Longnor

A Market Square Between Two Rivers

The cobbled market square at the centre of Longnor still carries its original market sign, the one that lists the tolls a buyer or seller was expected to pay. Longnor was a market town in the 18th and 19th centuries, and the square was the point of it. The Victorian Market Hall built in 1873 now houses the Craft Centre & Coffee Shop, which sells crafts and refreshments out of the same building where the trading used to happen.

The village sits on a limestone ridge between two rivers, the Manifold to the north bank and the Dove, in the Staffordshire Moorlands corner of the Peak District. People often take it for Derbyshire. Stone houses line the narrow streets, and the back lanes wind off quietly behind them.

Seven Inns, One Survivor

Ye Olde Cheshire Cheese Inn is the last pub left in the village, which is worth pausing over: by 1818 Longnor had seven inns. The White Horse, the Bell, the Red Bull, the Horse Shoe, the Swan, the Crewe & Harpur, and the Cheshire Cheese. The Cheshire Cheese is the survivor. It began life as a cheese store in 1464, which the name still reports faithfully, and it is a Robinsons house. The food runs to home-cooked pub cooking with generous portions — scampi with homemade-style chips, fish and chips, homemade puddings. One visitor called it "a lovely pub with excellent food and really friendly staff."

The Crewe & Harpur, a former coaching inn on the London–Buxton route in 1803, no longer pulls pints. It has been converted into self-catering for large groups. It takes its name from the Harpur Crewe family, lords of Longnor Manor since the 15th century.

Ridges, Rivers and an Older Font

The walking is the main reason to be here. Over fifty documented routes start from or pass through the village, from flat riverside strolls along the Dove and Manifold to proper hill climbs. The one people come for is the Dragon's Back — a roughly nine-mile loop, about four and a half hours, over the reef-knoll ridge of Parkhouse Hill and Chrome Hill, coral-reef limestone where fossils sit visible in the rock. If that's more than you want, there's a flat two-mile farmland circular from the free parking at the market square, gentle enough for children.

St Bartholomew's, Grade II* listed, was built around 1781, though a church has stood here far longer — the font is 12th-century Norman. Inside there's a modern sculpture of St Bertram by Harry Everington. Pevsner covered it in his Staffordshire volume.

From Longenalre to the 442

Longnor appears in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Longenalre, and the settlement is thought to date to around 700 AD. A legend holds it was burned during the reign of William II as punishment for poaching deer. John Wesley preached at the Methodist chapel; the chapel closed in 1996.

Buxton is about six miles north, the nearest station, and the High Peak 442 bus links the village to Ashbourne and Buxton via Hartington. You'll want the car for most of it.

Lowry's Wrong County

L.S. Lowry painted the village twice. He called one of them "Longnor, Derbyshire," which the locals would gently correct.