Two stone viaducts cross the gorge here, one built in 1863 and a second thrown up parallel in 1905 when two tracks were no longer enough. The trains stopped in 1967, and now walkers and cyclists cross where the London expresses used to run.
The old station is still standing, platforms intact, with a café and craft centre put into the buildings. It serves the people coming off the Monsal Trail, which follows the former railway trackbed — 8.5 miles of level, traffic-free path through lit tunnels, from near Buxton down to Bakewell. There are public toilets, a Peak Park ranger's room, and a car park that is how most people arrive.
The pub is the Angler's Rest, down a narrow lane beside the River Wye, a couple of minutes from the trail. It's an 18th-century inn on a site that has been in the licensing trade since 1753, recently brought back by owners Nicola and Barry. There's a Hikers' Bar for muddy boots and dogs, a riverside beer garden, and log fires for when the weather does what it does.
Three cask ales, mostly local — Peak Ales, Eyam, Abbeydale, Bradfield. The kitchen does home-cooked pies: steak & ale, steak & Stilton, lamb & apricot, chicken & sweetcorn, alongside fish & chips, scampi, lasagne, and Sunday lunches that include something called the Triple Roast. One review notes that the staff "never rush you."
The walking is the reason to come. The Chee Dale Stepping Stones circular drops off the Monsal Trail into a steep limestone gorge full of moss and ferns, crossing the Wye on stones set against sheer cliffs. The stones are often underwater after rain, so check before you commit. A footpath by the church leads into Monk's Dale, a national nature reserve, and Tideswell is walkable at about six miles via Tideswell Dale.
The church is St Anne's, built in 1879 as a school-chapel — records call it "a handsome little school-chapel" where "the young may be instructed in the truths of Christ's holy religion." Coursed limestone with gritstone dressings, a square west tower, a Welsh slate roof.
None of this existed much before the railway. Miller's Dale grew from almost nothing after the station opened in 1863, its cottages built for railway and quarry workers. A lime works arrived in 1876, and the East Buxton kilns produced up to 50 tons of quicklime a day until 1944. Quarrying stopped in 1930 when the rock face began to slip. The works were demolished in 1971, leaving four great lime kilns standing on the hillside, which you can walk up to. The quarry itself is now a nature reserve.
The Domesday village is really Wormhill, on the north side of the dale, recorded as "Wruenele" and held by Henry de Ferrers. In 1320 a man named John Wolfhunt held house and land there by the service of hunting and taking all wolves entering the King's Forest of the Peak. The wolves are gone. The name stayed.
On a wet afternoon the stepping stones vanish and everyone ends up back at the Angler's Rest, boots by the door, dogs steaming gently by the fire.
