The Limestone plateau of the Peak District National Park is cut by many delightful valleys. However, as you travel north, you approach the Dark Peak, so called because the rock there is the darker gritstone plus peat bogs with their dark brown soil. Hope is situated at the junction of the Carboniferous Limestone and the Edale Shale and Gritstone group. The village is surrounded by a magnificent landscape of dramatic hills and high moorland. To the south lie the low hills of limestone country. The moorlands of the north Peak District lie to the north and west. Hope gives its name to the wide valley in which it sits. The Hope Valley lies just to the south of the popular Edale valley, which gives access to Kinder Scout. The junction between the White Peak and Dark Peak can be found here.

Image: Approaching Hope from Castleton along the back lane.

Image: Approaching Hope from Castleton along the back lane.

Junctions

Hope lies at the confluence of the River Noe and Peakshole Water. The village is a great centre for anyone interested in the outdoors. Here you experience some of the best mountain bike routes in Derbyshire plus plenty of walking and climbing nearby.

Image: Mountain biking in Derbyshire, Hope Cross.

Mountain biking in Derbyshire, Hope Cross.

The village is built around the crossroads of the A625 Sheffield to Chapel-en-le-Frith road and the B6049 which runs northwards from Tideswell to Edale. This minor road follows roughly the line of the old Portway, an ancient trading route which ran the length of the county from south to north. The village probably originated at a point where the Portway crossed a prehistoric east-west route, which in later medieval times was used by jaggers driving teams of pack-horses carrying mainly salt and other goods from Cheshire, as names like Salter Barn, Saltergate Lane and Salto Lane suggest.

Modern day Hope is a typical bustling Peak District village with tea rooms, pubs, bed and breakfast guest houses, hotels, a Caravan Club site and self catering accommodation. There are also some shops which are fine for the basics, including a branch a small bike shop which is geared up for mountain bikers in particular.

Controversy in Hope

Close to Hope lies the main source of mass employment in the Hope Valley – the cement works. This is one of the Peak District’s major human made landmarks and can be seen for miles around. I have often sat at the top of Stanage Edge and Bamford edge, belaying, with the view of the cement works puffing smoke. Many people hate it, regarding it as unsightly and incongruous, but it brings employment to the area and was built way before the Peak District National Park was conceived. Is it any worse than the lead mines and lead smelting works of past centuries? You make up your own mind.

Historical Hope

The town is an ancient settlement and the church has one of the many Saxon crosses (unfortunately a headless cross) found in the Peak District. At the time of the Domesday Book, Hope had both a priest and a church, a real privilege for a Derbyshire town. It is one of the very few Derbyshire towns or villages to be mentioned prior to the Domesday Survey of 1086, the earliest surviving record dates from a charter of 926 AD which tells that King Athelstan won a battle nearby, and purchased land at Ashford and Hope from a Dane. Hope is also unusual for having kept its name with the spelling unchanged for over a thousand years.

Only the font remains of the original church. The reason for Hope’s importance? It was a key centre in the ‘Royal Forest of the Peak’, a hunting forest for medieval Royalty. There are two 13th century slabs in the church which carry what are believed to be symbols of two important forest officials (woodruffes).

Earlier, the Romans had been in the area. About a mile away lie the earthworks of their fort, Navio. This is sited at Brough and is thought to be a base used to protect Roman lead mining interests in the Peak District.

Many old buildings survive at Hope, including the Elizabethan Aston Hall, dating from the late 1500s in a nearby hamlet.

Agricultural Hope

Farming is still important to the Peak District economy, Hope still hosts a market and annual agricultural show I believe. There is also an old pinfold still in existence (an enclosure in which stray animals were placed until the owner could retrieve them), pictured below with Mam Tor, “the shivering mountain” in the background …

Image: The pinfold at Hope, Derbyshire

Payment in Kind

The popular 16th century Cheshire Cheese Inn on Edale Road about half a mile from the village was so-named because it was an overnight stopping point on the old trade route from Cheshire – and payment for lodging was actually paid in cheese!

Incomers

There was much housing development around the turn of the last century following the arrival of the Midland Railway in 1894 which brought tourists from Manchester and Sheffield along the Hope Valley line. It also brought an influx of construction workers to the temporary ‘Tin Town’ of Birchinlee in the Upper Derwent Valley to build the Derwent and Howden Dams. Many stayed on after the work was finished and made Hope their home.

Nearby towns and villages include Bamford, Hathersage and Castleton where you can find plenty of accommodation.