Crowdecote

The Bridge and the Hamlet

The stone bridge over the Dove was built in 1709, replacing a wooden footbridge called the Crowdy Coat that had been there long enough to give the village its name. It was built low and narrow so that packhorse ponies, loaded heavy, could get across. It is Grade II listed now, and it still carries the lane. The river underneath it does a particular job: on the far bank you are in Staffordshire, on this one you are in Derbyshire. Crowdecote is a cluster of stone cottages on the Derbyshire side, about six miles south of Buxton.

It is a hamlet, which means there are no shops. What there is, is a pub.

The Pack Horse Inn

The Pack Horse Inn sits up on the hillside in the Upper Dove Valley, run by Kris and Hannah, and the building goes back to the sixteenth century, when it was a stop on the packhorse trail from Newcastle-under-Lyme to Hassop. Inside there are separate cosy drinking areas, a dining room, and a pool room on the lower level. The food is homemade and locally sourced — fish pie, a pie of the day, "monster" burgers cooked fresh with chips and coleslaw, steaks, lasagne, pesto chicken pasta. The staff know the gluten-free menu, which is not something every country pub can say. Dogs get a complimentary treat at the bar. Food runs Wednesday to Sunday; the kitchen closes Monday and Tuesday, so plan around it.

Out the back there is an expansive garden with benches, covered seating, and valley views. Four changing beers, guest ales from local micros, nothing fixed. It is ranked first of two restaurants in Crowdecote on Tripadvisor, which is a smaller field than it sounds, but one reviewer called it "a proper old-school pub, with a lovely landlord and great beer," and the landlord has been known to offer walkers lifts back to their lodgings.

Peaks, Castle and Church

Walkers are the reason most people come. To the north rises the Dragon's Back — Chrome Hill and Parkhouse Hill, a line of limestone pinnacles often called the only true peaks in the Peak District, likened to the plates on a stegosaurus. They were coral reefs about 340 million years ago. Routes from Earl Sterndale or Hollinsclough are steep and rated hard. Gentler is the walk downstream along the Dove to Pilsbury Castle, a Norman motte-and-bailey about a mile and a half off, its earthworks still visible in the field.

The village has no church. St Michael at Earl Sterndale is about two miles away. It holds the distinction of being the only church in Derbyshire hit by a German bomb — mistakenly, in 1941, then rebuilt in 1952. It still has its Saxon font.

Getting to Crowdecote

Buxton station is six miles north. The High Peak 442 bus stops in the village every couple of hours, Monday to Saturday.