The Salt Cellar at Derwent Edge

There's something about the Peak District's gritstone that keeps pulling me back to the easel, and this time it's the turn of one of its most curious characters: the Salt Cellar.

Perched high above the Derwent Reservoir on the ridge of Derwent Edge, the Salt Cellar is a rock formation like no other — a tall, tottering stack of weathered gritstone that looks almost too precarious to still be standing. It hasn't been placed there by human hands. Wind and water have been quietly at work on it for thousands of years, wearing away the softer layers of stone and leaving behind this strange, sculptural tower balanced against the sky.

I wanted this painting to capture not just the rock itself but the feeling of being up there on the edge — the heather rolling out in great swathes of purple and magenta, the reservoir catching the light far below, and a soft, glowing sky suggesting that golden hour hush you get on the moors. A pair of curious sheep wandered into the scene too, as they always seem to on the Edge, giving the rock a real sense of scale.

The Salt Cellar sits along one of the most popular hiking routes in the Peak District. Walkers following the Derwent Edge path pass it as part of a wider procession of wind-carved gritstone tors — the Wheel Stones, the Cakes of Bread, and this one, the Salt Cellar — each shaped by the same slow erosion, each with its own distinct silhouette against the moorland sky. On a clear day, the views stretch out over Ladybower and Derwent reservoirs, and it's easy to see why this stretch draws walkers, photographers, and outdoor enthusiasts back again and again.

Painting it in watercolour felt like the right way to honour something so shaped by weather. Loose washes for the sky and heather, layered glazes to build up the striations in the rock — letting the paint move and settle the way water has moved and settled this landscape for millennia.

You can find this painting, along with the rest of my Peak District collection, on my website.