to discover through the unique and highly personal insight of the magazine’s creators, both of whom know the region inside-out.

Each month, the aim is to shine a light on hidden wonders, or to interpret familiar landmarks in novel ways, through the power of photography combined with the written word. There may also be the occa-sional atmospheric soundtrack from nature to complete the experience.

Inspired to explore for yourselves, you can turn to the “Nuts & Bolts” page which will list all the practical information you need for getting to the places featured, along with links to relevant websites.

Or, you may just wish to sit back and enjoy the virtual feast that is “Frim”.

Please…browse.

Simon Corble & Steve Wake.

Frie

nds

in H

igh

Plac

es

The two Padley martyrs

My first peruse of an ordnance survey map of the Peak District. I must have been no more than twelve years old. We were staying for three weeks in Youlgrave, at the heart of the White Peak, which is what we explored. Day One: A walk to Robin Hood Stride set my imagination racing; such an amazing formation, like an enchanted castle, with arches, but no doors. The old-fashioned one-inch map we were using had coloured contours and there, across the top quarter of the sheet, it was as if a cup of very strong tea had been spilled. In large, italic capitals were the words HIGH PEAK. For a boy totally under Tolkein’s spell, this patch of contours, lettering and dark-brown shades was like a magnet pulling on my soul. No stories were needed; that high plateau, topping two thousand feet above sea level, had to be inhabited by beings from another time, another dimension.

We never got that far during the holiday, which only fired my young fantasies even further, but a few years on I started to venture out from our new home on the Cheshire Plain. By now, in my own mind, I was firmly some kind of Frodo Baggins and those high moors were as good as Mordor, realm of the Dark Lord himself. But what would I actually discover there, besides the heather and grouse already glimpsed from the back seat of our Morris Traveller? Back to the map.

The map, to this day, is more or less empty, but here and there I spied the strange little squiggles marking rocky features…and more magical words: Cakes o’ Bread. Eagle Stone. Salt Cellar. Pym Chair. And, most disturb-ingly, lost in the very centre of the Kinder Plateau, Mad Woman’s Stones.

I am still not certain if I have yet been there. Part of me wants to leave it as the ultimate, perilous place, still nourishing that desire for adventure. I say “not certain”, because, over decades now I have tramped all over the high moors of the Dark Peak, tracking down these natural oddities, but have kept no record apart from photographs. And you can never be totally sure, on arriving at a group of stony forms, whether the printed word is referring to this or that feature. I mean, what are “Mad Woman’s Stones” supposed to look like?

More than the grandeur of the main attractions, it has been isolated rocks that have really intrigued me. None of these seem to have names, but I have named them: Skull Rock. The Snail. The Henry Moore. I had fallen in love with the sculptures of Henry Moore, but I did not know that he himself had been inspired by walking in these very places. Then I came across this haunting figure, among so many others... So, here was indeed a land-scape populated by mythical beings; all now petrified, not changing over the brief geological time between my visits. Some have been slightly more exposed as the peat erodes from around them; all must have lost thousands of tiny grains of grit, as the wind, rain, sun and frost work on them continually – a collective of artists, never satisfied. But their essence will endure.

Returning again, very early one morning, to improve on a few old photographs, we bring the latest, laminated version of the Dark Peak map. Steve seems to have the whole thing on his smart-phone, complete with GPS to pinpoint our position. I sigh. Where are the fabulous beings, my old friends? The beings are all there, but the light is wrong. Easter Island Head is only impressive from three in the afternoon, it turns out. Having sat with a flask of tea for half an hour, waiting for the hill fog to lift, we have to give this one a miss. But what is that strange cat-head on the horizon? Something new is revealed for arriving here so early. I am reminded of the importance of timing in ancient rituals…and in Tolkein: “Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks,” read Elrond, “and the setting sun, with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the keyhole.”

