Castleton Christmas Tree Festival

Bakewell is the biggest town in the Peak District, a market town in the Derbyshire Dales. We love to visit so when we saw that it was hosting its Christmas Market Weekend on the 16th and 17th of November, we put it in the diary. We were expecting a lovely day out, something to kick off the Christmas festivities, but it was anything but. There were traffic jams before we'd even entered the town itself, cars queuing just to reach the car park. The crowds, wow, the crowds! You couldn't even see what some stalls were selling, it was a push and shove just to walk along the streets. It didn't feel at all Christmassy, I think we heard Christmas music playing on one or two stalls but that was it, it could have been a summer market for what we saw of Christmas. We stayed for as long as we could stand it, which wasn't long, and then decided to make a hasty retreat, which wasn't hasty at all because of the crowds and queues.

I'd seen that Castleton, a village in the High Peak district of Derbyshire, was having its lights switch on that same day so we decided to head over there instead, it's about half an hour away from Bakewell. It was such a different experience there. It was still busy but there wasn't that push and shove that there was in Bakewell. The first thing we noticed when we hopped out the car was the scent of roasted chestnuts, that just shouts Christmas to me. It's such a pretty village and it was done up beautifully with Christmas decor. It was such a great atmosphere too, people drinking mulled wine and plenty of mince pies being served. There was a Santa's grotto for the children.

Part of the festivities was the Christmas Tree Festival at St Edmund's Church. 

Local businesses had decorated small trees which were displayed inside the church. The meet and greeters made us feel very welcome, and even Archie was allowed inside.

Each tree displayed a number so we were able to see which business had supplied it.

Some of the trees displayed what the business sells, such as this one by Three Roofs Cafe.

Their tree is filled with gingerbread men, and women, all named.

And this one decorated with ice lollies and ice creams.

This tree had been decorated by the children at Castleton C of E Primary School.

Castleton is known for Blue John, which this tree was decorated with.

The only place where this semi-precious mineral can be found in the UK is at Blue John Cavern and Treak Cliff Cavern, both in Castleton.

The chancel looked especially lovely. I always enjoy seeing the stained glass windows in a church.

We enjoyed our visit to the church to see all the beautiful trees, and we enjoyed our visit to Castleton too. We managed to save the day after a shaky start, and though we didn't stay to see the lights switch on, our festive season got off to a good start in Castleton.

Harewood House

We had a lovely day on Friday. We'd seen that there was to be an artisan fair held at Harewood House in Leeds over four days, the Thursday to Sunday, with reduced admission to the estate. It's somewhere I have a vague recollection of visiting as a child but I've never been since. Admission is usually £18 but the reduced price for this event was just £5 so we decided to take advantage of that and so Mick took Friday off work.

Harewood House is the family seat of the Lascelles family and home of David Lascelles, the eight Earl of Harewood. The landscape was designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. Emmerdale is now filmed on a purpose made set on the estate and the house has been used in various TV and film productions including the Downton Abbey movie and Victoria. We weren't able to go inside the house as it's currently closed as the Christmas exhibition is being installed. Friday was the day that winter arrived here, a mist hung in the air all day and it was much colder than it's been all season, but that didn't stop us enjoying the day.

There were over 130 different stalls at the artisan market. It was very well organised with the stalls creating a walkway by the side of the woods.

There were a good selection of stalls, lots of food and drink stalls. but so many others too: candles, wooden toys, ceramics, jewellery, textiles, glassware, wood crafts, rustic garden art, hand painted glass, hand made soaps, and so much more. We made a few purchases.

There was also a small seating area where you could purchase hot food to eat right away. A duo was providing musical entertainment. We spent quite some time looking round the many stalls, there really was something for everyone.

Afterwards we decided to have a walk around the grounds. Here you can see the front of the house getting decked out ready for the Christmas festivities. Numbers were being placed in each of the windows to make the house look like an advent calendar.

We went round to the back of the house to see the terrace and Parterre. Such fantastic planting here which I think will look even more stunning in summer when the flower borders are in full bloom.

The fountain.

From the terrace you look out over beautiful countryside. I'm sure it looks even more stunning when the mist lifts and it's bathed in a sunny glow.

Before we left we visited the Christmas shop. It's located in the Old Kitchen, Below Stairs. There were lots of goodies to browse, but I was just as interested in all the copper pans and cooking paraphernalia displayed on the shelves around the room.

And what about this magnificent range. The kitchen was restored in 1996 and I enjoyed looking around here just as much, if not more, than I enjoyed looking at all the Christmas merchandise on sale.

We went out for a meal on Friday night to round off a very enjoyable day. We didn't see all that Harewood House had to offer but we were impressed with what we did see and it's on the list to return there to explore more at some point in the future.