A Taste of the
Peak District
Rowsley, Peak District, Derbyshire village, 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 village of Rowsley sits astride the A6 between Bakewell and Matlock and a mile from the grand medieval manor of Haddon Hall owned by the Duke of Rutland, who until relatively recently owned most of the village too - and about three and a half miles south west of Chatsworth House, home of the Duke and Duchess of Devonshire.
Rowsley is situated at the junction of the two valleys of the Rivers Derwent and Wye, and bisected by both the Derwent and the main A6 trunk road giving the impression of two separate settlements. Indeed, Great Rowsley on the west bank of the Derwent and Little Rowsley on the east, existed side by side until the two were amalgamated in a local government reshuffle of April 1987 when the County Council decided that two into one would go and Great & Little became known officially, collectively and simply as ‘Rowsley’.
There was an Anglo-Saxon settlement here before the Norman Conquest, and
in the Domesday Survey ‘Rowesley’ is mentioned as an outlier
of the Royal Manor of Bakewell, occupying the ‘tongue of fertile
land between the Derwent and the Wye’.
Nearby, on Stanton Moor and
also on Beeley Moor, there is evidence for even earlier settlement, going
back at least to the Bronze Age stone circles and burial mounds.
The oldest surviving structure in the village is the bridge over the Derwent
which was originally a fifteenth century packhorse bridge, widened to carry
increasingly motorised traffic in 1925.
However, there are some architectural gems from the ‘Great Rebuilding’ period
of the 17th and early 18th centuries. The most splendidly prominent of these
is undoubtedly the magnificent Peacock Hotel whose visitors’ book includes
the names of many famous guests, including royalty, who have enjoyed a brief
sojourn in the luxuriant surroundings since it became a hostelry in 1828.
The house was built in 1652 by John Stevenson of Elton, agent to the Manners
Family and served as a Dower House and later as a farmhouse before it became
an inn. The stables at the rear were built towards the end of the seventeenth
century, whilst Ivy House, standing directly opposite The Peacock was built
a year earlier in 1651. Other notable dwellings include The Beeches and Holly
House, built in 1710 as one dwelling. This was thought to have been the Manor
House and was the home of Sir Francis Darwin until the property was divided
at the end of the nineteenth century.
The railway arrived in 1849 with the opening of the impressive Italianate
station designed by Sir Joseph Paxton. But further construction of the line
which was intended to run via Buxton to Manchester was held up when the Duke
of Devonshire refused permission to extend the track up the Derwent Valley
through Chatsworth Park, and then the Duke of Rutland objected to a secondary
plan to route the track up the Wye Valley. Eventually the Duke of Rutland
agreed to the Midland Railway’s plans on condition that the track passed
unseen behind Haddon Hall in a covered cutting and thus the line was routed
up the Wye Valley – leaving the newly built gem of Paxton’s station
marooned in the wrong valley!
Largely hidden behind a cluster of buildings which include Mill House and
Bank House stands the famous Caudwell’s Mill and Craft Centre. John
Caudwell founded this water-powered flour mill on the Wye in 1874 and today
it claims the unique distinction of being the only complete water-turbine
powered flour mill in the country, still producing wholemeal flour for sale
to the public.
Another attraction of Rowsley is the Peak Village retail park on land which
was once occupied by the old railway station. Paxton’s Italianate gem
of a station now stands proudly at the centre of the retail park and perhaps
symbolises a new era of regenerated hope for Rowsley.
Condensed from Tom
Bates Insider's Guides to Peak District Villages. Available
from Derbyshire Libraries and local outlets.
Accommodation
near the Peak District, Derbyshire village of Rowsley - click here