We never got that far during the holiday, which only fired my young fantasies even further, but a few years on I started to venture out from our new home on the Cheshire Plain. By now, in my own mind, I was firmly some kind of Frodo Baggins and those high moors were as good as Mordor, realm of the Dark Lord himself. But what would I actually discover there, besides the heather and grouse already glimpsed from the back seat of our Morris Traveller? Back to the map.

The map, to this day, is more or less empty, but here and there I spied the strange little squiggles marking rocky features…and more magical words: Cakes o’ Bread. Eagle Stone. Salt Cellar. Pym Chair. And, most disturb-ingly, lost in the very centre of the Kinder Plateau, Mad Woman’s Stones.

I am still not certain if I have yet been there. Part of me wants to leave it as the ultimate, perilous place, still nourishing that desire for adventure. I say “not certain”, because, over decades now I have tramped all over the high moors of the Dark Peak, tracking down these natural oddities, but have kept no record apart from photographs. And you can never be totally sure, on arriving at a group of stony forms, whether the printed word is referring to this or that feature. I mean, what are “Mad Woman’s Stones” supposed to look like?

More than the grandeur of the main attractions, it has been isolated rocks that have really intrigued me. None of these seem to have names, but I have named them: Skull Rock. The Snail. The Henry Moore. I had fallen in love with the sculptures of Henry Moore, but I did not know that he himself had been inspired by walking in these very places. Then I came across this haunting figure, among so many others... So, here was indeed a land-scape populated by mythical beings; all now petrified, not changing over the brief geological time between my visits. Some have been slightly more exposed as the peat erodes from around them; all must have lost thousands of tiny grains of grit, as the wind, rain, sun and frost work on them continually – a collective of artists, never satisfied. But their essence will endure.

Returning again, very early one morning, to improve on a few old photographs, we bring the latest, laminated version of the Dark Peak map. Steve seems to have the whole thing on his smart-phone, complete with GPS to pinpoint our position. I sigh. Where are the fabulous beings, my old friends? The beings are all there, but the light is wrong. Easter Island Head is only impressive from three in the afternoon, it turns out. Having sat with a flask of tea for half an hour, waiting for the hill fog to lift, we have to give this one a miss. But what is that strange cat-head on the horizon? Something new is revealed for arriving here so early. I am reminded of the importance of timing in ancient rituals…and in Tolkein: “Stand by the grey stone when the thrush knocks,” read Elrond, “and the setting sun, with the last light of Durin’s Day will shine upon the keyhole.”

Words by:Simon Corblewww.corble.co.uk

Photos by: Steve Wake & Simon CorbleFacebook/wakesworldFlikr/SimonCorble

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Here be DragonsBroad-bodied Chaser, Osmaston

Lestes sponsa (female)

Com

mon

Blu

e

Within days of moving to Monyash, in September 2009, we had a visitor to our new home. He came rattling in through the open French windows and proceeded to blunder about the room in a state of panic. It was a huge dragonfly. I now know that he was not quite the largest of the British species, but in the domestic context he seemed enormous…and incredibly delicate. The normal procedure with a moth or butterfly is to form a trap with the hands, only this thing was never going to be contained by my little mitts. But there was nothing else for it, so I formed a cage with my fingers and somehow managed to subdue and carry him gently out into the sunshine. Thankfully, he stayed still during transit and no harm was done. It was an amazing, tactile sensation, one I can recall to this day, and it at once struck me how little I knew about these incredible insects. What kind was this, for a start? And where was the water?

Some species, I found out, are happy to venture some way from the watery sites around which they breed; our intruder had no doubt been hatched in one of the many dewponds, or meres that dot this part of an otherwise dry limestone plateau. As mentioned in Issue One of Frim, historically these have been vital in the past to local livestock, or visiting packhorse teams and are now crucial oases for wildlife depending on still waters. The Cromford Canal is another good and lengthy breeding ground, while isolated pools in former quarries scattered right across the National Park can be places to look for them. They don’t seem to need much by way of marginal vegetation, but do appreciate a few reeds, flags or rushes.

