Today, we're on a walk that takes us on a boat ride
more than 200 metres below the ground
and up to an 11th century Norman Castle.
We’ll uncover the details of a gruesome murder
and pass through the only location in the world
where Blue John Stone is mined.
I'm joined by Sam Buckley,
owner and creator of the Green Michelin starred restaurant
Where The Light Gets In.
We'll be talking about sustainability
and where the best places to eat in Stockport are.
- Hello. - Hi, how you doing?
- How are you? - I’m Good.
- Are you well? - Yeah, are you?
Yeah.
Are you ready for our walk in beautiful Castleton?
- Beautiful day. - I know it’s gorgeous.
Really beautiful day
Bit nippy out but it’s lovely.
Yeah, good cold winds, means you have to march.
Yeah, so should we get cracking on?
Let’s do it.
Oh, wow look at this!
This is pretty cool isn’t it?
So Sam, you created Where The Light Gets In.
Tell me about the concept.
In the loose sense of the word, it’s a restaurant.
A bit of an experiment.
I opened it with the idea of trying to find a good food system
trying to like go down the path of a positive food system
and trying to avoid some of the problems
that we have now in our modern day food system.
And then it grew and now we have this enormous team
and we've had lots of amazing cooks and waiters passing through as well.
So we're just really conscious of the environment around us
and of ourselves as well, of our own well-being.
So you get this amazing contact with humans.
You build these little networks
and you build these stories and these narratives
and the food feels better to work with and hopefully tastes...
well I think it tastes better ultimately.
Well, hopefully you've brought some of your delights with us today.
I brought some things.
- I hope you’ll enjoy them. - We’ll see.
We’ve got some things from the bakery as well.
And we've got some things from our garden
on the landing, from our rooftop garden.
- Aww that’s so good. - Got it all.
And even some things from the mushroom basement.
The mushroom basement.
I've heard about this mushroom basement.
Basement of fungi. Yeah, we’ve got lots.
Love this trickling stream.
Could go live in that cave up there.
Be good for an ambush.
Has this become a thing?
Hi! We’ve been in the cave for 15 years.
Oh, my God.
Oh, no, it's running away
- Oh, you scared him off. - Sorry.
I find sheep menacing.
- Do you? - Yeah
Oh, I love them.
The square pupils they just scare me a bit.
There's some sheep that are really ugly.
They just seem so sinister, like you know, they're plotting.
- It's nice and warm now. - Yeah. Sun's come out.
- Oh, it's so bright. - It’s lovely.
Maybe we should walk backwards and just get the warmth
Yeah, I feel like having a bit of a meditation session.
Nice.
So that’s Peveril Castle there.
Oh wow, Peveril Castle!
Or the remains of anyway
So I’ve got a little fact for you.
- A castle fact? -Yes, indeed, I have a castle fact.
So it's a Norman Castle from the 11th century.
Wow!
And William Peveril, actually.
Is William the Conqueror’s son.
No!
Yeah, there you go.
It all feels a little
Well, I didn't know that, but
when we were walking through the valley, it was all feeling a bit Robin Hood.
Yeah!
It's like the perfect spot to watch down below and ambush.
Get a good ambush going on.
Right, you'll never guess what we're doing next.
Go on.
We're going on a boat, underground!
- Who's rowing? - Not me.
I've always wanted to go in here.
Can't be tall can ya?
Oh, God.
- Hi, Josh. - Hiya, guys. You alright?
Hey Josh
So basically, what's going to happen now
we're going to get you guys on the boat
we're gonna go through an 18th century lead mine.
By the time we get to the cavern at the other end,
we’ll be about 200 metres below the surface.
The tunnel itself is about half a kilometre or 500 metres
we’re gonna go underneath the mountainside
underneath Speedwell itself.
You guys up for that?
- Yeah this is awesome. - I guess so.
Right, we'll get going.
- Oh my God - Are we gonna go up to the front?
Oh, I can't get in.
Start again.
Oh it’s well wobbly
- This is mint. - Oh my God.
Ah look at that.
This looks like a scary movie.
You're not claustrophobic are you?
