Cycling through the Peaks District with the most wonderful women

 I had the great good fortune of recently spending a week here in the U.K. with several dear friends from my Boston days. The excuse was to celebrate a special birthday for Jenny Carter (who had the brilliant idea to plan this trip) and Margaret Lazenby.  The result was the most wonderful week exploring Oxford, Stratford, Warwick followed by a three day bike ride through the Peak District in Derbyshire and then 3 days recuperating in a lovely 17th century farmhouse in the Cotswolds.  The sweetest part: spending time on the company of such extraordinary women. 

We started the week by gathering in Oxford and exploring the city. Lisa Dame, Kritstiina Sorensen, Jenny Carter, Robin Baker, me, Melinda Beecroft, Lisa Palmer, Margaret Lazenby, Kimberly Carlisle, and Judianne Peterson in front of Christchurch. Mary-lu Nelson joined us later that day.

We attended a lovely Evensong at Christchurch cathedral.  

Once we had all gathered, we spent two nights in Kenilworth, a lovely town between Warwick and Stratford.  The first day we spent in Stratford Upon Avon visiting Shakespeare's birth home (above) and Stoneleigh Abby.

Stoneleigh Abbey is a gorgeous manor house that for 400 years was the country seat of Jane Austen’s relatives, the Leighs. In August 1806 Jane, with her mother and sister, travelled to Stoneleigh Abbey in the company of her mother’s cousin, Reverend Thomas Leigh, to secure his inheritance of the estate. During her stay she was so inspired by the house, by its parkland and by its family intrigues that she wove descriptions of the interiors, views of the grounds and cameos of the family into her novels. 

Stoneleigh Abbey has changed little since 1806, the rooms and much of the furniture are still as Jane Austen would have known them.

Of course we concluded our tour of Stoneleigh Abbey with a proper high tea.

We then returned to Stratford to visit Anne Hathaway's family home (wife of William Shakespeare)

Day 2: We spent the day at Warwick Castle, a stunning medieval castle developed over the centuries  from an original fort built by William the Conqueror in 1068.  That evening we drove north to Derbyshire. 

Day 3:  We started our bike ride in Matlock, Derbyshire in what is called the Peaks District--an area of great natural beauty with rugged, peat-covered moorlands and magnificent limestone dales, with picturesque towns and villages, historic churches and lovely grand houses. It is also the location of Britain's first National Park.

Our first day was a challenge. Not only did we have steep hills but we also have snow drifts to contend with. 

It took us about an hour per mile to walk through the snow drifts.  In the end  it took us all day to go 32 miles.  But we made it!

With the snow behind us, we made our way to Hardington and to our Bed and Breakfast.

Day 4:  From Hartington to Eyam. We stopped at a 3000-year-old stone circle to soak up the energy of the stones.

A photo stop at an iconic red telephone booth along the way.

This is a typical scene of the Derbyshire landscape. It is just beautiful.  During our three day ride we didn't had much sun but we also didn't have much rain -- just cool and grey.

It wasn't all hills and valleys -- we had some lovely stretches of flat and beautiful especially along the river Wye.

We stayed in Eyam on our last night in Derbyshire.  Eyam has a fascinating history. In1665 bubonic plague arrived at the house of the village tailor George Vicars, via a parcel of cloth from London. The cloth was damp and was hung out in front of the fire to dry, thus releasing plague infested fleas. Three days later the tailer died of a raging fever. As the plague took hold and decimated the villagers it was decided to hold the church services outdoors and, on the advice of rectors, the villagers chose to self quarantine for the next 18 months to minimize the spread of the disease.

The village is filled with 17th-century Plague cottages with plaques that tell of the villagers that once lived and died there.

The Plague in Eyam raged for 14 months and claimed the lives of at least 260 out of 350 villagers. To minimize cross infection, food and other supplies were left for the villagers from neighboring towns at the Boundary Stones -- boulders that you can still see in surrounding fields.   

It's hard to visit this unspoilt Derbyshire village and not be moved by the tragic events that took place there almost 350 years ago.   Geraldine Brooks wrote the historical novel Year of Wonders: The Novel of the Plague, a bestseller in 2001, which was based on what happened at Eyam. 

Day 5: Our final  riding day was culminated with a visit to Chatsworth House -- the home of the Cavendish family and the largest privately held country house in England.

Even in the fog and with scaffolding on one side, the ride up the drive across the surrounding park  and seeing Chatsworth House for the first time took my breath away. 

It is not hard to see why it was used as Mr. Darcy's Pemberley in the 2005 movie of Pride and Prejudice staring Keira Knightley. 

The grounds were landscaped by Capability Brown, the eminent 18th century landscape architect.

The last three days were spent in a magnificent 17th century farmhouse in Broadwell in the Cotswolds. It was the perfect place to rest, visit, stay up late talking, and just enjoy the beauty of this home and this picture perfect village.

We spent our days wandering through the Cotswolds and stumbled across Sudeley Castle where Katherine Parr, Henry VIII’s last queen, lived after Henry died and is buried in St Mary’s Church within the gardens. She is the only English Queen to be buried in a private residence.

What a week!  The best part of this extraordinary adventure was spending time with these great, great women!  I love and miss them all and am so grateful I was invited along for the ride. 

“There is nothing I would not do for those who are really my friends. I have no notion of loving people by halves, it is not my nature.”

― Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey