Each month we featured a special place occupied by Trees in Bakewell, with pictures, history and local information. Scroll down to see more monthly places.

OCTOBER : Willow Trees at Big Bend

(Click for full size pictures)

Big Bend, where there is a sense of the timeless, and where the mind finds a calm place to settle. Big Bend, beloved by all of Bakewell.

However, during Carnival Week Big Bend is the boisterous finishing place for the Raft Race. Encouraging shouts, cheers and laughter fill the air. Excited parents and onlookers greet soaking wet children and adults who cling onto their decorated rubber tyres after a frantic paddle downstream.

Visit on another day and the fish lazily jump for flies, coots sit in the alder branches and the willow leaves shimmer in gentle breezes. There are old tree stumps and new saplings, a scrap of exposed sandy riverbed, commemorative trees… and peace.

The agricultural centre and Showground are hidden by a riverside boundary of alders, their bent mass of branches carrying next year's catkins, this year's green and last year's brown cones. On the island, rope swings dangle from the split branches of the willow trees, their graceful trunks and branches reflected in the gently swirling waters.

Monthly Tree Place Archive:

• JANUARY : New Year with the White Birches
• FEBRUARY : Coombs Road Bridge and Hawthorn Hedges
• MARCH : The Hollies of North Church Street
• APRIL : Holme Bridge Grove
• MAY : Cherry Blossom in Wyedale Crescent
• JUNE : Vines over Diamond Court Path
• JULY : Riverside Gardens
• AUGUST : Beech Trees at 'Lovehearts'
• SEPTEMBER : Hawthorn Trees in Grant's Field Quarry
• OCTOBER : Willow Trees at Big Bend
• NOVEMBER : Cracknowl Beeches
• DECEMBER : A busy corner by The Chimney