Difficult Terrain Celia Fiennes was an experienced traveller, not a townswoman on her first day out in the hills. If she said that travelling was difficult then she can be believed. “Thence we came to Bankwell [Bakewell] a pretty neate market town 2 mile, it stands on a hill yet you descend a vast hill to it, which you would thinke impossible to go down and we was forced to fetch a great compass, and by reason of the steepness and hazard of the Wayes – if you take a wrong Way there is no passing you are forced to have Guides as in all parts of Darbyshire, and unless it be a few that use to be guides the common people know not above 2 or 3 miles from their home, but they of the country will climbe up and down with their horses those steep precipices.” “Indeed all Darbyshire is but a world of peaked hills which from some of the highest you discover the rest like steeples or tops of hills as thick as can be, and tho’ they appear so close yet the steepness down and up takes up the time that you go it, as if so many miles, and were the ground measur’d would be in length as much as miles on a plaine.” “Its very difficult to find the wayes here for you see only tops of hills and so many roads by reason of the best wayes up and down that its impossible for Coach or Waggon to pass some of them, and you scarce see a tree and no hedges all over the Country, only dry stone walls that incloses ground no other fence; Buxton we saw 2 or 3 tymes and then lost the sight of it as often, and at last did not see it till just you came upon it – that 9 mile we were above 6 hours going it.” Taken from The Journals of Celia Fiennes edited by C. Morris. Cresset Press 1947 More Pictures Travellers and Tourists