Last Summer in Lathkill Dale I was fortunate to come across and photograph a Common Hawker laying her eggs on rushes just below the surface of a dewpond…and then along came a male, sky blue in colour, who proceeded to attempt a mating. Poor timing, I thought, but, as I watched, he succeeded, with some violence, in interrupting her business to the point where she became totally still, pinned to the side of the pond. It was like my experience with that house visitor all over again. I felt an urge to intervene, but what did I understand? I left it to Nature and after sometime he flew away, leaving her no worse for the encounter. This time I vowed to buy a specialist book on the subject. Having already bought the excellent “Britain’s Hoverflies” from the “wildguides” series, I was relieved to find that “Brit-ain’s Dragonflies” was not even half as thick. Only around 40 species of Dragonfly and Damselfly breed in the whole of the UK, so getting to grips with identification is quite easy and their relative size means no resorting to a magnifying glass. Mind you, had I lived three-hundred and fifty million years ago, I might have had some trouble trapping that house-invading chappie in my hands – the largest ever in-sect was flying back then, and it had a one metre wingspan.

This sheer antiquity is part of the fascination. Their origin predates even the oldest of fossils in our local limestone; they buzzed around the snouts of snapping dinosaurs, watched their demise and continued on through other mass extinctions, gradually evolving into the smaller forms we have today. How for-tunate we are.

Watching them, you get to follow the idiosyncratic behaviour typical for each species. Some hawk more on the wing, (the duly-named “Hawkers”) while others are more wont to settle, waiting in ambush and can be studied in quiet detail. The more delicate Damselflies are like something from a fairytale, and then there are the remarkable positions adopted during mating… “see Figure I” as an old nature book might have put it. The wonderful range of colours varies not just between species, but also between the sexes; in the Emerald Damselfly, (Lestes sponsa) the male is powder blue, while it is the female who not only has the colour, but also the iridescence of something immensely precious. The Broad-bodied Chaser is suitably stout and has the kind of matt-blue finish that might send a designer of interiors into ecstatic raptures.

Gaze down into the depths of the pond and you may be lucky enough to spot a Dragonfly in nymph form. A different beast entirely; aquatic, uniform in colour, the form of an over-sized flea. Just like the adults, the nymphs are voracious predators, cruising the shallows; miniature submarines, submerging into the mud to hide. It is hard to imagine that these can transform into creatures of such beauty. To witness that process, over the space of a few hours as the insect climbs onto a plant stem and out of the water, is truly one of the most remarkable experiences to be had on a warm Summer’s day.

Common Hawker, laying eggs, Lathkill.

Common Hawkers Mating

Large Red Damselfly

Lestes sponsa (male)

Words by:Simon Corblewww.corble.co.uk

Photos by: Steve Wake & Simon CorbleFacebook/wakesworldFlikr/SimonCorble

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Purple Harvest

Whenever I go out picking bilberries, I always think of those documentaries on North American wildlife; Black Bears laying down fat reserves for the winter…by eating berries. How is that possible? How many of these sort of things does a bear have to consume in a day? How does it find that many?

Laying down fat is the last thing on our minds as we weave amongst the heather in search of some purple beauties. Bilberries are closely related to the more commercial Blueberry, in recent years so widely touted as the latest “super-food”, bursting with anti-ox-idants, vitamin C and so on. They certainly have that “full of goodness” taste – more so than the Blueberry, in fact. Hands, (and mouths) quickly become stained by the juice as we fill our trug and, whatever the nutritional benefits, the fresh-air, sunshine and exercise involved have to be worth the trip, never mind the gorgeous views to be had from your typical Peak District moor.

Vaccinium myrtillus – we had better give it the scientific handle, to avoid confusion; it is one of those traditional food plants with a wealth of local names: Whinberry; Whortleberry; Bleaberry; Dyeberry; Wineberry; Hurtleberry; Trackleberry; it depends on where you come from. I once posted a photograph of our annual harvest to Flickr.com; an American contact of mine replied with, “We call `em Huckleberries.” I had long wondered what a Huckleberry was.

