5 secret, pretty places to visit in Derbyshire
Lord Byron once wrote that Derbyshire contains attractions ''as noble as in Greece or Switzerland,” and although you may struggle for ski slopes and a Peak District Parthenon, there’s much to explore in the county beyond the main draw of Chatsworth House. Yes, we adore perhaps Britain’s most lavish and bejewelled country pile, complete with its Lucian Freud’s and Gainsborough’s. But what lies beyond is a fascinating patchwork of villages, gorges, trails and caves that don’t attract a tenth of the foot traffic – here are five of our favourites.
John Potter / Alamy Stock PhotoAshbourne and Dovedale
It was Dr Samuel Johnson no less who contended that “he that has seen Dovedale has no need to visit the Highlands of Scotland.”
The creator of the dictionary should probably have consulted his own work for the definition of “exaggeration” but he wasn’t too far wrong. The River Dove contorts and snuggles its way from the summits to the flat lands of Derbyshire and is at its prettiest in the two-mile-long gorge that comprises Dovedale valley. Bring your wellies if there’s been rain – the walk can be boggy – but you’re only four miles or so from respite and warmth in the market town of Ashbourne.
Here, amid a pleasing jumble of old stone houses scattered around a cobbled Market Place you’ll find Callow Hall, a venerable veteran of the British country hotel scene that’s recently been given a notably impressive nip and tuck by its new owners the Wildhive group. Reopened in 2022 after three years of work, the fusty old drapes and antiques have been swept away in favour of a glass cube extension, treehouses in the grounds and electric bikes for hire. All this, and yet the stout, remote vibe of the original building endures; this is still emphatically the high and lofty Peak District rather than a Cotswolds wannabe.
Robin Weaver / Alamy Stock PhotoBlue John and Treak Cliff Cavern
Highly prized by jewellers since the Georgian era for its rhubarb and custard accented colourings, Blue John is a very rare form of mineral called fluorite that’s only found in this cave complex underneath the town of Castleton.
Awash with dagger-like stalactites and ancient fossils, the two caves are still used for mining today, though only very small amounts are hacked out of the 250 million-year-old seams. Both Treak Cliff and Blue John can be visited for underground tours with Treak making the news in 2015 when the first new seam of the precious metal in 150 years was found; the most notable discovery prior to that was three human skeletons discovered in 1921 believed to have been there since Neolithic times.
Martyn Williams / Alamy Stock PhotoHathersage
He wasn’t little and, to be honest, it’s far from certain that he ever existed in the first place. But if you’re in thrall to the legend of Robin Hood then the little visited village of Hathersage is an essential stop-off to pay homage to the grave of Little John – the second in command of the Merry Men and a man rumoured to be around seven feet tall. Clearly irony was as important to the gang as giving to the poor.
There are some cracking views to be had of the Peaks from the churchyard where John was (maybe) laid to rest while down in the stout little town centre lies The George, an ancient coaching inn that recently underwent a half-a-million-pound refurb with a wood-fired pizza oven and local real ales on tap in the bar and a nod to a famous former patron in the form of the Lady C. Bronte suite upstairs.
For it was Charlotte Bronte who, on her trips down from remote Howarth, regularly visited this hostelry, even naming the protagonist in Jane Eyre after a former landlord and the Morton character after James Morton, the owner in Bronte’s time, who would regularly meet the author off her stagecoach before escorting her to the bar.
Simon Broadhead / Shoot 360Baslow and Baslow Hall
Yep, Baslow is the home of Chatsworth House, though, rather than heading straight for the country manor car park, it’s well worth taking a walk through the tiny village itself whose stone houses wind along with the path of the River Derwent.
Intriguingly, there’s an infinitely lesser-known country house here Baslow Hall is a creeper-smothered Edwardian pile made from local stone and complete with its own gables and a cute-as-a-button canopy over the front door.
You can stay here too in its current guise as Fischers Baslow Hall whose restaurant has held its Michelin star for 29 straight years thanks to the skills of Max Fischer himself; a native of Germany who here has created a menu rich in hearty, technically accomplished dishes such as locally shot venison with elderberry quince and mushrooms and ox tongue with radish and hollandaise.
There are a mere 11 rooms, divided between the garden annexe and the main house; the latter has recently been spruced up with Farrow and Ball paints, Nespresso machines and Sedbergh Soap Company toiletries in the modishly furnished bathrooms.
wsr / Alamy Stock PhotoEyam
When an Eyam local opened a suitcase of clothes couriered from London in the autumn of 1665 by his family, he could never have guessed the malady that would ensue.
The garments infected his entire family and brought the Great Plague to this tiny village. Historians believe that a mere 30 locals survived out of a population of 350, and it could have been even worse had the Rev William Mompesson not persuaded his congregation into staying in the village, surrounded by a cordon to contain the outbreak.
Today, every cottage in which people died has a plaque, and the village still contains a slightly eerie atmosphere amid the grey stone walls that line its solitary main street. The Eyam Museum tells the full gruesome story while there’s an almost unbearable poignancy to Mompesson’s Well, where locals from other villages would come to leave food for the fenced-off locals, who would leave money in pots of disinfected vinegar in return.