Tideswell

Tideswell is a handsome limestone village set high in the White Peak area of the Peak District National Park, roughly halfway between Buxton and Bakewell. Despite its modest size, the village has the feel of a small market town, with stone cottages, traditional inns, independent shops and a bakery clustered around its sloping main street. A weekly market has been held here since 1251, granted by royal charter to one of the Peak's medieval trading centres.

The village is dominated by the Church of St John the Baptist, widely known as the Cathedral of the Peak. Built almost entirely in the Decorated Gothic style between about 1320 and 1400, it is unusually grand for a rural parish and survived later remodellings largely unchanged. Inside, visitors find fine medieval brasses, intricately carved woodwork from the late 19th-century Hunstone family of local craftsmen, and a sense of soaring space rare in a village church.

Tideswell makes a good base for walking in the surrounding dales, with footpaths leading into Tideswell Dale, Miller's Dale and on to Monsal Dale and the Monsal Trail. The well dressings, held each summer, are among the most celebrated in Derbyshire.