Manifold Valley gateway
Hulme End
A small stone hamlet where an old railway terminus opens onto the tarmacked Manifold Way.
- Best for
- Walking, cycling and railway history
- Give it
- A half day in the valley
- Don't miss
- Tea in the rebuilt engine shed
The Fox verdict
A tiny terminus with a valley-sized day out
Hulme End has few amenities, but it is the natural gateway to the Manifold Valley and the northern end of its old railway trail.
Come for the Manifold Way, then make time for the rebuilt engine-shed cafe, the former station visitor centre and the riverside Manifold Inn. Farther along the valley, the old trackbed links a tunnel, a restored mill, copper-mining history and Thor's Cave.
Where to go
Places in Hulme End
Every place below is checked against a published source, listed with what it is and how long to give it.
Local signatures
3 placesThe Manifold Inn
A mellow-stone coaching inn trading since 1782, with seasonal home-cooked food, real ales, riverside grounds and twelve ensuite rooms in converted barns.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 90 minutes
- Locality
- on the banks of the River Manifold
- Access
- Dogs are welcome in the bar, conservatory and field, and in dog-friendly rooms and the holiday cottage.
Manifold Way
An eight-mile walking and cycling trail on the old light-railway trackbed, passing Ecton copper mines, Swainsley Tunnel, Wetton Mill and Thor's Cave.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 2 hours 30 minutes
- Locality
- from Hulme End south to Waterhouses
- Access
- The trail is tarmacked with a gentle gradient and is wheelchair- and pram-friendly.
Hulme End Visitor Centre
The former terminus station building now serves as a visitor centre, preserving the starting point of a railway that carried milk and summer tourists.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- in the former station building
- Access
- The visitor centre is staffed at weekends and during school holidays.
Food & drink
1 placeTea Junction Cafe
A refreshment stop in the rebuilt engine shed of the former light railway, used by walkers and cyclists setting out on the Manifold Way.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- at the old railway terminus
Walks & outdoors
1 placeThor's Cave
A dramatic limestone cavern set around 250 feet above the Manifold valley floor.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 60 minutes
- Locality
- above the Manifold Valley near Wetton
History & heritage
4 placesBoulton and Watt Winding Engine House, Ecton Hill
The surviving 1788 Boulton and Watt winding-engine house stands beside the former Deep Ecton mine shaft on Ecton Hill. It is a specific historic building within the wider copper-mining landscape.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- on Ecton Hill above the Manifold Valley
- Access
- The engine house is on Ecton Hill. Keep out of fenced mine workings; arrange any underground mine visit separately with the Ecton Mine Educational Trust.
Wetton Mill
A restored corn mill on the Manifold Way that now provides a cafe stop.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- at Wetton Mill near Wetton
Swainsley Tunnel
A 150-metre tunnel built in 1904 for the Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway and retained on the valley route.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 15 minutes
- Locality
- on the Manifold Way near Warslow
Church of St Luke, Sheen
A Grade II* parish church founded in the 14th century and largely rebuilt in the mid-19th century by C. W. Burleigh and William Butterfield.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 45 minutes
- Locality
- in Sheen parish
Things to do
1 placeBank House Farm Campsite
A large, popular campsite beside The Manifold Inn, with a camper's breakfast available.
- Visit length
- Editorial estimate: Allow around 30 minutes
- Locality
- beside the inn
- Access
- A camper's breakfast is available.
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Three ways to explore Hulme End
Signature outings
Take tea in the engine shed
The rebuilt former engine shed has served walkers and cyclists as Tea Junction Cafe since 2009.
Find the cave above the valley
Thor's Cave is a limestone cavern set around 250 feet above the valley floor along the Manifold Way.
See Pevsner's last building
St Luke's and its parsonage were the last buildings Nikolaus Pevsner recorded for his Buildings of England series.
The village story
Rails, river and copper
The locked Travel Fox article follows Hulme End from its rebuilt engine shed and river crossing into the inn, campsite, railway trail and mining valley.
From engine shed to river gateway
The old engine shed at Hulme End sells tea now. It was rebuilt as the Tea Junction Café in 2009, on the spot where the locomotives of a narrow-gauge railway were once serviced, and it is where most walkers and cyclists stop before setting off down the Manifold Way. The village otherwise has almost nothing to buy: no shop of its own, the nearest stores and cheese shop a couple of miles east at Hartington.
You arrive by dropping down to the river. The Hartington–Warslow road, the B5054, crosses the River Manifold here at the natural gateway to the valley, and the whole hamlet arranges itself around the bridge, the water and the inn on the bank. It is limestone White Peak country, ringed by Ecton Hill and the steep sides of the valley. The road bridge you cross dates from 1819, and replaced one built in 1790.
Two centuries at the Manifold Inn
The Manifold Inn stands opposite the Old Toll House, which once served the turnpike and the river ford. It has been trading since 1782 and has worked its way through a remarkable number of names: the Jolly Carter, the Hulme End Inn, the Wagon and Horses, the Light Railway Hotel, the Manifold Valley Hotel. The barns added in the 1800s are now twelve ensuite rooms.
The kitchen runs a home-cooked seasonal menu — a crab patty starter at £8, beer-battered haddock with chips, mushy peas and tartare sauce at £16, a traditional Sunday roast, sandwiches and jacket potatoes at lunch. One TripAdvisor reviewer called the steak and ale pie "the best pie I've ever had." Moorlands Eater found the place "extremely friendly and reasonably priced." There are two regular and two changing ales, including Hen Cloud from the Wincle Beer Company. Dogs are welcome in the bar, the conservatory and the field, where a summer bar serves barbecued food on sunny afternoons.
Camping beside the railway trail
Nearby, Bank House Farm runs a large campsite and a camper's breakfast.
The Manifold Way is the main event. Eight tarmacked miles run south from here to Waterhouses along the old railway trackbed — a gentle gradient, wheelchair- and pram-friendly, and the only metalled leisure trail in the Peak District. You pass the Ecton copper mines, the 150-metre Swainsley Tunnel, Wetton Mill with its café, and Thor's Cave, a limestone cavern set some 250 feet above the valley floor. Bikes have been hired from the old station since July 2019, which makes the flat, traffic-free route about as manageable as family cycling gets.
The railway and copper valley
The railway that laid the ground for all of it was the Leek and Manifold Valley Light Railway, opened in 1904 and closed in 1934. Its station was signed "Hulme End for Hartington," and it carried milk from the local dairies and tourists in summer. The trackbed became the trail in 1937. The station building is now a visitor centre, staffed at weekends and in the school holidays.
Along the valley, the Ecton mines were once the deepest in Britain — the Duke of Devonshire's Deep Ecton sank a shaft nearly a thousand feet, and its profits reputedly paid for the Crescent at Buxton. Ecton copper went into the 1866 trans-Atlantic telegraph cable. It is very quiet up there now.
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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.
Sources
Every place on this page is checked against a published source. Each entry links the record we used and names who publishes it.
- Tea Junction Cafe — theteajunctionhulmeend.com operator, sector body or destination organisation
- The Manifold Inn — themanifoldinn.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Bank House Farm Campsite — bankhousefarmcamping.co.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Manifold Way — peakdistrict.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Hulme End Visitor Centre — peakdistrict.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Boulton and Watt Winding Engine House, Ecton Hill — heritagerecords.nationaltrust.org.uk operator, sector body or destination organisation
- Wetton Mill — peakdistrict.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Thor's Cave — peakdistrict.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Swainsley Tunnel — peakdistrict.gov.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access
- Church of St Luke, Sheen — historicengland.org.uk statutory register or public authority record not machine-readable; publisher restricts automated access