Chesterfield; Sunday, 21 July, 2024

The rain and rapid drop in temperatures it had created had helped to bring the outside temperature down quite a bit, along with the temperature inside the hotel so I had a slightly better nights sleep than the previous evenings, though it still meant I was up and about earlier than I would have wanted to be – though it turned out not early enough.

After having a quick breakfast I checked out and headed over to main bus stops to pick up a bus out to Barrow Hill to go and visit the railway roundhouse located there. A quick check online had shown that the bus an hour earlier had been about 5 minutes late, so I was quite pleased to see the bus pulling up 10 minutes ahead of schedule, only to have the plans thwarted as the driver who had just arrived didn’t have anyone to relieve him, so instead of running the service he had to drive the bus back to the depot with at least an hours wait until the next bus.

Given I didn’t want to spend an hour hanging around, I decided to abandon the first part of the days itinerary and instead go directly to my second attraction of the day, though a quick look online showed I only had 5 minutes to walk the 300m to the correct bus stop, something I achieved with about a minute to spare.

The bus took me out of Chesterfield and over to the town of Bolsover, famous for it’s former MP, and the large castle that sits at the highest point in the neighbourhood. Whilst there had once been a fortification on this site, the castle in Bolsover today is a pleasure piece built by the Cavendish family (of Chatsworth fame), with a Riding School, Royal Apartments and a pleasure castle built in the style of a Medieval keep.

Given I didn’t need to rush I spent well over three hours looking round the site, taking in all of the different parts of the building, and for once making good use of the audio guide, as well as the café.

Having looked round the castle I headed back towards the centre of town to pick up the bus back to Chesterfield, only to find the curse of the local bus company had struck again, with the bus I though I had 5 minutes to wait for showing as being delayed by at least 20 minutes. In the end it was almost 30 minutes late by the time it showed up and we headed back into Chesterfield.

We arrived back into town a little bit after most of the shops had closed and the centre of town was totally deserted, with nobody about. Thankfully both of the two Greggs within 100 yards of each other were open, and one even had a large seating area, so I grabbed an early dinner there.

Carbed up from Greggs I had a bit of a wander around town before heading back to the hotel to grab my bag and then make my way over to the station to catch the train back to London.