Where White Peak meets Dark
Great Hucklow
A small village beneath Hucklow Edge, with old inns, a living Unitarian chapel and a hilltop gliding field close to moorland walks and Eyam.
- Best for
- Pub stops, gliding and local history
- Give it
- A focused half-day or an unhurried day
- Don't miss
- The outlook from Bretton and Hucklow Edge
Photo: Martin Speck · CC BY-SA 2.0 · cropped
The Fox verdict
A tiny base with big skies
Great Hucklow trades a conventional attraction list for old inns, open country, living history and a gliding field above the village.
Come for the seam between gritstone moor and limestone pasture: eat in a centuries-old inn, trace the village's non-conformist story, or take to the air from Camphill. Nearby Eyam adds a museum and medieval church without turning Great Hucklow into a base for distant attractions.
Your picks, your pace
Make Great Hucklow yours
Choose a mood or build your own list. Your saved stops are an ordering aid, with a direct map route when you are ready.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Queen Anne Inn
A family-run free house dating from 1621, with log burners, a short home-cooked menu, cask ales and a beer garden.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Main Street, Great Hucklow
Derbyshire & Lancashire Gliding Club
A hilltop club offering trial glider flights from the Camphill airfield, host of the 1954 World Gliding Championships.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 120 minutes
- Locality
- Camphill plateau above Great Hucklow
- Access
- Trial flights are offered; check the official club site before travel.
Eyam Museum
The museum in Eyam, the nearby village known for its plague history.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 75 minutes
- Locality
- Eyam
- Access
- Check the museum's official site before travel.
Food & drink
1 place
The Barrel Inn
A 1597 country inn at roughly 1,300 feet, with stone-flag floors, oak beams, real ales and broad White Peak views from its beer garden.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- Bretton
History & heritage
2 places
Old Chapel (Unitarian)
A Grade II-listed Unitarian chapel founded in 1696 under William Bagshawe, with the present building dating from 1796 and an enlargement made in 1901.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Great Hucklow
- Access
- Still in use for worship and community activity; check local arrangements before travel.
St Lawrence Church, Eyam
Eyam's 12th-century church, paired naturally with the village museum on a nearby history visit.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- Eyam
- Access
- Check church visitor arrangements before travel.
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On the map
Great Hucklow at a glance
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Three ways to explore Great Hucklow
Signature outings
A high inn at Bretton
Settle into the 1597 Barrel Inn, then take in the White Peak outlook from its beer garden.
The Apostle of the Peak
Follow William Bagshawe's non-conformist legacy at the Old Chapel founded in 1696.
A church beside the plague story
Pair Eyam's 12th-century St Lawrence Church with the nearby village museum.
The village story
Great Hucklow Village Guide
From centuries-old inns and ridge paths to gliding records and a vanished village theatre, Great Hucklow fits an unusual amount of history into a very small place.
Village pub traditions
The Queen Anne Inn has held a licence for over three hundred years, and the names of every landlord across that span are known. It dates from 1621, has log burners in stone fireplaces, and runs a short home-cooked menu: Thai fishcake or duck pancakes with hoisin to start, then beef rendang, steak and ale pie, or a brie and beetroot tart. The breakfast gets particular praise. One reviewer called it "a pub with well kept beer and good food both at sensible prices with often interesting specials on the board," which is about as much as you can ask of a village pub. The current landlord is Glyn; Angela has welcomed guests here for years.
There is a beer garden, an ever-changing range of cask ales, and dogs are the sort of clientele the place is used to. This is walkers' country, and the Queen Anne knows it.
Bretton views and paths
A mile above the village, up at Bretton, is the Barrel Inn, which claims to be the highest pub in Derbyshire. It was built in 1597 and sits around 1,300 feet up at the head of Bretton Clough — stone-flag floors, oak beams, nail-studded doors, and a beer garden famed for its views across the White Peak. The kitchen does steak and ale pie, pan-fried liver and onions, cod loin, and a forager's pie for the vegetarians. It stands on a medieval bridle path that once carried Cheshire salt to Sheffield.
Beyond the two pubs, the village keeps things minimal. There are no shops to speak of — provisions come from Tideswell, Bradwell or Eyam, a few miles off in each direction. What Great Hucklow has instead is footpaths, and a great many of them.
Edges, dales and flight
The walk to Eyam is an easy two and a half miles through rolling dales to the famous Plague Village, with its museum and 12th-century church. For something harder, the Abney Moor and Bretton Clough circular climbs onto gritstone moor scarred by ancient landslides, then drops steeply into the clough. The path up Hucklow Edge is worth it for the contrast: one reviewer records "fine views both left (gritstone Bretton Clough and Stanage Edge) and right (limestone Foolow, Wardlow and Longstone Edge)." The village sits on the seam between the Dark Peak and the White, and you can see both from the ridge.
Above the village, on the Camphill plateau, is a gliding club. The Derbyshire and Lancashire Gliding Club offers trial flights from a hilltop airfield that hosted the World Gliding Championships in 1954; its height-gain record stands near 19,000 feet.
Burial mounds, mines and players
The name means Hucca's burial mound, and people have lived here since the Iron Age hillfort at Burr Tor. For seven centuries this was lead-mining country — one shaft nearby runs over 600 feet deep. In 1927 a local playwright, L. du Garde Peach, founded the Great Hucklow Village Players, who converted a disused lead-mining cupola into a 250-seat theatre and drew audiences from across the country. Peach cast strictly on merit and left the actors' names off the programmes.
The village is twinned with Parisot, in south-west France, which is a long way to go for a settlement whose core holds around a hundred people.
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A guide with a point of view
Written from research. Edited for real journeys.
Use the Official site links for live practical details, then use this guide for context, ideas and room to explore.
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