Ilam

An Alpine village without a pub

You arrive at Ilam past a small roundabout with a Gothic obelisk on it. This is the Mary Watts-Russell Memorial Cross, a spire of local limestone modelled on an Eleanor Cross and restored in 2011. Beyond it the cottages begin, and they are not the cottages you expect. They have steep gables and Swiss-chalet lines: Jesse Watts-Russell reshaped the village in Alpine style after his father bought the estate for him in 1809. He also provided a school for the village. The result is a Staffordshire hamlet doing an impression of Switzerland.

Ilam has no traditional village pub, but there are places for a drink and a meal at the nearby hotel and country pubs.

Country-house and village-green dining

The closest is the Izaak Walton Hotel, a 17th-century country house between Ilam and Thorpe, named after the angler who fished the Dove in the mid-17th century. Its Haddon Restaurant looks over Dovedale, while the Dovedale Bar welcomes non-residents for food and drink. Dogs are permitted only in the rear of the bar, reached through the first door on the right from the courtyard. The hotel sits below Bunster Hill, near the trail to the stepping stones.

About three miles away on Alstonefield's village green, The George is once again a pub, serving beer and pub food.

Tea, parkland and river walks

For daytime there is the Manifold Tea-Room in Ilam Park, run by the National Trust, doing homemade cakes and a lunch menu with seating that looks over the formal Italian Garden to Thorpe Cloud and the church. A Trust shop sits alongside.

The National Trust's moderate trail from Ilam Park to the Dovedale Stepping Stones runs 2.4 km one way. It crosses Ilam village, fields and the lower slopes of Bunster Hill before joining the River Dove; the Trust suggests about 40 minutes. Its much longer circular walk to Wetton passes the Boil Holes, where the Manifold and Hamps reappear after flowing underground.

Holy Cross and the surviving hall

Holy Cross is Grade I listed and has fabric dating back to the eleventh century. Its twelfth-century font is carved with figures and beasts, though their identities are interpreted differently. In the chapel added in 1618 stands the medieval shrine of St Bertram, whose story tells of a hermit grieving for his wife and child; pilgrims once came to his shrine.

Ilam Hall was partly demolished in the 1930s. Sir Robert McDougall donated the surviving building to the National Trust in 1934, and it now houses a youth hostel.

The park by the Manifold

The Manifold runs through Ilam Park, where the Italian Garden and remnants of the old hall sit among the parkland. Along Paradise Walk, look for the Boil Holes, where water from the Manifold and Hamps resurfaces.