Happy Place

I think I may have fallen in love a little. We visited the town market in Wirksworth, granted its market charter in 1306. As well as bread, cheese and vegetables, we found English strawberries (still!), South African dunking biscuits, home-made Indian take-away, custard apples, and coffee from the obscure African country of Burundi, where it just so happens I once lived for two years. In those days, I visited the district where the coffee is grown, to swim in natural hot springs; I read tonight that Wirksworth may have originated here due to nearby thermal springs

That mixture of everyday practicality and unusual alternatives pervades the town. It is full of independent shops, an independent cinema, a French bistro/cafe. A large public notice board bristles with events to attend and causes to join. Steep, narrow streets follow curved routes and join each other at unexpected angles. There is no unifying style - some buildings are ancient stone, some are Midlands brick, some are stucco. I think this is not a place for conformists. Every street view ends with a green, treed hillside, rising above the chaotic, jostling rooves. A bottom-up architecture reflecting a bottom-up mentality. I'm surprised to read that the population is only just over 5,000; it feels heftier

There is a 2,000-year history of lead mining to explore and, within a few yards of where I am sleeping, a site where the Industrial Revolurion took off, when the famous Richard Arkwright established one of his earliest steam and water-powered cotton-spinning mills. I think I'm in for a satisfying week