The Alport Valley is long and deep, slicing up through Bleaklow Hill from the valley of the River Ashop. The upper reaches are particularly wild - it's hard to believe that one is only 20 miles or so from Sheffield City centre. The valley bottom is flat and covered in heather and bracken, and its sides are tall, steep and rocky. Somehow as I look up the valley I am reminded simultaneously of the Lake District and of Ireland. Ireland, incidentally, I have found to be an infinitely wilder, more dramatic and less built up version of England – its only downside being that it isn’t actually in England, and hence is deeply lacking.