On a sunny day near the end of June, I set out to walk from my village of Findern to Derby Cathedral. If this had been 1826 or even 1926, this would have been a perfectly normal activity. In 2026, no one spends two hours walking to the nearest city. They drive, or catch a bus. It feels faintly subversive to ignore the more obvious modes of transport and to set off on foot. Priory Way, the footpath north out of Findern, is on the Six-Inch series of OS maps from the late 1800s. It has probably not changed much, give or take a few electrical pylons. The fields and farms are still there. Butterflies flew over bright yellow flowers of lady's bedstraw; a hare paused to look at me; a squirrel panicked and almost ran over my toes. After a few miles I came out at Heatherton Pond, greeting its more manicured path with relief. This is now the edge of Derby city; the boundary runs just south of the lake. However, I was surprised at how much more green space I encountered. A cycle path took me ...
Earlier in the day I had caught the train up from Derby and visited Rotherham Minster . The Supertram from Rotherham brought me to Sheffield Cathedral just as the clock struck two. I realised as I left the tram that I had totally forgotten my cathedral passport until now. Rotherham may not have had a stamp anyway, though I probably could have got the vicar's signature or something, but I dug the passport out of my bag to be sure to remember it. The shop had a stamp, I was told, and so it did. Formalities completed, I went to explore Sheffield Cathedral. It's a strange jumble of a building; "one of those forever unfinished places" as an architectural journal describes it. This view along the church towards the east end makes it look pretty standard - a medieval chancel and a Victorian-renovated nave. But if you turn ninety degrees to the north, there is another long axis - a regimental chapel that leads through to the Chapel of the Holy Spirit. At one point in the 193...