A square of cobbles beside the town stocks in the Market Place marks the spot where Will Scarlet, the companion of Robin Hood, is said to have died on 14 December 1283. The stocks are 18th-century and still standing, ready for the punishment of petty crimes. Next to them is the market cross, which carries a faint date that might read 1636, and a horse trough put up for the Diamond Jubilee. The square is cobbled, and on Thursdays it holds a market, as it has for centuries.
This is a small market town that calls itself the Capital of the Peak, which is a large title for a place of 8,635 people.
The pubs are the reason to stop. The Roebuck Inn at 9 Market Place occupies a building that dates from the 13th century and became a beerhouse in 1720. It does a Sunday roast until half past three, including a doggy Sunday roast for the dog. One reviewer called it "an old traditional pub refurbished to a high standard with a fine selection of real ales and a good menu at modest prices," and 1,373 of them settled on 4.4 out of 5.
The New Inn on Manchester Road is a Robinsons' local with comfy armchairs and a log burner, described by the brewery as somewhere with "great beer at great prices." The Old Cell Ale Bar is a micropub run by Tim and Jane, who brew their own. The Shoulder of Mutton does homemade pork scratchings. The Old Pack Horse is the one for watching sport.
If you don't mind walking to the edge of the parish, the Barrel Inn at Bridgeholm Green dates back to 1597 and cooks mostly local food every day.
For a short leg-stretch, Eccles Pike is about a mile and a half from the centre and gives you a 360-degree view from the top. Combs Reservoir has circular trails and a sailing club. The Peak Forest Tramway Trail follows a former horse-drawn tramway. Mam Tor and the Great Ridge above Castleton are within easy reach, the latter approached through the limestone gorge of Winnats Pass.
The Church of St Thomas Becket was founded in 1225 and rebuilt in 1733. It holds an Anglo-Scandinavian cross shaft that points to an 11th-century date. It also holds a grimmer distinction. In 1648, after the Battle of Preston, around 1,500 captured Scottish Royalist soldiers were locked inside for sixteen days. When the doors were reopened, 44 had died. It has been the Black Hole of Derbyshire ever since.
The town's other claim is Ferodo, the brake-lining firm founded by Herbert Frood, who started his experiments in a hut in his garden at Combs. Ferodo is an anagram of FROOD. Prince Philip opened the research centre in 1958.
The station is about a mile out, on the Buxton line, with Manchester 40 to 50 minutes away by train. Buxton itself is ten minutes by road along the A6. John Wesley came here four times between 1740 and 1786.
Every June the town holds a carnival, with a procession that winds down to Memorial Park, and in the old Peak tradition it still dresses its wells. The cobbles by the stocks stay where they are, waiting for Thursday.