Meanwhile, in Glossop, a seasonal notice in the window of a butcher’s shop reads, “Whimberry Pies made to order”. That very local dish is something I have yet to try. We eat them raw for breakfast with some honey and natural yoghurt, or make them into a crumble, sometimes mixed with Blackberry and Apple. I am sure that the raw form preserves more of the nutrients. Search the internet and you will quickly find all sorts of health claims, from treating a sore throat to improving night vision. One report says that RAF pilots ate Bilberry jam during the Second World War to improve their chances in night-time aerial combat; but those were desperate measures...

The season can start in July and continue into September, depending on the year; in an excessively dry summer they can be shriv-elled, pitiful fruits not worth the picking. These plants like it quite boggy and very acidic, which is why you will often find them mixed up with Ling Heather; in fact they are both members of the Ericaceae family. In some areas, Beeley Moor, near Rowsley, being an example, I have discovered other close and equally edible relatives growing nearby, such as the Cowberry, which is bright red and sharper in taste. In the early part of the season, Raspberries are often in abundance along the edge of nearby woodlands and trail verges, (especially around Beeley Moor) so go with a variety of containers and an open mind.

Normally our “Nuts and Bolts” page will give you details of how to get to the places we have photographed, but not this time. It is not so much the particular abundance of Bilberries growing on this tiny patch of the Staffordshire Moorlands that we want to keep secret, but more the hoard of plump and especially delicious Blackberries that grow in the light shade of the nearby woods. The Bramble is renowned for sporting into highly localised varieties – academic studies have been written on the subject – but, on the plus side, the good news for the Bilberry is, wherever you find it well established, its fruit is going to be reliably tasty and full of good things.

Once upon a time it was source of extra pocket money for local children, gathering the berries from our moors to sell on to shops and market traders; these days it can simply be a great excuse to get out there, have some fun and come home with a very healthy snack. And a sense of satisfaction no computer game can give.

Above and right,the rediscovery and

consecration ofthe original altar stone.

Words by:Simon Corblewww.corble.co.uk

Photos by: Steve Wake & Simon CorbleFacebook/wakesworldFlikr/SimonCorble

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Nuts and BoltsFriends in High Places

For the two photo-shoots on this article, we visited two areas of the Dark Peak, Derwent Edge and the Kinder Plateau.

Much of the Kinder Plateau is remote and difficult terrain at high altitude, so careful planning should be undertaken before venturing up there. However, perhaps the most interesting array of formations is also one of the slightly more accessible. It is called Wool Packs and can be found at grid reference 090870 on the Dark Peak OS Explorer map. A mid-length circular walk taking in this and other formations (Crowden Tower, Pym Chair, Noe Stool, Edale Rocks and the Swine’s Back) can be under-taken from Upper Booth, (where there is a small, but free car park at 107847), or from Edale village.

A shorter route UP (not recommended for a descent) can be made from Upper Booth along Crowden Brook, but this will mean all-fours for some of the way.

Edale has a railway station with excellent links to Sheffield, Stockport and Manchester on the Hope Valley line. www.national-rail.co.uk

Derwent Edge is more easily accessed – we started our walk from Cut-throat Bridge on the A57, where there is a car park at Grid ref: 215875, on the same map. Again, something of a circle is possible, but don’t miss one of the best views in the Peak District from the junction of paths at Lead Hill: 198874. We took in rocks at Hurkling Stones, Wheel Stones, White Tor, Salt Cellar, Dove Stone and Cakes of Bread.

Loads of buses operate along the A57 from Sheffield, including:- 51 241/2 273 274 275 - see www.travelsouthyorkshire.com. You may have to request the driver to stop at Cut-throat Bridge. The 273/4/5 links Cut-throat Bridge with Bamford railway sta-tion, which is on the Hope Valley line (details as above).

Here be Dragons

A good starting point will be to find your local wildlife trust; visit www.wildlifetrusts.org to search for it. Almost any unpolluted small body of standing water with some vegetation will support at least one or two species.

www.british-dragonflies.org.uk is the site for the national organisation promoting dragonfly conservation and a great source of information, including ID guides.