We'll see.
For the first sort of ten metres, just watch your heads. It’s a little bit low.
Watch your head!
I'll be fine, it’s you guys I’m worried about.
Yeah, I know when to duck.
You know it like the back of your head.
Yeah, you could say that.
So, what we're currently travelling down at the moment
is the remains of an 18th century lead mine.
It started in 1771 and ended in 1791.
Only lasted for 20 years.
That’s because it was a massive financial disaster.
Back then the boss put £12,000 into the mine
and he got £3,000 out.
In today’s money, that’s a loss of about £8,000,000
So the place went bankrupt over the twenty years.
We’re actually coming up to a point now,
it's the first vein of lead the miners actually found
It’s called The Little Winster Vein.
It was mined out by a seven year old boy.
He'd been working down here for 12 hours a day, seven days a week
he only had two hours off on Sunday for church.
He’d mine with a pick axe in one hand, shovel in the other,
bucket around his neck and a candle in his mouth
made out of a substance called tallow.
He actually only made it two days before his 14th birthday,
before he died of exhaustion working down here.
Oh bless, it’s so small
this is a little bit creepy.
It's very weird
it's a bit ominous feeling, really.
There's a lot of tales attributed to it, about it being quite creepy
we have a lot of cavers that come down
they come down about three or four times a week
and they'll go into 14 miles
of natural cave systems beyond Speedwell itself,
from time to time, you get them telling you stories that they hear
people shouting down the tunnels and there's no one there.
Supposedly ex-miners working down here are still going at it.
So they would use boats basically to transport rocks down the tunnel.
You guys can imagine we’ve travelled quite far
it’d be extremely hard for a group of men
to try and carry all that rock back to the surface to get rid of it.
So they put boats down here
and they did a technique to move the boats back and forth called ‘legging’
and this was done by the wives of the miners.
That's where the term ‘legging it’ comes from
like running away.
And I'll demonstrate to you guys what that basically entails.
The women would get to front of the boat, their backs pressed against it,
their feet pressed against the ceiling, pushing the boats
back and forth, doing what I'm doing now,
having to transport any material
or anything the men may need, back and forth, down the system.
- Do you guys want to have a go? - Yeah!
Am I gonna crash?
No
I can't really reverse park, so
It's good practice for the walk later
Oh my God!
What is going on?!
Hop off guys, whenever you're ready.
Take your time, watch your heads.
Wow. Oh my God.
Whoa
Right then, what we're stood in now is actually Speedwell Cavern itself.
Formed over 250 million years ago.
Now, miners broke into here completely by accident.
They had no idea this even existed.
A naturally formed cavern by water.
Now, behind me over here is the piece de resistance in the cavern
it’s Speedwell Cavern’s bottomless pit.
Whoaaa
that is creepy!
Why is it called the bottomless pit?
So it's called the bottomless pit because when the miners broke in to here,
they also dug that tunnel to your guys right hand side.
That's called the Far Canal.
The miners dug for another 260 metres
and then broke in to 14 miles of natural cave systems.
Now, when they were digging the 260 metres worth of tunnel that way
They got lazy and couldn't be bothered to take their waste rock
from that tunnel through that one, back up to the surface.
So they started throwing all of their waste rock into the bottomless pit.
But no matter how much rock they threw into the pit, the water level would never rise
and this didn't make sense to the miners
so they believed they were throwing the rock into the bottomless pit
It would sink to the bottom of the earth where it was eaten by the devil.
So that's how it got the name, the bottomless pit
believing that it was genuinely bottomless.
- That was really cool wasn’t it? - So cool!
Josh was the best as well!
He's got the best job.
Right so this is Winnats Pass
which means wind gates.
- That makes a lot of sense - Doesn't it?
It’s so windy
supposedly this pass is haunted by a couple
that ran away here, tried to get married
and were killed and robbed by five lead miners.
The lead miners had like violent deaths
and one of them actually died from a boulder
just on the pass here and got crushed
Wow.
Brilliant. Great, and it's very windy.
It is.
So shall we walk through the pass?
Yeah let's keep going.
Let's run.
