Walk or cycle the Monsal Trail, the old Midland Railway line through the Wye valley

Cross the Headstone Viaduct and look down on the Wye

Ride through the tunnels reopened in 2011

Look down on the viaduct from Monsal Head

Find Cressbrook Mill and Litton Mill beside the trail

The Midland Railway built its line through the Wye valley in 1863 to link Manchester with London, and after it closed in 1968 the trackbed became the Monsal Trail, opened in 1981: 8.5 miles from Topley Pike, east of Buxton, to Coombs Viaduct beyond Bakewell, past Chee Dale, Millers Dale, Cressbrook and Monsal Dale. It crosses the Headstone Viaduct below Monsal Head, passes Cressbrook and Litton mills, and runs through six tunnels, reopened to walkers and cyclists in 2011.

The Monsal Trail: Headstone Viaduct and the Tunnels of the Wye

Bakewell

An eight-night route through the Peak District from Castleton to Buxton: Mam Tor and the caverns, Chatsworth and the Monsal Trail, Arkwright's mill at Cromford, and Buxton's warm spring.

The Peak District: Edges, Caverns and Country Houses

Tour Chatsworth House, the Cavendish seat since 1549

Walk the gardens and park beside the Derwent

Cross Bakewell's five-arched bridge over the Wye, built in the 13th century

Eat a Bakewell pudding in the town where it was created

Chatsworth, the seat of the Dukes of Devonshire, has belonged to the Cavendish family since 1549; Bess of Hardwick began the first great house here in 1553, and the 4th Earl began rebuilding it in 1687. It stands on the east bank of the Derwent in parkland under wooded hills, with gardens remade by the 4th Duke in the 18th century. Four miles south-west, Bakewell, a market town since 1254, crosses the Wye on a five-arched bridge of the 13th century and is best known for its pudding.

Chatsworth and Bakewell: The Cavendish House and the Pudding Town

Walk into the entrance of Peak Cavern, the largest cave entrance in Britain — described by William Camden in 1586 as the Devil's Arse, and one of Thomas Hobbes's Seven Wonders of the Peak in 1636; ropemakers lived and worked inside it until 1915

From the summit of Mam Tor (517m), walk the ramparts of the hill fort and look down on the landslips of the eastern face — the Shivering Mountain — which closed the A625 road for good in 1979

In Castleton, find a piece of Blue John, mined for ornaments in the 19th century and still dug on a small scale

Walk the broken road under Mam Tor that the landslip destroyed

Castleton sits under Mam Tor at the head of the Hope Valley with four show caves around it. Peak Cavern, described by William Camden in 1586, has the largest cave entrance in Britain; Mam Tor above it is crowned by a late Bronze Age and early Iron Age hill fort and slides steadily downhill, taking the old road with it; and Blue John, the banded purple and yellow fluorite, is found in Britain only at the Blue John and Treak Cliff caverns here.

Castleton: Peak Cavern, Mam Tor and Blue John

Walk the gritstone ridge of The Roaches, then find the Winking Man on nearby Ramshaw Rocks, the rock that seems to wink at drivers on the A53

Walk to Thor's Cave in the Manifold Valley, the cave mouth in the limestone cliff

Cycle the Manifold Way, the 8-mile path on the old Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway

On the south-west edge of the Peak District, The Roaches are a gritstone ridge, and just east of them on Ramshaw Rocks is the Winking Man, a rock that seems to wink at drivers on the A53. To the south-east, Thor's Cave opens in a limestone cliff above the Manifold Valley, where the Manifold Way follows the old railway line, and the market town of Leek lies below The Roaches to the south-west.

The Roaches and the Manifold Valley: Thor's Cave

See Buxton Crescent, the Georgian crescent built in the 1780s by John Carr for the 5th Duke of Devonshire, and taste the spring water at St Ann's Well

Visit Buxton Opera House, the Frank Matcham theatre of 1903

Buxton's spring rises at a steady 28°C, and by 1460 it had been declared holy and dedicated to St Anne. The water is piped to St Ann's Well at the foot of the Slopes, opposite the Crescent that John Carr built in the 1780s for the 5th Duke of Devonshire. Frank Matcham's Opera House of 1903 reopened in 1979 with the first Buxton Festival, the Pavilion Gardens lie beside it, and on the edge of town Poole's Cavern is a limestone cave.

Buxton: The Crescent, the Opera House and the Warm Spring

Climb or walk under Stanage Edge, the gritstone escarpment above Hathersage

See North Lees Hall below Stanage Edge from the footpath, the house thought to have inspired Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre

Walk the Longshaw Estate, National Trust moorland and woodland

Stanage Edge is the long gritstone escarpment above Hathersage. Below it, North Lees Hall is thought to have inspired Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre, and east of the village, above Padley Gorge, the Longshaw Estate is National Trust moorland and woodland.

Stanage Edge and Hathersage: The House Behind Thornfield

Ride the Heights of Abraham cable car across the Derwent gorge

Go down into the Great Masson or Great Rutland Cavern, old lead and fluorspar mines

Climb the Victoria Prospect Tower of 1844

Walk the riverside in Matlock Bath, the spa village Byron compared with Switzerland

Matlock Bath grew up as a spa in the Derwent gorge in the 19th century; Byron compared it with alpine Switzerland, which is how it got the nickname Little Switzerland. Above the village the Heights of Abraham is a hilltop park on Masson Hill, reached since 1984 by cable car across the river, with two old lead and fluorspar mines to go down into, the Great Masson and Great Rutland Caverns, and the Victoria Prospect Tower, built in 1844. Every autumn the Venetian Nights light up the river with illuminated boats.

Matlock Bath: The Heights of Abraham

Walk to the Major Oak near Edwinstowe, the ancient tree of Robin Hood folklore, which died in 2026 and has been left standing

Visit the Sherwood Forest visitor centre and walk among the forest's ancient oaks

Walk the veteran oaks of the Birklands beyond the Major Oak

Sherwood Forest is what is left of the royal hunting forest, and at its heart stands the Major Oak, 800 to 1,200 years old and long said in local folklore to have sheltered Robin Hood's men. Its branches were chained from 1908 and propped from the 1970s, and in June 2026 the RSPB, which manages the forest, announced that it had died after failing to come into leaf; it will be left standing. The visitor centre tells the story and the surrounding wood holds hundreds of ancient oaks.

Sherwood Forest Robin Hood Trail

Climb Pen-y-ghent, 694 metres, before dark and look for the Milky Way from the summit

Walk the limestone pavement above Malham Cove, the cliff an Ice Age waterfall left behind

Stand under the 24 arches of the Ribblehead Viaduct after dark

Find Gaping Gill on the slopes of Ingleborough, where Fell Beck drops 98 metres into one of Britain's largest underground chambers

The Yorkshire Dales National Park, designated in 1954 and extended in 2016, became an International Dark Sky Reserve in 2020, for its low light pollution and good conditions for astronomy — over a landscape of limestone scars, pavements and potholes and very few towns. Malham Cove was made by an Ice Age waterfall 80 metres high, with a large limestone pavement above it; Pen-y-ghent, at 694 metres, is the lowest of Yorkshire's Three Peaks; the Ribblehead Viaduct carries the Settle–Carlisle line on 24 arches, its last stone laid at the end of 1874; and Gaping Gill on the slopes of Ingleborough is a 98-metre pothole into one of the largest known underground chambers in Britain.