Miller's Dale. Steep sided. A valley in the Derbyshire Dales with magnificent contours. High rocky outcrops. Sheer faced cliffs. Green fields plunging down to a quiet, winding river.
It's a place where geologists go, to see the evidence of lava flows from millions of years ago. Where historians go, to marvel at Victorian viaducts and tunnels cut by hand in the 1800s. And where weekend people go to trek or cycle through open country along the disused railway lines that used to carry the trains between Manchester and London.
Miller's Dale feels cut off from the world. Alive in the moment, but somehow separated. As you wonder its winding and overgrown footpaths, you sense the valley is a place not only of restorative solitude, but a place where you are free to imagine yourself conscious in another time. Another era. Hearing the echoes of a rumbling steam train, chuffing northwards with Victorian haste. The meek baas of sheep, grazing on wet Iron Age pastures. Or the tide of the bygone sea, that the composition of the rocks shows this landscape almost unimaginably used to be.
Now the sound of water flowing is from the river. the River Wye. How steadily it runs, along the valley bottom. Open country water, that along the shallow stretches rills, pleasantly, over tumbled stones. Cool. Refreshing. Consistent. Rilling in watery melodies, if you let yourself listen for long enough.
* We left the Lento mics alone, hanging from a steeply leaning tree, to capture the spatial sound of the River Wye flowing through the night. Some planes are audible in the sky, possibly more than usual for 2am, due to a major air traffic control breakdown the night before.
Derbyshire gales blow away the cobwebs
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside (part 2 - sleep safe)
Bucolic contrasts under low cloud - the land between Sandy and St Neots
43 Tidal water mirror still - a sound view from Canvey Island
42 Night beside a stream in Wales (sleep safe)
Gulls at low tide along the River Thames
Low tide on the Thames Estuary at Benfleet creek (no loud noises and best with headphones)
Jackdaws and flooded winterbournes - watery emptiness
Tawny echoes in the cathedral of trees (sleep safe)
Rain in Abney Park
Wind over the Bridgemarsh Marina on the Dengie Peninsula
Suffolk Wood part 5 - the hour to 1am (sleep safe)
Wind on water under an equinoctial sky - on the Dengie peninsula Essex
Champagne shingle on Felixstowe beach
Folkestone Warren - Spitfire flypast then coastal murmurings
31 Late summer heat bathing under splendid trees - peace in the Clinton-Baker Pinetum
30 Wind and time passes in the Forest of Dean
Trains, planes and estuary birds
Night rain falls on a Peak District moorside
Dead of night beside a lake in the Lee Valley Park - sleep special
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