Combs

The Beehive and a Valley Apart

The Beehive Inn was built in 1864 to house the gangs laying the Buxton railway spur, and it is still the centre of the village — a family-run pub that also runs a farm shop out of the same building, open daily, selling local produce and the sort of everyday essentials you forget to bring. The landlord is Stefan Herling; his wife raises livestock. The kitchen does Sunday roasts all day, noon to nine, and a menu that recent reviewers have picked out for the sea bass, the seafood platter and the steak pie. If you want to eat cheaply there's the Menu Rapide set lunch: one course £8.95, two for £10.95, three for £12.95. There are plenty of vegan options and a house ale called Beehive Bitter. Dogs get a designated area, and in summer the beer garden fills with flowers; in winter there are log fires. The Fifty Four and Counting travel blog called it "a hidden country pub and amazing food, close to Buxton."

You reach the village down a mile-long lane off the main road, which is part of why it feels the way it does. Combs sits in a secluded green valley closed in on three sides by gritstone edges and moorland — Castle Naze, Combs Moss, Ladder Hill, with Black Edge the high point at 507 metres. The writer and farmer Crichton Porteous, who set books here, called it "self-contained in its comfortable valley," which is about right.

Reservoir Water and Castle Naze

To the north is Combs Reservoir, separated from the village by the railway embankment that carries the Buxton-to-Stockport line. The reservoir was built in 1797, the first one dug to feed the Peak Forest Canal, and there is a shoreline footpath that loops the water and links back to the village. The Sailing Club has been out on it since 1950; you can also take lessons in canoeing, kayaking and paddle-boarding.

For higher walking, climb to Castle Naze, an Iron Age promontory hillfort at the north end of Combs Moss, defended by cliffs on two sides and a double rampart on the third. It is a Scheduled Monument, and the edge paths give you the whole valley and reservoir laid out below.

Industry, Invention and the Road Out

The village grew as a cotton-spinning centre in the Industrial Revolution; the mills are gone now, converted to houses or pulled down. Two things came out of Combs worth mentioning. Herbert Frood, a resident, invented the vehicle brake lining and founded Ferodo here in 1897. And in 1840 William Nightingale bought the Pyegreave property nearby — his daughter Florence and he were remembered riding through the village on horseback.

Buxton, with its spa-town Crescent and Pavilion Gardens, is twenty minutes by the A6; Chapel-en-le-Frith, the "Capital of the Peak," is minutes away. Buses serve the wider area, but this is a place where you'll want a car.

The Name Combs Answers To

The local pronunciation rhymes Combs with "looms," though some older residents hold out for "foams." Noel and Rita Pollard have lived at Pyegreave for forty-four years.