Ladybower Reservoir is absolutely beautiful. This Y shaped lake nestled in the Pennines just like it has always been there was one of my favourite places when I was growing up.
You turn off the A57 Just by the sign for Hope, and there's a road runs right along the edge of the water. It hugs the side of the shore on your right, and the wooded hill rises up sheer at your left. There are several places to stop, and a pavement too so you can get out and walk. Such a lovely road, through such a beautiful place, must surely lead somewhere wonderful?
"It doesn't lead anywhere", my dad would say. "It's the longest cul de sac in Britain, I reckon. Why on earth would you make a lovely road like this, to nowhere? We paid for this magnificent highway through our flipping taxes, and I mean to get my money's worth".
You'd never guess it was a dead end. You'd never guess under that serene stretch of water is a drowned village, church tower and all. Memories and cottage gardens and footpaths only trodden now by trout. There's just a locked gate at the end of the road, no track beyond, only thickets and copses.
And you just have to come back out again and get yourself back onto the humdrum lorry-grinding A57, and drive on from Hope through Hollow Meadows. As if when they named the places, all those centuries ago, the valley's fate was foretold.
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