A lost landscape with relics of martyrdom

Upper Padley, Derbyshire "History may be servitude, history may be freedom," TS Eliot wrote. At Padley, it felt like the former

It wasn't quite midwinter spring, but the morning was unusually warm, the moors tucked up under blankets of thick grey cloud. Smoke from the chimney of the Grindleford Cafi(C) rose in an unwaveringly straight line to heaven. Close by, the damp black mouth of the Totley Tunnel burrowed off towards Sheffield.

The coming of the railway changed this landscape's energy, cutting off Bole Hill and part of Grindleford from the Derwent valley below. A line of terraced houses was built alongside the tracks, a blessing for the local wildlife on this December morning. A man leant against his back doorframe watching birds feeding in his garden while on the other side of the track I was walking, a crowd of tits and chaffinches combed a hawthorn.