Bonsall

Hen Races and the Barley Mow

The car park behind the Barley Mow doubles as an arena. Each August it hosts the World Championship Hen Races, formalised in 1992. Outside race day, the space is a car park.

The one-room free house on The Dale is packed with memorabilia and run by Colette and Mick. Colette sings for a funk and soul band called Mancuso and runs music nights. The Telegraph named it Best Pub in Derbyshire in 2025, and the kitchen serves a steak and ale pie with buttery shortcrust and creamy mash, a "Luxury Boozy Beef Lasagne" made with red wine and pecorino, and a vegetarian lentil dish called "Dahl Darling."

UFOs and the King's Head

Between October 2000 and October 2002, nineteen sightings were recorded locally, including Sharon Rowlands's photograph of a circular object on 5 October 2000. Bonsall has attracted worldwide interest as a centre of paranormal activity, including UFO sightings.

In the Market Place, the King's Head dates to 1677. The family-run pub has low beams, Jacobean features and an external mounting block by the door, a detail that shows how people once arrived. Past landlords are listed on a notice behind the bar, and the pub is popular with walkers.

Walking Routes and the Market Cross

There is a good deal to walk. Bonsall sits on the Limestone Way, at the head of its Matlock branch, and the Peak District Boundary Walk passes straight through. A circular from Cromford climbs past old mills and mine workings to hilltop views. The steep road up from the Via Gellia — the A5012 — is known to cyclists as the Col du Bonsall, which is the kind of name a hard climb attracts.

The village arranges itself around a stepped market cross in the sloping square, medieval in origin and set on thirteen circular stone steps. The ball on top was added in 1671. Bonsall applied for a market charter around three hundred years ago and was turned down, so the cross presides over a market that never came.

The Church and Village Industries

St James the Apostle's is Grade II* and reputed to have one of the highest chancels in England — seven steps up to it. At the base of a column in the north aisle sits the Bonsall Imp, a small carved figure also known as the Little Devil.

This was a lead-mining village, then a frame-knitting one; by the mid-nineteenth century it had more than 140 knitting frames turning out stockings and fine woollens. The mill down in the Via Gellia gave its name to Viyella, the fabric.

The Mystery of the Horse Skulls

In 1866, workmen renovating a house uncovered twenty-nine horse skulls, every one missing its lower jaw. Their purpose remains unexplained. Local tradition links them to a legendary battle on Bonsall Moor.