ONE of the absolutely wonderful things about the English countryside is the way that romantic links with literature or history are just about everywhere you look.
We’ve just spent two nights in the small Derbyshire village of Hathersage, a place that has become a frighteningly expensive commuter dormitory for Sheffield.
The surrounding countryside is breathtakingly beautiful, even on a dismally wet day. At this time of year the grass is greening up quite nicely and the trees just starting to bud. There were snowdrops everywhere and birds scuttling about in hedgerows.
We stayed at The George Hotel, a place that was once frequented by someone who can rightly be called a National Treasure – the novelist Charlotte Bronte herself. And we walked paths that she must have trodden because on one of our rambles we encountered North Lees Hall, a manor house widely reputed to have been the model for Mr Rochester’s dwelling in Jane Eyre. The house was actually owned at one time by the non-fictional Eyre family, so she got both a setting and a name from North Lees Hall.
Just down the road we were free to stroll through a churchyard that purports to have the grave of Little John, he of the Merry Men.
It has become such an attraction that in the summer months the local church community runs a small tea shop from an outbuilding next to the grave.
Back in Hathersage itself there is a cutlery factory, which offers up a history of dining table implements. Not the most fascinating topic for a museum but, nevertheless, a dry place to visit on a wet day.
So, there you have it. In one small place, a chance to wallow in literature, myth and history. I just love it.
