The intriguingly named Sparrowpit is a small, one street, Peak District village, with a string of weatherworn and exposed gritstone cottages. It is usually missed by passing motorists as it is situated off a dangerous bend on the main A623 road. Its name derives from the fluorspar mines of earlier times, and it lies on England’s watershed, where rivers rising on one side flow East to the North Sea, and on the other side they flow West to the Irish Sea.. At 370 metres above sea level, the village is surrounded by hill farms, and the escarpment of Rushup Edge. My painting came from a wet morning’s sketching walk, and was an experiment to see if I could create the look of a wet road without it reading as a river. Hopefully, the white lines and telegraph poles make this work. And, no, I didn’t stand in the road to paint it, I took photos and a sketch home and painted it there!