There and Back

We knew there were some old slate mine workings near our cottage, so on thursday we went for a walk in the woods near our cottage to explore these disused slate mines. I believe this one was called Common Wood Slate Mine, Ulpha.There is a group of these old quarries north of Ulpha. They may have been worked from the 17th century until about 1925. The road up to the quarries is built of slabs of slate on edge set into clay. As you climb the road(!!) you can see there was a stream running down it - probable in the wet weather. The path/road was lined by carpets of Wild garlic and on the descent, by bluebells as well. At the top of the track, the first thing you see is the ruins of the manager's house where William Casson moved in after his marriage in 1896. It may have been an early barn conversion. William Casson managed the quarries for the Ulpha Slate Company and the Ulpha Green Slate Company and finally on his own behalf as a slate dealer after the quarries wer

Never having had a holiday in the Lake District, this was our destination for May - to the south of Cumbria, in a village called Ulpha, to be precise. So, on Friday evening about 6pm we were on our way to Days Inn in Peterborough where we where to stop the night thus saving ourselves 2 hours on our Saturday journey onward to the Lakes. At around 8:20 am on Saturday, we started our journey up the A1 toward Scotch Corner where we intended to turn onto the A66 toward Penrith. The idea being that by travelling so far up the A1 and travelling over the top of the Dales, we could miss most of the built up, busy roads like the M6 and arrive in a less tired state. That was the idea, but the drive down through the Lakes NP was another thing!! Perhaps we will do the M6 on the way home after all!  However, all clouds have a silver lining, and we were able to get a few pictures (above) before reaching our destination for the week.  Our cottage for the week. The owner