Woo! - That is nippy!
That is a biting wind!
Oh my God, the dog's in a bag.
Corgie in a bag!
Oh my God, you're so cute.
Right so we’re at Treak Cliff Hill
and this is actually the only place in the world
where you can mine the Blue John Stone.
- That’s incredible to think isn’t it? - Pretty cool isn’t it.
So I thought this would be the perfect place for a picnic
and here's one you made earlier
The culmination of any good walk...
...a good picnic.
Sam this looks amazing.
Tell me about what you've got today.
Shall we start with some broth?
It’s been so cold today
- Yeah we need to warm up don’t we? - Yeah
So what's in the broth?
It's like erm...
It’s dried fish heads.
Is it?!
Like the bones and any trim we’ve got and the heads
with loads of dehyrdated mushrooms from the mushroom farm
and then just a mixture of a little bit of chicken stock from chicken carcasses
I can’t taste any fish heads
What was your favorite part of the walk today?
I really liked the cavern.
What about you?
I really liked Josh.
Josh is so cool.
Yeah, he was really like knowledgeable wasn't he.
Yeah.
What does it mean to have a Green Michelin Star for your restaurant?
Ummm
aw no,
I guess there's like a certain level of food quality that it has to be
but also you know, we have an ethical practice
to the way we run our restaurant.
- This is for you. - Thank you
Did you know that they were gonna come and like, assess the restaurant?
You might get a hunch that there’s somebody from Michelin in
we might get a tip off or something like that.
Chefs generally ring each other up if they think that they know
that they’re in the area.
But... Yeah
I find the whole game quite cute really.
They sort of act a bit like they’re Jedis from Star Wars
It’s all a bit cliched.
- But - Yeah
when they first came they said
when they have a meal of exceptional quality
then they announce themselves
and it’s very pompous and it’s very...
Is it?
Errm Mr. Buckley.
It's very like this, and it's kind of... Pretty funny.
So you've got some suppliers that
provide food for your restaurant around here.
Katie Rubython comes to mind straight away
who's someone we've worked with for maybe five years
So she has Keeper’s Cottage, they rear chickens and turkeys.
And then she bought some pigs
and she moved these pigs into an ancient woodland that she bought
and converted it to organic and they just kind of root around
in the woodland.
And now she's got a young girl working for her
so it's like the only female butcher team
I think in England, which is also quite cool.
That is cool I don't think I've ever known a female butcher.
Right so I think we should head to the pub
it wouldn't be a Weekend Walk without it.
- Sit by the fire? - Yeah
- Finally, we're inside. - We're getting warm.
We’re next to the fire!
Tell us, what’s your favourite places to eat and drink in Stockport?
Oh, wow. Okay.
My favourite pub, favourite place to drink is the Queen's Head,
which is one of the oldest pubs in Stockport.
No phones, cash only.
So it's a, what do they call it a digital detox pub?
So it's just like, super quiet
but there’s loads of great pubs in Stockport, like The Magnet.
Favourite places to eat, I’d say Cafe San Juan
Okay so what kind of food do they do?
Cafe San Juan is a Colombian Cafe.
There’s Mekong Cat
which is an amazing, sort of Vietnamese noodle cafe.
It’s really good, up on the top of Underbanks just near the bakery
and also like, I just love the sandwich shops.
What kind of sandwich shops?
Just like, you know a proper old sandwich shop
there's a place called Porky's.
I went there yesterday and just got a ham salad
with boiled egg.
Yeah, you and your boiled egg.
Just good ham salad sandwich
and then there’s the Arden Arms for a good pub lunch.
I feel like I need to write all this down!
Honestly like,
it's far more interesting than Manchester
just like honestly
that's a terrible statement,
especially doing a film with somebody called Manchester's Finest.
But it's just like, so colourful
and there's so much real, good food like good roast dinners.
Aw well I’ve have had a really good day today
thanks for coming on the walk with us.
Thanks so much for inviting me, It's been amazing.
And it's been amazing to learn local history in the Peaks as well.
Thank you so much, it’s been great.
Windy, but now nice and warm
Exactly, enjoy your drink.