Sheldon is a very popular place for visitors to pass through, and there are a number of walks that go through our beautiful village in all directions. We love the fact that visitors coming through stop at the village hall for one of our famous cream teas, and we are also of course very proud, as are our farmers, of our landscape including all of the dry stone walls that keep our fields in good order.
However, sometimes not everyone understands or realises the preciousness of our village, landscape and walls. Nor indeed do they realise how important it is when out in a working farming environment, to keep the walls and gates as they found them and not disturb the animals. Recent incidents noted by residents include people climbing over and on top of walls, sliding over silage bails, dropping litter, dog fouling amongst cattle, and swearing at local residents! It is also worth noting that some of the people in charge of visiting youth groups don’t set a very good example to their charges (allowing theirs dogs to run free in fields full of lambs, ignoring advice of landowners, etc). We must stress that this is a minority of people, and it isn’t just/all youth groups who behave in this way.
We’d therefore like to remind everyone that, whilst visitors are very welcome, we’d ask them to keep to the countryside code and remember that ours is a working village, with the fields owned and worked by our local farmers. Please remember that the village street needs to be kept free of obstructions for farm machinery to pass, and that all of the green spaces in the village (with the exception of the playing field) are in private ownership; they aren’t car parks.
This might sound like nimby-ism, but please remember that it is perfectly possible on a busy weekend for our population to swell from 80 people to over 1000; we all want to enjoy the Peak District and our lovely village…why spoil it?
