A Taste of the
Peak District
Peak District, Derbyshire property for sale, B&B, self catering holiday cottage accommodation, hotels, tourist attractions, walking, climbing, mountain biking history, towns, villages, geology, mining, local information, Derbyshire businesses and much more …
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.
It is
geologically situated at the junction of the Carboniferous Limestone and
the Edale Shale and Gritstone and is surrounded by a magnificent landscape
of dramatic hills and high moorland with the low hills of the White Peak
to the south and the mountainous region of the High Peak to the north and
west. The Hope Valley lies just to the south of the Edale valley and the
two mark the
junction between the White and Dark Peak.
Hope lies half way along the Hope Valley in Derbyshire, at the confluence of the River Noe and Peakshole Water. Hope is a great centre for anyone interested in the Outdoors, with some of the best mountain bike routes in Derbyshire (see picture of Hope Cross below - there are a couple of bridleways leading to it from the vicinity of Hope) plus plenty of walking and climbing nearby.
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 salt and other goods
from Cheshire, as names like Salter Barn, Saltergate Lane and Salto Lane
suggest.
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.
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 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.
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 ...
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!
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.
- Follow this link for B&B or hotel accommodation in easy reach of Hope
- Follow this link for self-catering accommodation in easy reach of Hope
Condensed in part from Tom Bates Villages leaflets, which are available through local retailers