The Yorkshire Dragonfly Society – www.yorkshiredragonflies.org.uk is linked to the national body.

We visited several meres and dewponds in the White Peak region. Fere Mere in Monyash (in the centre of the village), Tad-dington High Mere, grid ref on the White Peak OS Explorer map: 144704; Heathcote Mere: 143602; as well as ponds in Lathkill Dale.

http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/conservation/designations/nnr/derbyshiredaleshowtogetthere.aspx

is the link with details for accessing the Derbyshire Dales National Nature Reserve, managed by Natural England.

We also visited Osmaston, South of Ashbourne, which has a pond in the middle of the village, well off the Peak District maps.

Purple Harvest

We should probably be telling you to check with the landowner before harvesting any wild fruit…

Bilberries like acidic soil, of which there is plenty in the Peak District, but it is much less prevalent in the South of the region, where limestone dominates. The presence of heather, which should be in bloom when the berries are at their peak, is the best indication that there will also be Bilberries. They will also grow well in light woodland at the moorland’s edge, beyond the heather.

As mentioned in the article, we are keeping the exact location of our Bilberry patch on the Staffordshire Moorlands a closely guarded secret….

Who are We?Simon Corble www.corble.co.uk

I am a playwright and a theatre director – or, as I like to put it, a Creator of Dramatic Works. My most celebrated creation, in collaboration with North Country Theatre’s Nobby Dimon, is the stage version of The 39 Steps, still running in London’s West End, winning an Olivier Award for Best New Comedy 2007. Perhaps I am most proud of my adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles which been produced many times and is now published by MX Publishing. www. mxpublishing.co.uk .

It is also available on Amazon: amazon/Hound-Baskervilles-Sherlock-Holmes-Play

Having a deep interest in all things natural and rural, I have received a number of commissions to write drama on environmental themes, including SWARD! – the story of a meadow, for Blaize as well as a number of imaginative audio trails for the Peak District National Park and The Na-tional Trust. Sample Win Hill Voices at:- moorsforthefuture.org.uk

Throughout the 1990’s with my company, Midsommer, I pioneered open-air promenade theatre in atmospheric settings, right across the North of England, including Hilbre Island, in the Dee estuary and Brimham Rocks, North Yorkshire. I won a Manchester Evening News Theatre

Award in 1997 for my work in this field. You can view a photographic archive of these plays at: www.flickr.com/photos/midsommer

I have had an interest in photography ever since my teenage years when I joined the photography club at Lymm Grammar School, Cheshire. I have been exploring the Peak District, mostly on foot, since those days also, and took the life-enhancing decision to move into a Peak village with my wife and family in 2007. My photos of the Peak District and beyond can be viewed at www.flickr.com/photos/corble , where I go under the name Tragopodaros – Greek for “goat-footed-one”. I have a good working knowledge of Greek and I undertake translation work into English.

Originally from Sheffield, we moved to the Peak DIstrict to get away from the busy city life and this is when my passion for photography grew and grew. Photography and the Peak DIstrict are an ideal mix; I am addicted to exploring new places, looking for that next great shot.

We recently moved from Monyash to Quarnford and although I loved Monyash and met some wonderful people there, (Simon being one) moving to an even more rural setting has given me renewed energy to take my photography even further and explore more.

I have, with my business partner, for the last several years run a busy website for the Peak Dis-trict; www.peakdistrictonline.co.uk . This is still a big part of my business life, but it also means that I could use my photography to help promote the Peak District National Park.

Photography has grown from my passion to my work. I have been lucky that with my business-es; I have been able to involve and evlove my photography.

My Facebook Page is a place where I share my daily photos and I am pleased that it has had a great response; I have a great set of people who like to see my photos and comment, so why not come and take a look www.facebook.com/wakesworld

We are looking to convert an empty barn into a studio where I can take on more photography work and we are converting part of the farmhouse into holiday accommodation, so you can come and see where I get my inspiration from.

Steve Wake www.facebook.com/wakesworld