My love for Derbyshire really began when I visited a friend staying with her family in Wormhill in 2008. I loved the peace and tranquillity, and the wide open spaces. But, most of all, I had a sense of feeling at home.
The following year I booked the same barn in Wormhill and stayed for a week. I’ve been back several times since, most recently staying at Biggin Hall Hotel with my husband, Chris.
In September 2019, after a visit to Biggin, I said to Chris, on the way home, I would love to live in Derbyshire. He said, what’s stopping us?
Fast forward another 12 months and my long held dream has come true.
Whenever I travel, I keep a journal, a log of the places I visit. It contains ticket stubs and photographs, my sometimes quirky observations, my jottings about the cafes or tearooms I’ve enjoyed, what I had for lunch or, more importantly, what cakes I ate and what the coffee was like.
I did this back in March 2010 when I stayed for a few days in Tideswell in a fab B&B which is, sadly, no longer there. At the front of my notebook is my itinerary, carefully mapped out. My trips alone are often like a military operation.
On the Thursday of my stay, I had coffee and cake at the Gingerbread cafe in Ashbourne, and wrote up my day. I went to Tissington and spent some time in the church admiring the stained glass windows, gloriously illuminated by the sunshine.
I noted my visits to Buxton, Eyam, Crich, Hartington, the Brierlow Bar book shop, Chatsworth, Edensor, and Castleton.
Towards the end of the week I wrote:
I would love to live here, somewhere like Tideswell or Wormhill.
This website, Explore the Peak Park, is about my quest to embrace a gentler pace in the Peak District. I’ll be sharing, first hand, my discoveries, my favourite places, my list of cafes, tearooms and special finds.
I hope that this guide will be useful to you, too, whenever you visit Derbyshire and the Peak Park, a place I’m lucky enough to call home.